Life in a Concentration Camp - Team G.O.A.T.



Life in a Concentration Camp

Auschwitz Concentration Camp opened in June 1940. By 1942 there were 28 two-story blocks which housed mostly prisoners. The blocks were designed to hold about 700 prisoners, but in practice they housed up to 1,200.

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During the first several months, the prisoners’ rooms had neither beds nor any other furniture. Prisoners slept on straw-stuffed mattresses laid on the floor. The rooms were so overcrowded that prisoners could sleep only on their sides, in three rows. Aside from the beds, the furniture in each block included a dozen or more wooden wardrobes, several tables, and several score stools. Coal-fired tile stoves provided the heating.

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In the brick blocks, prisoners slept on straw strewn on the boards of the buks; paper mattresses stuffed with so-called “wood wool” were placed on the beds or bunks in the wooden barracks.

During the first year or so, water in one area was available only in the kitchen barracks, and prisoners had no access to it. Unable to wash, they went around dirty. They had to perform their bodily functions in unscreened outside privies. The barracks were frequently damp, and lice and rats were an enormous problem for the prisoners. It is therefore hardly strange that epidemics of contagious diseases erupted frequently. Sanitary conditions improved to a certain degree in 1943, when each part of the camp was outfitted with a bathhouse and equipment for disinfecting clothing and linen. Nevertheless, the capacity of these facilities in proportion to the number of prisoners limited the possibilities for making use of them.

Prisoners received three meals per day. In the morning, they received only half a liter of “coffee,” or rather boiled water with a grain-based coffee substitute added, or “tea”—a herbal brew. These beverages were usually unsweetened. The noon meal consisted of about a liter of soup, the main ingredients of which were potatoes, rutabaga, and small amounts of groats, rye flour, and Avo food extract. The soup was unappetizing, and newly arrived prisoners were often unable to eat it, or could do so only in disgust. Supper consisted of about 300 grams of black bread, served with about 25 grams of sausage, or margarine, or a tablespoon of marmalade or cheese. The bread served in the evening was supposed to cover the needs of the following morning as well, although the famished prisoners usually consumed the whole portion at once.

The working day began at 4:30 in the summer and 5:30 in the winter. Prisoners laboring in places several kilometers distant did not participate in the roll call—they left for work earlier. Nor did the prisoners from such internal labor details as the hospital, kitchen, or orchestra attend roll call. Morning roll call was abolished in February 1944, in order to maximize the time spent laboring. From then on, the second gong was a signal to form up by labor details.

Prisoners performed various kinds of labor inside and outside the camp boundaries. From the end of March 1942, the minimum working day numbered 11 hours. This time was extended in the summer and shortened in the winter. The break for the noon meal lasted from 12 until 1 o’clock. Depending on the time of year, it might be extended to 2 hours or shortened to half an hour. In the early days, a roll call followed the noon meal, but this was abandoned over time.

Prisoners returned to the camp under SS escort before nightfall. They frequently carried the corpses of those who had died or been killed while laboring. The evening roll call began at 7 o’clock and, as in the morning, could be prolonged by discrepancies in the number of prisoners. After roll call, the prisoners received their evening bread with its accompaniment. They had free time after the evening meal. Until the first gong, the signal for everyone to return to their quarters, prisoners waited their turn for the washrooms and toilets. They could also receive mail (and, after 1942, parcels) or visit acquaintances in other blocks. The second gong, at 9 o’clock, announced the nighttime silence.

Prisoners did not have to labor at all on Sundays and holidays, which they spent tidying up their quarters, mending or washing their clothes, or shaving and having their hair cut. They could also attend concerts by the camp orchestra and, every other week, send official letters to their families

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