Court No. II, Case No. IV.
Under the camp commandant and the adjutant there were the camp leaders, or the camp leader. In smaller camps there was usually only one SS camp leader, and not always even a commandant officer; or in the larger camps there were up to three camp leaders. Camp leaders were SS officers. Their duties were the whole of the protective custody camp. Every day they did service in the concentration camp itself alternately. You had to report to them for roll call. They had to interrogate prisoners, if there was an order to that effect from Berlin, in a general manner, for instance, from the Reich Security Main Office, unless there was political information connected with it; the prisoner's conduct, for instance, in the concentration camp, and such matters.
Under the camp leader, or the camp leaders, there was the report leader. The report leader would regulate the whole of the relations between the inmates and the camp leaders and the camp commandant. Besides the report leader there was the leader in charge of work and, in larger camps, he would be called the assignment leader. Their duties and responsibilities were the work to be done by prisoners.
Under the report leader there was the SS block leaders in concentration camps. Most of them were Scharfuehrers who had under them one block of prisoners.
Under the labor assignment leader, or labor service leader--depending on who was in the camp of those two categories--the SS detail or detachment leaders would be, who supervised inmates during the work hours.
Apart from all those, there were the SS guards who were supplied by the SS troops and who supervised and guarded the prisoners as they worked, and manned the towers on which there were machine guns. Then, also, in each concentration camp--which had a central administration which was not an outside camp of a main camp--there existed the so-called political department. That department was under, on the one hand, the camp commandant; but, on the other hand, it had direct communication with the Gestapo Central Offices and the Reich Security Main Office. Up to a certain point, there was a certain amount of rivalry between the politi Court No. II, Case No. IV.
cal department and the commandant of the camp, and the camp leaders. The political department had to look after a new arrival in the concentra tion camp by drawing up a file of an inmate's status, and information between the Gestapo, the camp, and the Reich Main Security Office.
Finally, it had to do either political examinations and interrogations, or look after releases. That is the part of the administration or the organization of the concentration camp, as far as the SS is concerned.
I should add here,perhaps, that also there was in each concentration camp an administration of its own which was subordinated to the commandant, but which, in its turn, would report to the WVHA. This administration would be in charge of a number of departments: building and construction, magazines, food, clothes, and such matters.
A concentration camp had always to report to a number of departments of the WVHA. The main office to which most of the correspondence was directed was Department D. Several under-departments, for instance, the hospital and the camp doctor would report to Department D-III, to the doctor in charge of concentration camps. Then, releases of prisoners, transports, reports of other important matters would also be sent to Department D, which looked after the internal administration of concentration camps; also allocation of labor, or construction matters, building of new camps, building of huts, garages, and such things, would be directed to Department C of the WVHA.
Financial administration of concentration camps was concerned with Department A of the WVHA, and the industrial enterprizes which the SS had incorporated and which would surround the camp, were administered over by Department W of the WVHA.
As far as the prisoners were concerned, there was a similar organization. In all concentration camps the SS sponsored a so-called selfadministration on the part of the prisoners. These many thousands of human beings the SS was neither willing nor able to have a really effective control of detail; and, above all, the SS could not be bothered Court No. II, Case No. IV.
to carry out all the practical work which would have been necessary if that control of detail was to be achieved.
Therefore, the SS only supplied the higher system of power, a relatively thin layer underneath which there would be the self-administration of the prisoners. That part of the self-administration was lead by the camp eldest of the inmates who was appointed by the SS. Anything which went on among the prisoners was his responsibility towards the SS. In a majority of camps, the SS selected for that very important post in the self-administration a well-tested criminal, a real criminal who knew how to carry out the orders of the SS, and who opposed his own comrades in the camp, and who would see that his will was carried out.
In some camps, later on, it was possible in a decreasing manner, to put men with a considerable political responsibility, with real courage and responsibility. But that was possible only in a few camps--in particular, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, and in Dachau. Now the camp eldest suggested who should hold all the other positions within the self-administration. He told the SS who should hold these positions, and the SS either confirmed or turned down these suggestions.
At the beginning, the SS interfered considerably in this selfadministration of the camps, especially the Capos' positions which I shall explain later.
The SS got tired of all this, and fed up, and just let matters drift; and all positions thereupon would be filled by camp inmates themselves without interference. The camp eldest--they were the block eldest--were the superiors of the inmates in the block itself. This man had people at his side who tidied up the rooms, etc, and the people in charge of arrangements in rooms would engage other people to help them, and these people did very little else than cheat their other comrades in the camp.
