In July 1942 the Reichsführer SS visited the camp. I took him all over the gypsy camp. He made a most thorough inspection of everything, noting the overcrowded barrack huts, the unhygienic conditions, the crammed hospital building. He saw those who were sick with infectious diseases, and the children suffering from noma,[54] which always made me shudder, since it reminded me of leprosy and of the lepers I had seen in Palestine—their little bodies wasted away, with gaping holes in their cheeks big enough for a man to see through, a slow putrefaction of the living body.
He noted the mortality rate, which was relatively low in comparison with that of the camp as a whole. The child mortality rate, however, was extraordinarily high. I do not believe that many newborn babies survived more than a few weeks.
He saw it all, in detail, and as it really was—and he ordered me to destroy them. Those capable of work were first to be separated from the others, as with the Jews.
I pointed out to him that the personnel of the gypsy camp was not precisely what he had envisaged being sent to Auschwitz. He thereupon ordered that the Reich Criminal Police Office should carry out a sorting as quickly as possible. This in fact took two years. The gypsies capable of work were transferred to another camp. About 4,000 gypsies were left by August 1944, and these had to go into the gas chambers. Up to that moment, they were unaware of what was in store for them. They first realized what was happening when they made their way, barrack hut by barrack hut toward crematorium I. It was not easy to drive them into the gas chambers. I myself did not see it, but Schwarzhuber[55] told me that it was more difficult than any previous mass destruction of Jews, and it was particularly hard on him, because he knew almost every one of them individually and had been on good terms with them. They were by their nature as trusting as children.[56]
Despite the unfavorable conditions the majority of the gypsies did not, so far as I could observe, suffer much psychologically as a result of imprisonment, apart from the fact that it restricted their roving habits.
The overcrowding, poor sanitary arrangements and even to a certain extent the food shortage were conditions to which they had become accustomed in their normal, primitive way of life. Nor did they regard the sickness and the high mortality rate as particularly tragic. Their whole attitude was really that of children, volatile in thought and deed. They loved to play, even at work, which they never took quite seriously. Even in bad times they always tried to look on the bright side. They were optimists.
I never saw a scowling, hateful expression on a gypsy’s face. If one went into their camp, they would often run out of their barracks to play their musical instruments, or to let their children dance, or perform their usual tricks. There was a large playground where the children could run about to their heart’s content and play with toys of every description.
When spoken to they would reply openly and trustingly and would make all sorts of requests. It always seemed to me that they did not really understand about their imprisonment.
They fought fiercely among themselves. Their hot blood and pugnacious natures made this inevitable in view of the many different tribes and clans thrown together here. The members of each clan kept very much together and supported each other. When it came to sorting out the able-bodied, the resulting separations and dislocations within the clan gave rise to many touching scenes and to much pain and tears.
They were consoled and comforted to a certain extent when they were told later they would all be together again.
For a while we kept the gypsies who were capable of work in the base camp at Auschwitz. They did their utmost to get a glimpse of their clanmates from time to time, even if only from a distance. We often had to carry out a search after roll call for homesick gypsies who had cunningly slipped back to join their clan.
Indeed, often, when I was in Oranienburg with the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps, I was approached by gypsies who had known me in Auschwitz, and asked for news of other members of their clan. Even when these had been gassed long ago. Just because of their complete trust, it was always hard for me to give them an evasive answer.
Although they were a source of great trouble to me at Auschwitz, they were nevertheless my best-loved prisoners—if I may put it that way. They never managed to keep at any job for long. They “gypsied around” too much for that, whatever they did. Their greatest wish was to be in a transport company, where they could travel all over the place, and satisfy their endless curiosity, and have a chance of stealing. Stealing and vagrancy are in their blood and cannot be eradicated. Their moral attitude is also completely different from that of other people. They do not regard stealing as in any way wicked. They cannot understand why a man should be punished for it. I am here referring to the majority of those interned, the real wandering gypsies, as well as to those of mixed blood who had become akin to them. I do not refer to those who had settled in the towns. These had already learned too much of civilization, and what they learned was unfortunately not of the best.
I would have taken great interest in observing their customs and habits if I had not been aware of the impending horror, namely the Extermination Order, which until mid-1944 was known only to myself and the doctors in Auschwitz.
By command of the Reichsführer SS the doctors were to dispose of the sick, and especially the children, as inconspicuously as possible.
And it was precisely they who had such trust in the doctors.
Nothing surely is harder than to grit one’s teeth and go through with such a thing, coldly, pitilessly, and without mercy.
What effect did imprisonment have upon the Jews, who from 1942 on composed the greater part of the inmates of Auschwitz? How did they behave?
From the very beginning there were Jews in the concentration camps. I knew them well since Dachau days. But then the Jews still had the possibility of emigrating to any country in the world, provided only that they obtained the necessary entry permit. The duration of their stay in the camp was therefore only a question of time or of money and foreign connections. Many obtained the necessary visa within a few weeks and were set free. Only those who had been guilty of a racial offense,[57] or who had been particularly active politically during the “system” period,[58] or who had been involved in one of the public scandals were forced to remain in the camp.
Those with some prospect of emigrating did their best to insure that their life in custody went as “smoothly” as possible. They worked as diligently as they were capable of doing—the majority were unaccustomed to any sort of physical labor, behaved as unobtrusively as they could and carried out their duties quietly and steadily.
The Jews in Dachau did not have an easy time. They had to work in the gravel pit which, for them, was very strenuous physical labor. The guards, influenced by Eicke and by Der Stürmer,[59] which was on show everywhere in their barracks and the canteens, were particularly rough with them. They were sufficiently persecuted and tormented already as “corrupters of the German people,” even by their fellow prisoners. When a display case containing Der Stürmer was put up in the protective custody camp, its effect on those prisoners who had hitherto been not at all anti-Semitic was immediately apparent. The Jews, of course, protected themselves in typically Jewish fashion by bribing their fellow prisoners. They all had plenty of money and could buy whatever they wanted in the canteen. It was therefore not hard for them to find penniless prisoners who were only too glad to render services in return for tobacco, sweets, sausage, and such. In this way they were able to arrange for the Capos to give them easier work, or for the prisoner nursing staff to get them admitted to the camp hospital. On one occasion a Jew had the nails drawn from his big toes by one of the prisoner nurses in exchange for a packet of cigarettes, so that he might get into the hospital.
54
A cancerous growth, usually fatal, which appears mostly on the face, as the result of starvation and physical debility.
56
This mass extermination took place during the night of July 31-August 1, between 3,500 and 4,000 gypsies being murdered.
57
By this Hoess means having sexual relations with a non-Jewish person, a crime in Nazi Germany.