Auschwitz: The Beginnings

Throughout the narrative of his 2005 book on Auschwitz, Laurence Rees traces the development and implementation of Nazi policies related to various populations as conditions arose. Like Dachau and Sachsenhausen the new camp at Auschwitz was intended as a concentration rather than a death camp. Though places of great brutality where many died, these camps were primarily holding and punishment prisons housing designated “enemies of the State:”communists, liberal politicians, people who spoke out against the regime, as well as  intellectuals and priests advocating human rights. Jews were among those imprisoned by inclusion in the above groups, but at least until Kristallnacht in 1938, not primarily because of their “racial” origin. Until the outbreak of war, policies toward the roughly 300,000 Jews of Germany mainly involved progressively stripping them of their rights as citizens, gradually stepping up abuse and terror to motivate their “voluntarily” leaving Germany. 

However, by the beginning of war in the fall of 1939 the options for Jews living in any part of Europe were profoundly constrained. Emigration was no longer a possibility for most, especially those with neither means nor permissions. Having absorbed western Poland into their orb, Nazi authorities had now to formulate new policies to deal with not just the Polish people themselves, but with a radically increased population of Jews (about two million in their portion of that country). These were not primarily urban, integrated Jews like those in Germany, but ones living in rural settings, often in their own villages or small towns, following the centuries-old traditions of their people. Hatred of Jews and a determination to rid the body politic of people characterized as not just enemies but as vermin, as well as the contingencies of war, moved policies toward ever more brutal conclusions.

Germans, who for generations had lived in various countries of Eastern Europe, were by agreement with Stalin, to be repatriated into Germany. The western part of German-occupied Poland was incorporated into the expanding Reich and was designated for this massive resettlement. Poles were summarily removed from homes, businesses, and most importantly, farms, to accommodate the newcomers. During this chaotic period, ghettos for the Jews of Poland as well as from other areas of German control became the prime instrument of ever-evolving Nazi policy. Still not overtly viewed as a preliminary to the annihilation of the Jews, these designated areas nonetheless were organized in such a manner as to provide the fewest possible resources to their residents. At the early stages of the war ghettos were viewed as way-stations. With hostilities quickly concluded, it was assumed that the sequestered Jews could then be forwarded to locations further afield, some even fantasized, to Africa. But the war was not quickly concluded. The British did not collapse and seek a peace settlement even after the French had surrendered. Ghettos became a fait accompli across Poland. Over the several years of their existence, hundreds of thousands died of starvation and disease within their cramped confines.

Lebensaum, living space for ethnic Germans was a central tenant of Nazi ideology. The establishment or simple bestowal of existing farms to incoming German families was not a practical option in Upper Silesia. The soil was poor and the area was primarily industrial. Because the maintenance of these industries and their work forces was essential for the war effort, the existing Polish population and workers had to be retained in place. However, they would remain and work under quite stringent conditions imposed upon them by their conquerors. Those who resisted were imprisoned. Overcrowding of existing prison facilities in the area soon demanded a “protective custody” or concentration camp like those existing in Germany since 1933. A ramshackle former Polish military barracks in the town of Oswiecim (Germanized to Auschwitz) was chosen as its site.The barracks consisted of eight two-story and fourteen single-story brick buildings set about a large exercise yard which had been used by the Polish cavalry. A number of other out-lying buildings were arrayed along a road close to the town railway station. The immediate tasks confronting Hoess when he arrived with five SS guards in early May, 1940 were: to delineate the area of the camp with barbed wire; to adapt the twenty brick buildings for the inmates, including an infirmary and a camp prison; to turn two barracks outside the perimeter into offices and an infirmary for the garrison; to clean and equip barracks to be used for the guard; to build guard towers, garages, and to transform the former powder magazine into a crematorium. To orchestrate this endeavour Hoess required a work force and materials. The first was easily supplied by the men about to be bequeathed to him from nearby prisons; the second was much harder to come by. His requests for construction tools and materials from Berlin were basically ignored, undoubtedly viewed as a low priority during that period of war and constant upheaval. Hoess learned to improvise by simply taking what he needed from other local sites.