Apart from the camp eldest, there was also in some camps the man who was called "Controlleur", who headed a sort of camp police, but this was only in a very few camps, mainly those who were in charge of the Court No. II, Case No. IV.
political prisoners. That man, the Controlleur, carried with him his so-called camp police which looked after discipline when roll calls were made. The block eldest was, according to the SS block leaders, as far as the labor detachments were concerned, the Carpo was the same as the SS leader. The SS used to suggest the man for the Carpo position, and he was the first foreman in the detachment--not that he had to do work. He simply gave orders.
Then, the equivalent to the report leader on the SS side, the office of the report leader on the inmate side, there was the inmates office. That office had to collect all the files which came from the camps, questionnaires which had been filed in reports from the hospital, and so forth, and they had to pass it on to the report leaders--also for the political department. That was a matter of formality. The labor assignment leader had on the inmates side, as an equivalent, the so-called labor statistics, or, in some camps, the labor assignment office of the inmates. The SS hospital had on the inmates side the inmates hospital which was under the camp doctor. Inside that official self-administration, there grew in some camps, particularly in the "great three" camps: Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, Dachau--and in particular in Buchenwald--something like an illegal camp administration which was composed of a very few inmates who had acquired internal power, in some cases by bitter conflicts with both the SS and other categories of inmates. But then, also, they opposed the SS. That illegal camp administration which consisted of a very few people had a first-rate intelligence service at its disposal which, up to '44 or '45, was extended in a manner, for in most concentration camps they heard what was really going on.
Then there was an office where all matters concerning inmates would come from. That office had enormous influence on the development of the camps. It attempted to stop the SS from taking the strongest measure and carried out a measure which would be a little better for prisoners. In some cases they corrupted the SS very considerably, which was done in a very systematic manner. So much for the outer and inner workings of the Camp.
Q Now, can you very briefly describe for us a typical arrival of say -- a political inmate in the concentration camp?
A I want to say first, because I can do it very briefly, a typical arrival does not give you a picture of the average. It all depended on the camp and also the period of time. It isn't as though arrivals in concentration camps before 1941 were particularly drastic and then improved slowly. The cases varied from camp to camp and from period of time to period of time. It could happen, for instance, in 1942, when you, as a German or as a member of a nation on which the SS didn't take a too unfavorable look, were quite well treated. When you arrived, you were not beaten. Everything happened in about three hours, but at the same time it was also a fact that other nations, such as after 1943, the French, in particular, were treated in a manner which cannot be imagined or described. High civil service men came to the tune of 150 or 160 from Compiene to Buchenwald and 35 corpses would fall out. The prisoners had to walk in the camp naked. That happened at any period of time. It was always possible that somebody says that at that time when he arrived at the camp everything was all right. Somebody else would be equally correct if he said the exact opposite of that same period of time. It was different at Auschwitz than at Buchenwald, and different at Buchenwald than Sachsenhausen, and at Sachsenhausen different from Lublin. That is what I must say first of all. A typical arrival is very difficult to describe. It varied a great deal, but speaking by and large, your arrival was a very difficult moment. In the case of political prisoners in particular and of Jews, there was a definite idea that you had to be humiliated personally and your will had to be broken.
You were not merely treated as you were in the Prussian Barracks. It was more than that. You arrived particularly exhausted. You had to stand for hours in the sun. You. had to keep your arms behind your head. You had to bow your knees. You had to, rather, squat, half sit on your knees. Jews, in all cases, whenever they arrived were at least given 5 beatings with the stick, sometimes even more.
It depended on the Scharfuehrer, Rapport Leader, labor leader, camp leaders. They were mistreated because they were Jews. That happened very frequently. In certain camps after 1942 that decreased; in some camps, also in certain categories in Buchenwald, in some cases, because the illegal camp administration had increased its influence the camp protective police became a real protection for inmates and the SS got tired of all the barbarous acts it had done itself, which did not prevent people from being beaten all the same. Then you were taken to the Political Department outside the bunker and then to the Protective Custody Camp, where you were in some cases for 2 hours and in some cases more, even nine hours and were not removed. Then something was read to you of the camp rules, the so-called camp rules. Nobody who has ever been in a concentration camp has ever seen a camp rule written down, only it was all sorts of sayings by Himmler --- all sorts of sayings by Himmler were written up about freedom. There was one way to freedom: obedience, if you stayed sober, for instance, which was particularly interesting to us in concentration camps because we could drink so much. But nothing could be really practiced in concentration camps by name of order. Orders or rules of the concentration camp were never written up. We were told, "I told you what they were on that occasion." I heard at least 15 times "This will be punished by death. That will be punished by death. Whatever happens will be punished by death anyway." We were allowed to commit suicide. That was their continuous suggestion that they called to the inmates. That was a favorite trick of the concentration camp authorities. They would say "You can always hang yourself.
