The women’s camp, tightly crammed from the very beginning, meant psychological destruction for the mass of the female prisoners, and this led sooner or later to their physical collapse.
From every point of view, and at all times, the worst conditions prevailed in the women’s camp. This was so even at the very beginning, when it still formed part of the base camp. Once the Jewish transports from Slovakia began to arrive, it was crammed to the roof within a matter of days. Washhouses and latrines were sufficient, at the most, for a third of the number of inmates that the camp contained.
To have put these swarming ant hills into proper order would have required more than the few female supervisors allotted me from Ravensbrück. And I must emphasize once again that the women I was sent were not the best.
These supervisors had been thoroughly spoiled at Ravensbrück. Everything had been done for them to persuade them to remain in the women’s concentration camp, and by offering them extremely good living conditions it was hoped to attract new recruits. They were given the best of accommodation, and were paid a salary they could never have earned elsewhere. Their work was not particularly onerous. In short, the Reichsführer SS, and Pohl[68] in particular, wished to see the female supervisors treated with the utmost consideration.
Up to that time conditions in Ravensbrück had been normal, and there was no question of overcrowding.
These supervisors were now posted to Auschwitz—none came voluntarily—and had the job of getting the women’s camp started in the most difficult conditions.
From the very beginning most of them wanted to run away and return to the quiet comforts and the easy life at Ravensbrück.
The chief female supervisor of the period, Frau Langefeldt, was in no way capable of coping with the situation, yet she refused to accept any instructions given her by the commander of the protective custody camp. Acting on my own initiative, I simply put the women’s camp under his jurisdiction, since this seemed the only method of ending the disorderly way in which it was being run. Hardly a day passed without discrepancies appearing in the numbers of inmates shown on the strength returns. The supervisors ran hither and thither in all this confusion like a lot of flustered hens, and had no idea what to do. The three or four good ones among them were driven crazy by the rest. The chief supervisor regarded herself as an independent camp commander, and consequently objected to being placed under a man of the same rank as herself. In the end I actually had to cancel her subordination to him. When the Reichsführer SS visited the camp in July 1942 I reported all this to him, in the presence of the chief female supervisor, and I told him that Frau Langefeldt was and always would be completely incapable of commanding and organizing the women’s camp at Auschwitz as this should be done. I requested that she be once again subordinated to the first commander of the protective custody camp.
The Reichsführer SS absolutely refused to allow this, despite the striking proofs he was given of the inadequacy of the chief supervisor and of the female supervisors in general. He wished a women’s camp to be commanded by a woman, and I was to detail an SS officer to act as her assistant.
But which of my officers would be willing to take his orders from a woman? Every officer whom I had to appoint to this post begged to be released as soon as possible. When the really large numbers of prisoners began to arrive, I myself devoted as much time as I could to helping in the running of this camp.
Thus from the very beginning the women’s camp was run by the prisoners themselves. The larger the camp became, the more difficult it was for the supervisors to exercise control, and self-rule by the prisoners became more and more apparent. Since it was the “greens” who had the supremacy, and who therefore ran the camp by reason of their greater slyness and unscrupulousness, it was they who were the real masters in the women’s camp, despite the fact that the camp senior and other key officials were “red.” The women controllers, as the female Capos were called, were mostly “green” or “black.” It was thus inevitable that the most wretched conditions prevailed in the women’s camp.
The original female supervisors were, even so, far and away superior to those we got later. In spite of keen recruiting by the National Socialist women’s organizations, very few candidates volunteered for concentration camp service, and compulsion had to be used to obtain the ever-increasing numbers required.
Each armaments firm to which female prisoners were allotted for work had in exchange to surrender a certain percentage of their other female employees to act as supervisors. It will be understood that, in view of the general wartime shortage of efficient female labor, these firms did not give us their best workers.
These supervisors were now given a few weeks “training” in Ravensbrück and then let loose on the prisoners. Since the selection and allocation took place at Ravensbrück, Auschwitz was once again at the end of the line. Obviously Ravensbrück kept what seemed the best ones for employment in the new women’s labor camp which was being set up there.
Such was the position regarding the supervisory staff in the women’s camp at Auschwitz.
As was only to be expected, the morals of these women were, almost without exception, extremely low. Many of them appeared before the SS tribunal charged with theft in connection with the Reinhardt Action.[69]
But these were only the few who happened to be caught. In spite of the most fearful punishments, stealing went on, and the supervisors continued to use the prisoners as’ go-betweens for this purpose.
I will give one very bad case as an illustration.
One of these female supervisors sank so low as to become intimate with some of the male prisoners, mostly “green” Capos. In return for sexual intercourse, in which she was only too anxious to take part, she received jewelry, gold, and other valuables. As a cover for her shameless behavior, she started an affair with a senior noncommissioned officer of the SS guard unit and used his house as a safe place in which to lock up her hard-earned winnings. This poor fool was completely unaware of what his sweetheart was up to, and was very surprised when all these pretty things were discovered in his house.
The supervisor was sentenced by the Reichsführer SS to life imprisonment in a concentration camp, and to twice twenty-five strokes of the lash.
Like homosexuality among the men, an epidemic of lesbianism was rampant in the women’s camp. The most severe measures, including transfer to the punishment company, were inadequate to put a stop to this.
Time and again I received reports of intercourse of this sort between supervisors and female prisoners. This in itself indicates the low level of these supervisors.
Obviously they did not take their work or duties very seriously and most of them were inefficient as well. There were only a few punishments that could be inflicted for dereliction of duty. Confinement to their quarters was not looked on as a punishment at all, since it meant that they did not have to go out when the weather was bad. All punishments had first to be countersigned by the Inspector of Concentration Camps or Pohl. Punishment was to be kept to a minimum. “Irregularities” were to be put right by careful training and good leadership. The female supervisors knew all about this, of course, and the majority of them reacted as might be expected.
I have always had a great respect for women in general. In Auschwitz, however, I learned that I would have to modify my views, and that even a woman must be carefully examined before she is entitled to enjoy a full measure of respect.
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