Then the concentration camp. The scene is the gravel pit. A good-natured guard takes care to see that the trucks are not overloaded, that extra men are there to push them up the slope, that the tracks are firmly laid, and that the points are oiled. Without any shouting the day goes by and the stipulated amount of gravel is duly shifted.
The malicious guard has the trucks overloaded, allows no extra hands to help push them up the slope, and insists on their being pushed the whole way at the double. He even does without the prisoner whose job it is to look after the tracks and see that the points are oiled. The result of all this is that the trucks are constantly derailed, the Capos[27] are given reason for bullying, and a large proportion of the prisoners are incapable of work by midday because of their cut and bruised feet.
All day long the air is filled with deafening shouts of command from all sides. By evening it is found that barely half of the stipulated work has been accomplished.
The indifferent guard does not worry in the least about his work party. He lets the Capos do the work, which they carry out as the fancy takes them. Their favorites among the prisoners have a lazy day and the rest have to work all the harder. The sentries see nothing. The guard himself is continually absent.
I have taken these three examples from innumerable incidents that I myself have seen. I could fill several books with them. They are intended only to emphasize the extent to which a prisoner’s life is dependent on the behavior and attitude of mind of the individual guards and supervisors. In spite of all the rules and regulations, and however good the intentions behind them, the fact remains that it is not the physical hardships which make the prisoner’s life so unbearable, but the indelible mental suffering caused by the tyranny and wickedness and meanness of indifferent or malicious individuals among the guards and supervisors. The prisoner can cope with stern but impartial severity, however harsh it may be, but tyranny and manifestly unjust treatment affect his soul like a blow with a club. He is powerless against it, and can only suffer in silence.
To put it crudely, guards and prisoners constitute two hostile and opposing worlds. The prisoner is usually on the defensive: first because of the fact that he is a prisoner, and secondly because of the behavior of the guards. If he wants to fit into the scheme of things, then he has to look after number one. Since he cannot fight back with the same weapons, he must find other means of self-protection. According to his nature he either allows his enemy to vent his spite against an armor of indifference, and continues to carry on more or less as before; or he becomes cunning, furtive, and deceitful, and hoodwinks his opponent in order to obtain alleviations and privileges; or he goes over to the enemy and becomes a trusty, a Capo, a block senior, and so on, and manages thus to make his own life bearable at the expense of his fellow prisoners; or he stakes everything on one throw and breaks out; or he abandons hope, goes to pieces, and ends up by committing suicide.
All this sounds harsh and may seem improbable, and yet it is true. I feel that I am a fair judge of these matters, owing to the life I have lived, and to my own experiences and observation.
Work plays a very large part in a prisoner’s life. It can serve to make his existence more bearable, but it can also lead to his destruction.
To every healthy prisoner, in normal circumstances, work is a necessity, and satisfies an inner need. This does not apply to notorious idlers and loafers and other types of asocial spongers; they can vegetate quite happily without work, and without thereby doing any harm to their souls.
Work helps a prisoner to get over the emptiness of imprisonment. It pushes the wretchedness of the daily round in prison into the background if it occupies his mind sufficiently, and if he does it willingly, by which I mean with an inner readiness, he will derive satisfaction from it.
If he can go further, and find an occupation connected with his own profession, or work that corresponds to his abilities and which appeals to him, he has managed to achieve for himself a psychological basis that will not easily be shaken, however inimical his surroundings.
It is true that work in the prisons and concentration camps is compulsory. But generally speaking every prisoner employed on the right kind of work does it willingly. The inner satisfaction that it gives him affects his whole state of mind. On the other hand, dissatisfaction with his work can make his life a burden.
How much pain and discomfort, and frustration too, could have been avoided if the work inspectors and the foremen had had regard for these facts, and had kept their eyes open when they went through the workshops and places of employment!
All my life I have thoroughly enjoyed working. I have done plenty of hard, physical work, under the severest conditions, in the coal mines, in oil refineries, and in brickyards. I have felled timber, cut railroad ties, and stacked peat. I have, with my own hands, done every principal sort of agricultural work. Not only have I done such work myself, but wherever
I have worked I have carefully observed the behavior, habits, and conditions of life of the men working with me.
I can justly maintain that I know what work means, and that I am fully qualified to judge another man’s working efficiency.
I myself derive no real satisfaction from my labors unless I have completed a good job of work thoroughly.
I have never asked my subordinates to undertake any task in excess of what I could have done myself. Even in prison in Leipzig where I had plenty to occupy my mind, such as the investigation and the trial itself, not to mention the many letters and newspapers and visitors I received, I missed my work. Finally I asked for work, and I was given the job of pasting paper bags. Although this was an extremely monotonous job, it nevertheless occupied the greater part of the day and gave me a regular occupation. I voluntarily assigned to myself a definite task to be performed daily, and that was the essential.
During my subsequent imprisonment, where choice was possible, I chose work that required a certain amount of attention and was not purely mechanical.
Such employment spared me hours of useless and enervating self-pity. In the evening I had the satisfactory feeling that not only had I put another day behind me, but also that I had done a useful job of work.
The worst punishment for me would have been if my work had been taken away.
In my present imprisonment I feel the lack of any physical work very much, and I am so thankful that I can do this writing, which I find completely absorbing and satisfying.
I have discussed this question of work with many of my fellow prisoners in the penitentiary and also with many of those detained in the concentration camps, especially at Dachau. All of them were convinced that in the long run life behind bars or behind wire would be unbearable without work, and that to be without work would be the worst imaginable punishment.
Work in prison is not merely an efficient corrective, in the best sense of the word, in that it encourages the prisoners to discipline themselves and thus makes them better able to withstand the demoralizing effect of their confinement. It is also a means of training for those prisoners who are fundamentally unstable and who need to learn the meaning of endurance and perseverance. The beneficent influence of work can draw many prisoners away from a life of crime.
27
Prisoners who acted as supervisors of the prison barrack rooms, the other prisoners’ work, etc.