You can run into the barbed wire." You were then taken to the bathing room and that is where your hair was shorn off and you were washed crashed in a very harsh manner and then after that you would jump into a sort of bath tub which was extremely dirty. Then when you left that room all your room all your personal data was taken away from you. You were still naked. Then you might have been driven across the square naked. I saw all Russian Prisoners of bar who arrived in a condition such as I have never seen before. I have never thought that it was possible that human legs that had just a bit of skin around them could walk double time, marching for thousands of kilometers. They were beaten and they were taken to the hospital and they looked like skeletons. One after another of Poles in the middle of winter when it would be at least 15 degrees, they were taken to a hot bath and had a hot shower bath and then were taken outside again into the open and there they had to remain standing naked after the hot bath which shock was a catastrophe; pneumonia would result an a case like that. Then you were given your clothes. You were given a few rags or, if better things were there, you were given better things. You were given trousers, a thin jacket, and perhaps later on you could get a few things more than the official allotment, trousers, a shirt, a silly little hat, all in these zebra colors and shoes, if there were shoes. In most cases they were wooden shoes from Holland without leather inside of them. These wooden shoes were particularly terrible if you had to run on the double and they caused all sorts of illnesses later on. My own feet were in a frightful state from these shoes. And then you were given a pair of socks and that was all. Then you went to the Clerks' office, or a manager's office and your personal data taken down and then you were taken to the hospital and then to the blocks. Later on all arrivals were taken in the quarantine in the camp of Buchenwald. There were tens of thousands of foreigners, most of them Poles, or, hardly any Germans, arrived from a southern camp, at that time and all of these foreigners were taken to quarantine. If one has seen the camp in Buchenwald during its actual development, you could only burst into hysterical laughters to call that camp a quarantine.
That was right outside. There was only one toilet. I am almost unable to describe this thing in a few words, to make it really graphically clear. Then on the next stage you were allocated to the labor detachment by the labor assignment leader. It was particularly dangerous for people who looked intellectual, people who were spectacles. Before I arrived I was warned by people who had been in the prison or in the camps and said "For God's Sake take your spectacles off." All those who arrived with spectacles are in the same condition as Jews. For Goebbels said -- called us intellectual beasts and said we were dangerous, and, we were particularly dangerous to their party, which was correct, because we were dangerous. A favorite trick was to allocate them to the detachment where they would perish very quickly, after they arrived in the concentration camp. I found out in Germany that the party on the left side, the death rate of these intellectuals is incredibly high, because in the concentration camps, I myself saw and I myself saw how these intellectuals were being exterminated. The people who had the best time were those people who know some sort of a craft, masons, tailors, shoe makers, and so forth. If possible at all they were sent to the work shops. Anybody else, that is to say, were sent to these very difficult detachments to build canals, road building, commandos, quarries. In these detachments the conditions were quite unbearable and it remained like that for years, right up to the end, although we would change our locations at times. On the day I made my arrival I was not sent to the quarry, but to the sand digger detachment, because the camp leader happened to stand on the square and we were in two lines and I was on the left hand side and he was saying that those on the right side can go to the diggers and I happened to be standing there and the labor assignment leader whispered something to him and he reversed all these and said first of all they would go to the quarries and the others to the sand diggers.
All those that were sent to the quarries were killed in a short period of time. Now you were in a labor detachment. In the summer you were called very early in the morning, as early as four o'clock. During the winter it was later, at six o'clocks; in some cases when our working capacity was very important it became a little easier. You didn't have to get up until six or six-thirty, or in the summer very early. Then you would have about thirty or thirty-five minutes to make your beds which was a labor, a torturous labor, an unbelievable labor for anybody who does not know the Prussian military system.
THE PRESIDENT: We will have to interrupt your story to give the interpreter a little rest, at least. A short recess.
THE MARSHAL: The court will be in recess for fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: Tribunal No. 2 is again in session.
THE PRESIDENT: Before you continue, Mr. McHaney, with your examination, let the record show that the defendant Fanslau is not present in court this morning for the same reasons which were indicated yesterday and the order of the Tribunal to proceed with the trial in his absence will be given.
