Primo Levi at Auschwitz 3: Monowitz/Buna

I continue to circle around the idea of writing about Primo Levi, or more accurately, to write about the things that Primo Levi has written about. This seems a redundant enterprise: he has written about these things and now others ought simply to read his writings. I heartily recommend doing so as his insights are compelling, the information he gives about life in a slave labour camp incisive, and moreover, his prose is beautiful. But because few people who read my words will have the inclination or time to look up his writings, I will begin by telling you some of the information that can be learned from him about the slave labour camp at Auschwitz 3: Monowitz/Buna where he spent much of 1944 and the early part of 1945. He and his 94 companions, the men who had been chosen for slave labour from the 650 people arriving at Auschwitz 2: Birkenau in late February, were packed into lorries and driven the eight kilometres to Monowitz/Buna. This camp or lager (the German word) is dedicated to the production of a synthetic rubber called buna, from which came the name of the camp. About ten thousand prisoners work there in a variety of capacities as do civilian workers and the SS contingent that guards and controls the prisoners.

An SS-man enters the room to which they are brought. Through an interpreter, another prisoner, he instructs them to remove their clothing and to bundle them in a particular fashion. After he leaves four men in the striped uniforms of prisoners burst in upon them, catching hold of each, rapidly shaving and shearing him of all bodily hair. In an adjoining room they stand interminably in water to their ankles, cold and naked. A shower, a few moments of bliss, then pushed back to the first room where four shouting prisoners hurl “unrecognizable rags” and broken-down boots with wooden soles at them, pushing them out the door into the winter’s cold to run, naked and barefooted the 100 yards to the next hut. There they dress and look at one another, each recognizing that he himself has been transformed from the individual of yesterday, into a nameless cog within the great machine of the lager. Each has become a “Haftling,” a prisoner, known only by the number tattooed onto his arm on that first day of initiation.

Throughout the rest of that first day they wait within the confines of their hut, forbidden to lie upon the bunks, moving as well as they can about the tiny space and suffering from a thirst and hunger unabated from their days-long journey from Italy. At dusk they are taken outside to the central square of the lager, lined up in ranks and wait while the camp orchestra plays the marches to which the returning workers must conform their gait and soldierly spacing, thus facilitating a count of their numbers. An hour passes while roll call is taken; numbers are reported to a man like them dressed in stripes, who in turn gives them to a group of SS-men who wait in full battle dress. Prisoners are dismissed and head for their huts and their evening soup.

The lager which houses the approximately 10,000 prisoners of Monowitz/Buna is about 600 yards square. It is surrounded by two fences of barbed wire, the inner one of which is electrified. There are 60 huts, called Blocks, some of which are still under construction. There is a brick kitchen and an experimental farm. There is a hut with showers and latrines, one for each six or eight blocks. Some blocks have special purposes: a group of eight are for the infirmary and clinic; one is set aside for infectious skin-diseases; another hut is the place held for special Haftlings, the “Prominenz,” or aristocracy of the prisoners, those holding the highest posts; another is for the “Reichsdeutsche,” the Aryan Germans, either politicals or criminals; a further one is for the Kapos – it also houses a canteen with special items available only to the Kapos and the Reichsdeutsche; one hut is the quartermaster’s office; and, finally, there is a hut with its windows always closed – the Frauenblock, the camp brothel, which holds Haftling Polish women and is reserved only for the Reichsdeutsche.

Each regular Block is divided into two parts: at one end are 148 bunks on three levels, all fitted close to one another with three narrow corridors between. The ordinary Haftlings live here, about 200-250 per Block. Thus most bunks were shared; each was made of a wooden plank covered with a thin straw sack and two blankets. The other end of the Block is the domain of the head of the hut and his friends. It contains their beds, a long table with seats and benches, a variety of items, ornaments, and photos, as well as some tools of their trade: essentials for the Block barber, ladles for soup distribution, and rubber truncheons with which to enforce discipline.

