First in the Vale of Afflictions

First in the Vale of Affliction: SlovakianJewish Women in Auschwitz, 1942

Yehoshua R. BuchlerMoreshet Archives, Tel Aviv, Israel

Young Jewish women from Slovakia ware among the first contingents ofJews sent to Auschwitz. They became the vanguard first for young men.then families, and finally all Jews from Slovakia; the result of intimatecooperation between a satellite state and the German Reich, the Slovakiandeportations served as a model for what would happen in other countries.Widespread evasion of the transports availed the victims little in the longrun; later in Auschwitz and its daughter camp Birkenau, Slovak Jewishwomen would also seek to evade the relentless machinery of the FinalSolution, and with just as little success. Their determination to survive,however, sometimes expressed through informal networks of womencoming from the same places, in many cases bore fruit. It was subse-quently charged that some of the survivors had cooperated with the ad-ministration in order to gain the. advantages that helped them hold out;in numerous cases, however, it was precisely those who had had someauthority within the camp social structure who had proven best able tohelp the defenseless.

Deportations from Slovakia: Decisions and ImplementationReinhard Heydrich, until his assassination one of the principal figures in shaping theHolocaust, remarked at the Wannsee Conference: "In Slovakia and Croatia the mat-ter is no longer too difficult, as the most essential, central problems in this respecthave already been brought to a solution there." Heydrich was referring to "evacuationoperations," Le., the deportation of Jews from these two countries.1

Heydrich knew what he was talking about. At that time, Slovakian and Germangovernment officials were discussing the deportation of Jews from Slovakia to occu-pied Poland. The Slovakian administration s eagerness to effect the "solution of theJewish problem" was evident even in the preparations for the Wannsee Conference.It meshed smoothly with the Nazis' overall strategy in the implementation of theFinal Solution.*

Heydrich energetically sought a convenient environment in which to set thewheels of the deportation trains in motion. The Slovakian authorities were willing to

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make their country the first German satellite from which Jews could be deported.German decision-makers accepted with satisfaction the Slovakian extremists' ambi-tion to banish the Jews. The eviction of the Jews from Slovakia was well tailored totheir schemes, both in its timing and in terms of the operation itself. The plans, asunveiled at the Wannsee Conference, could be carried out within a relatively shorttime—about two months.3 The Germans did not hesitate. The transports from Slo-vakia were set in motion and Heydrich claimed another accomplishment

However, the haste of the Slovakian leaders and SS commanders to deport Jewsfrom Slovakia caused much disorder and forced officials to improvise. Several organi-zational and technical problems disrupted their schedule slightly, and they found itdifficult to set goals. None of this, however, affected the overall implementation ofthe policy as set forth at the highest echelons.*4 Deportations from Slovakia beganearlier than expected. Slovakian Jews were among the first to be transported to exter-mination camps. Between March 5 and October 20, 1942, fifty-seven deportationtrains left Slovakia: thirty-eight to the Lublin district and nineteen, bearing 18,600Jews, to Auschwitz.5

The First To GoSome researchers believe the deportation of Slovakian Jewry proceeded so rapidlybecause of German demands to mobilize Slovakian labor for the war economy inthe Reich. Since the Slovakians were unable—or perhaps unwilling—to meet theGermans' demands, they bruited the possibility of supplying 20,000 young Jews in-stead of the Slovakian workers whom the Germans wanted. Those who espouse thisversion credit the idea to Dr. Isidor Koso, Chief of die Presidium of the SlovakianMinistry of the Interior, which administered Department 14, which dealt with Jewishaffairs. Gila Fatran writes in this respect "A rare opportunity arose to solve twocardinal problems that greatly troubled the administration in one sagacious stroke:To offer the Germans Jews instead of the Slovakian workers whom they had sought"*Because the minutes of the discussions among officials in the Slovakian administra-tion and the German authorities have not yet been found, this version rests on hearsayand postwar testimony in the trials of persons involved. However a cable from MartinLuther, Head of the Germany Department of the German Foreign Ministry, to theGerman Ambassador in Bratislava, dated March 16,1942, states that the Governmentof Germany agreed to admit 20,000 young Jews from Slovakia.7 This document, how-ever, lends itself to more than one interpretation and defies any unequivocal infer-ence, especially since another document in our possession implies that the deporta-tion of 20,000 young Jews from Slovakia took place at the request of Germany. Thelatter document shows that once the deportation of the young Jews was completed,the Germans intended to continue "evacuating" die remaining 70,000.*