The first prisoners to arrive in June, 1940 were 30 German criminals, forwarded from Sachenhausen to become Hoess’ team of Kapos. The Kapo system, devised in Dachau, inserted a level of control between the SS guards and the prisoners. Each housing block or work unit was led by a Kapo, a prisoner chosen for his capacity for brutally keeping others in line. The Kapo was allowed considerable scope in his treatment of his prisoners. He could beat them, deprive them of food or rest, or even murder them. His special perks were a space of his own within the block, special furnishings and food, and discretion in distributing favours as he wished to those whom he chose as favourites. It was a brilliantly diabolical arrangement, freeing the SS from much “hands on” discipline by  inserting the Kapos as their instruments of force and terror in sub-groupings of the camp. However, this did not mean that the SS guards were inactive in maintaining a punitive and terrorizing climate. They asserted their own authority in a myriad of ways, ready to beat, torture, or murder prisoners at whim or for examples. The Kapos themselves were tightly controlled by the guards, each knowing clearly that if he was not in absolute control of his group or if he showed unwonted leniency, he would lose his position, joining the regular prisoners who would not hesitate to gain revenge by murdering him.

The first Polish prisoners to arrive at Auschwitz that summer were immediately put to work refurbishing the existing facilities. Stones and other construction necessities were obtained by dismantling houses in the surrounding area. The work was labour intensive and gruelling, performed regardless of weather in insufficient clothing, on insufficient rations, and in a general climate of brutality that entirely disregarded the humanity of its inmates. In the first one and a half years of the Auschwitz camp’s existence, 10 of the 20 thousand prisoners sent there died. Changing conditions and needs of the Nazi regime affected the structure and purpose of the camp almost from its origin. More about its evolution in my next post.

Auschwitz: Rudolf Hoess and the Formation of Fundamentalist Extremists

In his 2005 book Auschwitz: A New History, Laurence Rees follows events and developments both within the Nazi party and during World War II that led to the shifts of purpose and function to which Auschwitz was brought. Several main characters in the narrative, for example, Hitler himself, his main collaborators: Heinrich Himmler, Hermann Goering, and Josef Goebbels, as well as other important persons like Reinhard Heydrich and Josef Mengele are followed as their initiatives contribute to the gradual conversion of Auschwitz from its initial purpose as a concentration camp to its ultimate manifestation as a death camp. Rees’ research was conducted after the collapse of the Soviet Union, allowing him access to previously unavailable documents held, for example, in East Germany. Moreover, with greater access to countries formerly dominated by the USSR, Rees was able to meet with and to interview survivors of the camps as well as former members of the SS and camp functionaries. The long  passage of time since the ending of the war had allowed some of these people freedom to speak of their experiences for the first time. Using all of his sources, Rees is able to document many of the stages of the expansion of Auschwitz in both size and function as well as the events and personalities which affected these changes.

Throughout he keeps a close eye on Rudolf Hoess, painting a portrait of another not particularly exceptional person, who nonetheless was instrumental in shepherding a broken-down Polish military barracks in a back-water area into the premier death camp of the Nazi gulag, responsible for the demise of roughly 1.1 million people. Hoess was the commandant of Auschwitz from its inception in 1940. Other than the period from November, 1943 to May, 1944 which he spent at another death camp, Majdanek, he remained its leader until January, 1945 when the remaining prisoners were forced out into a winter death march just ahead of the advancing Soviet troops. Hoess was captured soon after the fall of Germany and was executed at Auschwitz in 1947. During the year preceding his death he wrote his memoires, which though self-serving, provide a fairly accurate record of the development of and activities at Auschwitz.

Hoess was born in 1900 to Catholic parents in the Black Forest area of Germany. While very young he joined the army, fighting bravely in WWI, becoming one of the youngest non-commissioned officers and receiving the Military Cross. Like Adolph Hitler and many of his generation he was bitter and angry at the defeat of Germany, buying into the view of a number of right-wing nationalist parties, that internal enemies, communists and Jews, were responsible. In 1922 he joined the Nazi party. Involved in a politically motivated murder, he was imprisoned until 1928. After his release he joined the Artamans, an agricultural community where he met his wife and became a farmer. In 1934 Himmler, Hitler’s chief policeman, invited Hoess to leave his community and to join a special detachment of the SS that would oversee the burgeoning world of concentration camps. In his memoir Hoess attributed his acceptance of Himmler’s offer to questions of advancement and salary. More to the point it was his opportunity to take on a role in the kind of world he had dreamed of since Germany’s devastating loss in the war. In November, 1934 Hoess travelled to Dachau to begin his experiences as a concentration camp guard.