BY MR. MC HANEY:
Q. Witness, you have described the category of prisoners in a concentration camp, and the arrival of an inmate to the concentration camp. I would like to go back just a moment and ask you if you know under what orders an inmate was committed to a concentration camp?
A. The commitment into the concentration camp was through the Gestapo. The Gestapo office in a German city reported after having had an examination which the inmate was subjected to by the Gestapo Central Office, the Reich Security Office in Berlin. From there the OK came back if the person was to be kept in custody, in which case the person was to be sent to a concentration camp, or that this person was to be released. Now if the person was committed to a concentration camp by the Gestapo, or at least upon suggestion of the Gestapo Main Office, which was by the office in Berlin, then according to what I found out in most cases, to be exact, ninety-five percent of cases of so-called protective custody order were original for the persons. I would like to draw the Tribunal's attention to the fact that there was a percentage of from between five to seven percent of inmates, that is, who were sent to concentration camps without protective custody orders and without any reasons at all. I myself, for instance, during the course of seven years and one month by reason of the protective custody order system had one particular protective custody order which was turned in. When a particular custody order was turned in, an order to commit an inmate to a concentration camp, then he was picked up by the police and put in a transport and was then transferred to a concentration camp that he was assigned to. The doctor of the Gestapo, then from the Gestapo Main Office, and through the police, went together with the prisoners into a concentration camp, and there it was found in the political department the number of new arrivals; then the number of inmates in the camp was recorded by the camp administration and sent to the Reich Security Office, or the SS WVHA and was reported to them.
Q. Now, will you briefly describe the course of the day in a concentration camp?
A. As I already mentioned before at various times, there were various periods of the year when we were in the concentration camps, and we had thirty to forty minutes time to make up the beds, which were very bad, because many collective and single sentences were passed there; then we had to wash ourselves, if there was any possible washing facilities there, and then we had to eat what was called a breakfast, and then it was time for the roll calls. The column of prisoners then marched early in the morning, that is, during dawn, to the parade grounds, and these were of all blocks. They stood there at a certain spot around the whole blocks, and then a counting up was done by the clerk. A report of the number of dead, that is, of people who had died during the night, and then it went to the report clerk, and from that time one of the camp leaders came in for a roll call, which usually took between half an hour to five-quarters of an hour. It was shorter in the evening - the roll call - because the work had to begin at a given moment. Then the camp leader came in, as I said before, and an order was given to remove your hats, and there the twenty-five, or thirty, or forty thousand inmates who were standing there on this parade grounds removed their hats simultaneously, and then there was a review of an army of bald heads, and then a report from the report clerk to the camp commandant was given, and then the order was given again, "Put on your caps again," and then a person said, that and that number had to report to the gate.
I can not explain to this Tribunal with a few words exactly what that call meant. It included everybody whose number had been called up, and I went through it myself. There was upon me, as a matter of fact, that paralyzing fear because at the gate almost anything could happen to an inmate. He could be told to stand there from the morning until the evening without knowing what it was all about. He could receive a very simple business letter which his relatives at home had sent to him without knowing the actual conditions in the concentration camps. The reson could sometimes be the report of a divorce, or he might be called to the political department to undergo an intense cross examination. He could be called up to the camp commander. Within five minutes he could be hanged. He could be executed in all sorts of ways. Nobody knew what it was all about. Every morning there was a whole series of comrades of mine who were called up. It depended on the application of sentences. After the evening roll call these punishments were carried out.
Then the command came that all the working commandos should stand at attention. At the same moment there was a big noise in the parade grounds. All the blocks broke their ranks and reformed in new ranks on the same parade ground for working details. Those particular commandos, that is. There was a heavy struggle for the tools, part of which were in the camp itself. Very few commandos had enough tools to take care of all the inmates working in their detail. Anyone who appeared during working hours without a tool - that is, if he could not work or could not work properly - was either beaten to death immediately by the SS-Commando-Fuehrer, or his number was written down and a report was turned in, for either refusal to work or for laziness or for some other reason.
After the struggle for the tool had past, new columns of Arbeitskommandos, or working commandos, were formed, and after ten or fifteen minutes the camp band started playing very nice music. The band consisted of inmates, who sometimes had to play in the winter time with frozen fingers when they could hardly play their instruments. Then in columns of five the people marched out through the gate. That is, as far as the inmates had to work outside the barbed wire fence, within the district of the Kommandatura, or in the SS settlements around the camp or sometimes in the factories which were erected in or around the camps.