The Nazis presumably intended the young Jews to serve as a "vanguard'* forthose remaining^ and for Jews in other countries, on their way to extermination. How-

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ever, they first meant to assign them to the back-breaking task of building the infra-structure of two death camps, Auschwitz and Majdanek. Nearly all of them wereamong the first victims of the mass-murder system that Heydrich had proposed atthe Wannsee Conference and that Himmler had outlined at approximately the sametime: murder by means of labor.*

The Deportation of Young WomenThe agreement to deport Slovakian Jewry was evidently concluded by die Slovakianauthorities and representatives of Germany in the first half of February 1942. Theyintended first to deport 20,000 able-bodied Jews—7,000 girls and young women and13,000 young men—and later all the rest10

The organizational preparations for internment and deportation were alreadycompleted in the first half of March 1942. On March 12, Department 14 of the Inter-ior Ministry forwarded instructions to county executives and commanders of districtpolice headquarters concerning the Jews "designated for labor." Lists of Jews slatedfor deportation were attached. Mobilization orders were enclosed for distributionamong the Jews by local audiorities. The camps to which die Jews were to be sentand the dates of dieir transfer were also specified.11

Concurrently, die audiorities instructed the commanders of two camps set upfor this purpose to gather the Jews there pending deportation from Slovakia. Organi-zational and technical measures "to ensure d i a t . . . transports cross die border in anorderly fashion" were set forth in a circular dated March 12,1942."

The lists of designated deportees were compiled by Interior Ministry officialson die basis of more complete lists and statistical data drawn up earlier by membersof die Jewish Center. As agreed, die deportation was to include women aged 18-35.When Interior Ministry officials updated die lists and found diat diey could not attaindie number of women stipulated, die age direshold was lowered to girls of 16.u

The first round-up was scheduled for March 21, 1942. Beginning on diat day,die young women were transferred to die Patronka camp on die outskirts of Brati-slava (for women from western and central Slovakia) and die Poprad camp (easternand northern Slovakia)." The deportees were made to report to diese centers in waysdiat varied from place to place. Because diese facts had a bearing on die deportationprocess, it is worth devoting a few lines to diem.

The Slovakian administration, especially in die provinces, was not noted forexcessive commitment to obeying instructions from die central audiorities. Therewas considerable latitude for local initiative, leading to occasional deviations from dierules set forth by die policymakers. Akhough die Interior Ministry issued specificinstructions for summoning Jews for deportation, not all localities followed diem. Forexample, according to the circular of March 12,1942, issued by die head of Depart-ment 14, local audiorities were to deliver die summonses to die prospective depor-tees shortly before transfer to die deportation center so as "to exploit die factor of

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surprise and prevent desertions."15 It seems that the orders were not implementedprecisely in many localities. In several places, die summonses were distributedtwenty-four hours in advance. In some cities and towns the order to report was issuedpublicly, by means of outdoor notices or announcements by the town crier, one dayor even two days before the appointed date. Reports of the planned "concentration"of young people spread to remote localities, where women had not been included inthe first round. In these places, individuals were able to consider how to respond.16

As it happened, these facts had a considerable impact on the Jews' response tothe menace of deportation. In the time between the publication of the summons andits implementation, Jews took organized action—mainly spontaneous and local—toevade. Families' efforts to save a daughter or sister from deportation should not beconstrued as resistance activity in the accepted sense, but rather flowed chiefly fromtraditionalism and a highly developed sense of family ties. The authorities' intentionto transfer adolescent girls to unknown destinations caused severe anxiety and panicamong the remaining family members. Although Slovakian Jewry was strongly pre-disposed to respect the law and obey die audiorities' instructions, notices aboutdie deportation of girls triggered immediate counter-reactions, mostiy spontaneous,meant to foil die decree.