Reading about Hoess, I have found myself reflecting on the life trajectories that have pulled so many young men into similar all-encompassing movements with “religious” as well as nihilistic components. The Nazi party clearly drew to itself men (and some women) who enjoyed their permission to employ brute force against vulnerable peoples. But it was more than that. Its success was born of particular circumstances: the profound anguish of a generation schooled to believe in their ability and right to prevail, devastated by the collapse of their forces in November, 1918; bitterness and rage turned against an already identified group – the Jews; an extension of this hatred to encompass the Allied forces who had defeated them, and, communists who favoured trans-national allegiances over a predominately German identity; social, political, and economic dislocation in the aftermath of war and again during the Great Depression which affected European countries even more profoundly than North American; the rise of a charismatic leader who articulated the experience of this generation and seemed to point the way toward a new and brilliant millennium. Nazism for many with Hoess’ background became a “religion,” a faith to which they might happily give themselves over. Its doctrines were extreme and fundamentalist but they had a clarity that appealed to people wandering in the confusions of post-war Germany. Their leader was also their prophet, a man to revere, to love, and to obey. One of the former SS soldiers that Rees interviewed more than 50 years after the demise of the Nazi state was asked to sum up how he viewed the years of its dominance. After a moment’s reflection, he uttered just one word: “paradise.” Extreme religious fundamentalists of whatever creed see the world in a substantially black and white manner. Their need for coherence and certitude makes them vulnerable to adhering to whatever “religion” or cause the circumstances of their lives makes available to them.

However, not all are vulnerable to causes that involve extreme violence. I would suggest that those who are have themselves been the victims of violence, especially during their formative years – perhaps experienced in the context of war or profound social upheaval, but even more often in the crucible of their own familial home. I read recently of studies that show brain changes occurring in children who receive corporal punishment, changes that make it considerably more likely that they will employ the same means of so-called discipline when they have children of their own. Violence against the vulnerable is not simply a matter of behaviours being learned and mimicked, but of patterns in the brain that facilitate these behaviours. Obviously not all people who have been physically abused repeat this behaviour just as not all who were sexual abused do, but, an avenue in the brain is prepared for this option when one is faced with the kind of frustrations experienced by his or her own care-givers. Circumstances and/or conscious decisions will greatly determine the outcomes. People of my own generation generally were physically disciplined both at school and at home. We had our own children during a period when public opinion was turning against this type of violence. The impulse to strike out in frustration met a sense that to do so was fundamentally wrong. Many of us were forced to do battle with our own inclinations to act as our parents had done and to justify violence with the rationale, “You asked for it.”

A child who has been significantly abused and terrorized – because that is how the intense rage and physical force of the enormous parent is experienced by a small child – the nervous system of that child, like that of any small mammal, becomes oriented to a watchfulness for signs that other terrors are impending. As the child develops, the ways that this focus is elaborated can take many and diverse directions. It was long an assumption that if overwhelming experiences happened in the early life of a child, they would have little or no effect as they would not be remembered. Certainly the child would retain no cognitive memory as these are not formed until we have reached a stage of being able to articulate our experiences at least internally. But the body, the nervous system “remembers.” Once overwhelmed by an experience of terror, the brain, the nervous and endocrine systems become highly sensitized to cues that another profound threat is imminent. Watchfulness and reactivity absorb focus and energy needed for the development of a child’s imaginative life, the essential ingredient for age-appropriate learning and behaviour, the basis of true individuality and self-knowledge. Soldiers returning from a war zone exhibit identical responses to those of abused children under conditions of extreme stress and fear, responses subsumed under the general term Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD.

Both Rudolf Hoess and Adolph Hitler grew up with dominant fathers who insisted upon absolute obedience. Unquestionably in that era, such insistence would be fortified by physical punishment, a condition which would have been similar for many of their contemporaries. These early experiences together with those of their young manhood in war, defeat, dislocation, and confusion led them not to the conclusions of mature adults, but rather to ones more consistent with children lacking a developed conscience with which to empathize and consider the feelings and needs of others. Like the boys in The Lord of the Flies, they constructed a society based on brutality, fear, and obedience, giving themselves over to a “chief,” seeing the world in starkly black and white tints: the good and the beautiful; the bad and the ugly; the survival of the fittest – in that context the one with most power, the one who crushes the weak, deemed not deserving of survival. Many of these conditions exist for those currently drawn into polarized, extreme fundamentalist sects of our own era.