Prisoner categories are identified by triangles sewn onto their striped jackets: green for criminals – deliberately imported from jails by the SS to act as Kapos; red for politicals; and, yellow for Jews who form by far the largest category. SS-men are around but seen infrequently. Mastery over the regular Haftlings is mainly in the hands of the green triangles, who are often assisted by the red. In the earliest days of the lagers, Kapos were allowed a wide discretion in the amount of force that they could exert upon their charges. Beating a prisoner to death was not discouraged or disallowed. By 1944, however, the need for workers was deemed sufficiently dire that this degree of violence was discouraged, though not entirely eradicated.

Primo Levi and his fellow initiates into the Monowitz/Buna lager learned quickly several essential details of the life: always reply “Jawohl,” never ask questions, and always pretend to understand. Failure to observe these conventions lead to blows and other punishments. Food, its acquisition and protection, requires constant focus: enter the line for soup when the optimum moment appears to have arrived to receive a portion closer to the bottom of the pot where the vegetables lie; scrape the bottom of one’s bowl for each morsel; and, eat bread over the bowl so as not to lose crumbs. Everything is useful and everything can be stolen: save any bits of wire, rag, or paper found – they can be used to tie up one’s shoes, to wrap one’s feet, or to pad one’s clothing. Make a bundle of all belongings including shoes and one’s bowl and sleep with the bundle as a “pillow.” All clothing, shoes, and one’s bowl and spoon for eating must be carried everywhere, even to the latrine or to wash, lest they be stolen.

One must learn and obey the complicated rules of the camp: come no closer than six feet to the barbedwire; do not sleep with one’s jacket or without one’s pants; do not use latrines set aside for Kapos or Reichsdeutsche; do not miss the prescribed shower on its assigned day or go on any other; do not leave the hut with one’s collar up or with one’s jacket unbuttoned;  do not carry paper or straw under one’s clothing for warmth; do not wash except stripped to the waist. “Beds” were to be made flat and smooth; shoes were to be smeared with grease daily; mud was to be scraped off clothing; and, hair was to be shaved weekly. Shoes, invariably ill-fitting, could be a direct cause of death. Marching on these to and from work can lead to sores that easily become infected; feet become swollen; the more swelling, the more friction caused by the rubbing of the shoes, and thus, the more swelling. There is no cure for this trouble given the conditions of the camp. The afflicted prisoner is ripe for the weekly selection by the SS-men for those to be sent to Auschwitz 2: Birkenau and “the chimney.”

All who are not ill, work. Squads leave the lager each morning for Buna, and return in squads in the evening. The prisoners are divided into about 200 Kommandos, each with between 15-150 men, and each commanded by a Kapo. Most are used for transporting materials and so are in the open, a terrible burden for poorly clothed and fed men in the winter. There are also skilled Kommandos – electricians, bricklayers, and so on – who work in particular workshops or departments of Buna, and are regulated more often by civilian workers. The better posts are often awarded by favoritism or corruption. Hours of work depend upon the season as Haftlings are not allowed to work when it is dark or foggy as escape might be more possible under such conditions.

Primo Levi found that within two weeks he had learned to wipe out both his past and his future and to live only within the immediacy of whatever was needed to survive each day: “A fortnight after my arrival I already had the prescribed hunger, that chronic hunger unknown to free men, which makes one dream at night, and settles in all the limbs of one’s body. I have already learned not to let myself be robbed, and in fact if I find a spoon lying around, a piece of string, a button which I can acquire without danger of punishment, I pocket them and consider them mine by full right. On the back of my feet I already have those numb sores that will not heal. I push wagons, I work with a shovel, I turn rotten in the rain, I shiver in the wind; already my own body is no longer mine: my belly is swollen, my limbs emaciated, my face is thick in the morning, hollow in the evening; some of us have yellow skin, others grey. When we do not meet for a few days we hardly recognize each other.”