(no subject)
Workers in the Vorlager, Lager I, and Lager II
The prisoners that worked outside Lager III had a wide range of jobs. Some worked specifically for the SS - making gold trinkets, boots, clothing, cleaning cars, or feeding horses. Others worked at jobs dealing with the death process - sorting clothes, unloading and cleaning the trains, cutting wood for the pyres, burning personal artifacts, cutting the women's hair, etc.
These workers lived daily amid fear and terror. The SS and the Ukrainian guards marched the prisoners to their work in columns, making them sing marching songs along the way. A prisoner could be beaten and whipped for simply being out of step. Sometimes prisoners were to report after work, at roll call, for punishments they had accrued during the day. As they were being whipped, they were forced to call out the number of lashes - if they didn't shout loud enough or if they lost count, the punishment would start over again or they would be beaten to death. Everyone at roll call was forced to watch these punishments.
Though there were certain general rules one needed to know in order to live, there was no certainty in who could be a victim of SS cruelty.
We were permanently terrorized. Once, a prisoner was talking to a Ukrainian guard; an SS man killed him. Another time we carried sand to decorate the garden; Frenzel [SS Oberscharf
The prisoners that worked outside Lager III had a wide range of jobs. Some worked specifically for the SS - making gold trinkets, boots, clothing, cleaning cars, or feeding horses. Others worked at jobs dealing with the death process - sorting clothes, unloading and cleaning the trains, cutting wood for the pyres, burning personal artifacts, cutting the women's hair, etc.
These workers lived daily amid fear and terror. The SS and the Ukrainian guards marched the prisoners to their work in columns, making them sing marching songs along the way. A prisoner could be beaten and whipped for simply being out of step. Sometimes prisoners were to report after work, at roll call, for punishments they had accrued during the day. As they were being whipped, they were forced to call out the number of lashes - if they didn't shout loud enough or if they lost count, the punishment would start over again or they would be beaten to death. Everyone at roll call was forced to watch these punishments.
Though there were certain general rules one needed to know in order to live, there was no certainty in who could be a victim of SS cruelty.
We were permanently terrorized. Once, a prisoner was talking to a Ukrainian guard; an SS man killed him. Another time we carried sand to decorate the garden; Frenzel [SS Oberscharf