At Dachau Hoess entered into and embraced the world of the SS as exemplified by its commandant, Theodor Eicke. To Eicke the prime virtue of a man called to this form of duty was hardness: total elimination of compassion for prisoners in his charge. A prisoner was ipso facto, an enemy of the State; the duty of the guard was in all cases to follow orders, regardless of how severe or inexplicable, in his treatment of the prisoner. Any sympathy or human understanding of the prisoner was to be squelched. Beatings, even executions must be carried out unhesitatingly. SS members formed a special bond of brotherhood, recognizing their collective capacity to perform difficult but essential offices for the State of which “weaker” men would be incapable. A model member, Hoess advanced quickly, becoming by April, 1936 Eicke’s chief assistant. That September he was promoted to lieutenant and transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp just north of Berlin, where he remained until his 1940 posting as commandant of the yet to be constructed camp of Auschwitz.

Another Beginning

I have not written posts for this blog for many months. A year ago Mark and I embarked on our trip to Europe to visit some of the sites of the Holocaust. I wrote about this experience before, during, and afterward. I was profoundly affected by our journey, most particularly by the day that we spent at Auschwitz. When we returned to Toronto, I wrote for awhile longer about seminars that I attended at the Centre for Jewish Studies at the U of Toronto and about some authors that I was reading. When we went to Puerto Vallarta for the winter I took along a number of books related to the Holocaust but found myself disinclined to read them. Back in Toronto in the spring I started another blog, Letters From the Annex, focussing mainly on my life back in the Annex area, its resources and pleasures, other books that I have been reading, and incidents related to my family and friends.

A couple of weeks ago Mark was away for the day visiting some of his buddies in Orillia and enjoying time on the lake. It was a quiet day for me. I spent some time walking about my “library” of books in the built-in shelves in our livingroom, pulling out and thinking about books that I have read and ones that are awaiting some attention. I recognized a sense of wariness in myself about tackling ones that relate the painful stories of Holocaust survivors. It felt as though to read them I would be reinserting myself into that place of anguish that I experienced for some time after being at Auschwitz. I knew at that moment that I had in some ways put away my connection with and interest in the Holocaust to protect myself. I also knew that if I was to be true to myself, I would have to put my caution to one side.

I began by selecting a slim volume entitled Fragments of Isabella: A Memoir of Auschwitz by Isabella Leitner, as well as a larger volume, The Dentist of Auschwitz: A Memoir by Benjamin Jacobs. I read these two books within a few days, beginning then on Laurence Rees’ book Auschwitz: A New History. Published in 2005, it is dedicated to the 1.1 million men, women, and children who perished at Auschwitz. The vast majority of these people were Jews, but their number also included Roma people, Poles, homosexuals, political dissidents, and Soviet prisoners of war. Rees’ book is of particular interest to me as he has had the advantage of research pursued after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Using documents previously unavailable, Rees is able to look more closely at what ultimately evolved into the “final solution” of the “Jewish question” and the role that Auschwitz played therein. He shines a clearer spotlight on Rudolf Hoss, the commandant of Auschwitz from its inception as a concentration camp throughout its years as the primary death machine of the Nazi party, as well as on others who played major and minor roles in the attempt to exterminate the Jews. I plan to study his book more closely and to summarize and reflect upon his findings in this blog.

It may seem to many an anomaly for a person like me to embed herself so deeply in an area of interest that is in many respects distant from her own time, place, and culture. Born in Canada of Scots and Irish parentage and brought up as a Roman Catholic, I am an unlikely candidate to be viewing myself as a witness to the Holocaust. And yet despite the chasms of time, space, genealogy, and cultural heritage, I do experience myself standing in that place. The Holocaust of the Jews and all of the components of racism and hatred that facilitated its enactment belong not just to one period of time and geography but in a very real way to all of us who live and who have ever lived. It touches upon our human capacity for good and for evil. I have inklings about the sources of my interest and concern about this period of history, still reverberating as it is in many ways within our contemporary world, though there are undoubtedly aspects that I do not understand. Be that as it may, I nonetheless intend to pursue the line of inquiry and of self-learning upon which I embarked in a consistent fashion about a year and a half ago. I welcome any commentary or questions along this path.