We had to remove our hats at the gate, and we had to walk down the camp street, either walking or on the double. It occurred several times that one of the SS leaders would drive or ride in front of the whole column and thus determine the speed at which we had to walk or run. I went through that several times myself - very often. We had to carry our own tools. We had to sing on top of that, and we had to run on the double.
We arrived at our working place and then we started working right away. For quite a period of time it was strictly forbidden, in Buchenwald for instance up to 1941, to take any kind of food to the working place, even such a thing as a small piece of bread. However, we did have the order to carry bread sacks.
At the working place we worked - I am giving you now just an average because there were times when there were four roll calls. For instance, at noon there were two roll calls sometimes, so we had no rest whatsoever. Generally speaking there were two roll calls. In other words, we had to work most of the time until 12:30. Then we had a pause of half an hour, during which time most of us collapsed from exhaustion.
Half an hour later, the same work started all over again, up until - that differed many times - in the shortest case up until four o'clock and in the longest case until eight o'clock in the evening. Then the signal was given that the work was over, and all the outside commandos within a few seconds had to take a stone which was about ten pounds heavy, or find one, load that one up, and then we had to form columns of fives again, and the commandos then left. Every inmate carried such a stone, and then left for the camp. During my whole life I did not know that it was possible to walk during a snow storm and in the condition that we were, without gloves and to carry five bricks on the left shoulder after such a long working day for a distance of a kilometer and a half. I could not believe it. If we had any wounded amongst us, or any dead ones, then we had to carry them with our working commando into the camp.
During the working time, flogging was used daily. Until the end of the camp it occurred very frequently in the single commandos, and barbaric actions of all kinds took place during the whole working period. The SS-Scharfuehrer carried out such things very often.
Part of the work that had to be carried out in concentration camps was sensible. Part of it, however, was senseless, entirely without sense. Not too seldom, particularly prior to the time when the working capacity of the inmates was used for the re-armament of the SS, for instance, to build walls with bricks or tiles, the walls had to be built and then removed again, and that happened up to fifteen or twenty times, so that the ininmates received a feeling of absolute, irresistable torture.
They had the impression that the only reason behind everything was to destroy them.
These senseless jobs that we had there were reduced to a minimum in the course of the war. They became more and more rare. They were used only as a sort of punishment and it was inflicted only on certain people.
Essential work was carried out by the concentration camp inmates, under the unimaginable pressure under which they were all the time, if they could in a sort of hesitating manner. In the concentration camps it was generally the idea to work with the eyes and to work as little as possible with the hands. That is, we had to watch out if a Scharfuehrer or, perhaps, even a SSKommandofuehrer or one of the numerous Capos approached.
There were, of course, quite a few good capos who shut one eye and didn't see certain things. They went through the danger that they themselves be mutilated or punished by the SS for their lack of attentiveness, that is if they were kind-hearted toward one of our comrades.
Jobs were various ones, agriculture, gardening, pit commandos, canalization, building of garages, building of barracks, building of roads, building of houses, and inner commando workshops, tailor shops, shoemaker shops, carpenter shops, sculpture, painting, goldsmiths, silversmiths and photo department. In other words, there were very many jobs, or rather there was hardly any job that wasn't carried out for the SS.
The main aim of the inmates consisted of the following: In the course of time, either through bribery or through connections within the rows, the ranks of comrades, it was their aim to get into a commando where there were the two special privileges, namely fire and a roof over the head. The food situation, which we had for years, and to be exact up until the very end, that was a very bad condition which we had to work under, and under this constant psychic pressure one could hardly carry out the work, for years, the work which was carried out outside of the camp. I know from a great number of comrades of only one who was in the concentration camp for a period of over six years and worked in an outside commando for such a long time. Most of them either died or then in the course of time were transferred to better commandos.
They wanted fire because it distributed heat and because in summer one could have certain privileges, frequently cooking if someone could steal potatoes some place, illegally, of course, and the roof which protected us from the weather.
Q. Witness, you are familiar with the Klinker-Werks in Berlstedt?
A. In Buchenwald there were no klinker works. In Sachsenhausen the works of the DEST were there.
At our camp at Buchenwald there was a clay pit which belonged to the DEST. I know that the DEST had such works at quite a number of concentration camps, particularly quarries, clay pits or tile factories, brick factories. The clay pit, Berlstedt, near Buchenwald, was a punitive detail. As an average approximately three to four and hundred and fifty inmates worked there at a time under very difficult conditions. For instance, the people were in the water up to their stomachs all day long, and their food, as it used to be in the punitive details, was very scarce and very little and not enough, and many of them died there. When we returned from those Arbeitskommandos, I forgot to mention before, the end of the day, then the music was played again. The band was playing when we walked in without our caps on at the parade ground. We had to stand at attention there after we had dropped the stone at some spot as we had been told to do, and we had to stand all through the evening roll call. The evening roll call usually took very, very long. The average was approximately, to be exact prior to '42, '4, it was very seldom under two hours. From then on at Buchenwald at least it lasted between three-quarters of an hour to five-quarters of an hour, an hour and a half.
The counting up was done then, and then the punishments were carried out, or part of the punishments, particularly the whipping, which was very, very frequent. The numbers were called up, and sometimes one, sometimes thirty of the inmates. Sometimes corrective punishment, every tenth person, for instance, was given. The people had to go up to the gate. On the left-hand side of the gate there was a stone heap, a stone pile, and then they were placed on a special wooden tripod which had some sort of percussion cap on which the inmate had to lie down. Their feet were pulled toward the inside so that their lower part was sticking out, and then two Scharfuehrers came in either with whips or long sticks, and then they started paying out, as nice as that expression went, "to pay out."
The flogging usually consisted ordinarily of whipping and consisted of between five to twenty-five whippings. Sometimes the inmates were placed there naked. In most of the cases they had to count along with the SS-Scharfuehrer everytime the stroke went on. It occurred sometimes that they made a mistake in their counting, and then they started all over again from the very beginning.
Every such punishment had to be O.K.'d by Berlin. After the capo of the matter had sent their request in to Berlin, it was usage in the concentration camp for a long time to beat the inmate first, as I had mentioned before, and only then to send the request to Berlin. Then the request came back in most of the cases O.K.'d, and the punishment was inflicted all over again in the same manner as described before. The camp physician had to give his O.K. as to the general condition of the inmate, whether he could take the punishment or not. From my long experience in the concentration camp I only know of one case where the camp physician, during such a discussion, raised an objection and the punishment was interrupted.
The people who had been beaten then came down from the stones, or they were pulled down if they couldn't get down. They had to made push-ups, up to one hundred push-ups, so that their muscles came into action again, and then they were kicked back into our ranks and then songs were sung. Songs were also sung during the flogging or whipping, and only then the order came, "Break up the ranks." Then we received the food that had become cold in the meantime.
Then we had the so-called time off, half an hour or threequarters of an hour, during which time one had to fix his clothes or shine his shoes or to take care of the smaller chores to be taken care of in the block. By that time most of them collapsed in their cots.
Part of the inmates had to work or keep on working immediately after roll call without having received any food, and sometimes right into the night. It occurred sometimes, that is up to the time when a general blackout was ordered due to air raids, that they had to work in the spotlight up to two o'clock in the morning.
That was carried out by certain categories of inmates who then had to get up again at four o'clock or five o'clock and start working all over again. That, generally speaking, was the course of the day in a concentration camp.
I only have to add at this present moment that there were commandos who were definitely better off than these average inmates. I know here there will be more and more inmates who will be able to testify that they themselves weren't badly off in the camps. I have to say the same thing about myself for the last two years and a half. However, right next to me there were incredible and unimaginable things happening. Hundreds of people died. There were commandos who had a lack of nothing, except for food, of course, who were better off than we were or even better off than the population outside of the concentration camp, but that was a very small group of people, as the people who worked in SS stores or their kitchens or who worked immediately with SS people. I have gone through so many instances where inmates, even during their captivity, said right in front of SS barbaric actions that they were doing fine, that they were very well off, that the SS people were very nice to them. It has occurred several times where SS leaders or SS people had certain jobs to do, or who had been grouped with these inmates, or were interested in receiving something special for themselves through the inmates, or then they were just in a good mood and treated somebody well. Although they sometimes flogged the people to death, and although they participated in those executions and wilful killings every day they could still be nice to other people.
Q. Now, this clay pit which you have testified was under DEST was located at Berlstedt, was it not?
A. Yes, that is correct. It was part of DEST.
Q. Berlstedt was a short distance from Buchenwald?
A. Yes, a very short distance from Buchenwald, approximately three kilometers in the northern part of Buchenwald.
Q. Now, I think you have probably described well enough the various types of work in a concentration camp. Can you tell us anything about the occasions for punishment in a concentration camp?