As we have seen, rumors of die intention to deport Jews from Slovakia spreadeven before preparations were complete. Evidendy, Jewish public functionaries andyoudi-movement activists also circulated diem. The question, however, is to whatextent die Jewish public assimilated such information, or whedier die reports of dieimpending deportation were confined to die elite circle of Jewish leaders and dioseclose to diem. Because diis complex issue has not yet been dioroughly explored, nounequivocal conclusion may be drawn. One should not disregard die activity of sev-eral organized entities diat may have emerged soon after die rumors.17 Most of dieinitiatives, however, were taken from below, by families or resourceful individuals.18

After die intention to deport became known, Jewish families faced a severedilemma; to obey die order or, to help dieir daughters escape, exploit vacuums leftby die audiorities. As we review die decisions of Jews whose daughters faced deporta-tion, we should take several factors into account

a) Until tiien, die Jews of Slovakia had not experienced die trauma of depor-tation;

b) The organizers of die deportation direatened to deport die entire family ofwomen who failed to report;

c) To allay die Jews' fears, Slovakian officials spread rumors diat die youngwomen would be put to work for a fixed period and dien return to dieir homes.19

Nonedieless, many concerned families began to seek places of shelter for dieirdaughters or to send diem to relatives elsewhere until die danger had passed. Anodierway of avoiding deportation was hasty marriage, usually dirough fictitious nuptials.This seemed a reasonable option in view of die organizers' stated intent to draft onlysingle men and women for labor."

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In contrast, crossing into Hungary—an effective way to evade deportation—be-came frequent only after the first round of transports. The flow to Hungary intensifiedafter deportation of families began and reports on the deportees' fate started to filterback into Slovakia.

By virtue of the families' refusal and of rescue initiatives, only 4,000 of the 7,000young women designated for deportation reported to the transit centers; the restbecame "absentees." In the Michalovce district of eastern Slovakia, 629 girls had beenordered to report and only 126 did so; in Presov district, only 305 of approximately600 were deported. This pattern was especially evident in the town of Michalovce,where several hundred young women had been ordered to report and only seventeencomplied.*1 The trend was amply demonstrated by a letter dated March 30, 1942,from the head of the Giraltovce district to the Interior Ministry. The author explainedthat his men had managed to deliver to the camp only 28 people: T h e remainder arescattered in forests or have found hiding places in remote localities," he confessed,noting that "there are also Aryan families that are hiding Jewesses." Attached to theletter is a list of more than one hundred women "absentees" from the town of Giral-tovce.** By bribing the district medical officer, the Bardejov community's leaders, par-ticularly its head, Raphael Lowi, managed to obtain a document confirming that anepidemic had broken out among the Jews of the locality and that the deportationfrom Bardejov had been postponed to a different date.23

Escaping the first round of deportations did not necessarily guarantee survival.Most of the young women whose deportation was deferred were later annexed tofamily transports and eventually delivered to Auschwitz or extermination camps inthe Lublin area. However, at this early phase of the "Final Solution" most of theJewish community remained unaware that families would follow in their wake.

Concentration and DeportationIn view of the limited capacity of the two deportation camps, the plans envisionedthree rounds of arrests and transfers. Transfer from the concentration centers in theprovincial towns, which began on March 21,1942, took place according to geographi-cal division. The first to reach the Poprad camp, on the slopes of the lofty Tatra moun-tains, were young women from the Presov district (SariS-Zemphn) in northeasternSlovakia. Concurrently, women from the Bratislava district were taken to the camp atPatronka. Once the deportation from these districts was completed, roundups ofwomen in other districts were to take place."

The young women were delivered to the deportation camps directly from theirhomes and families. This basic fact was especially significant in terms of the psycho-logical effect of separation from family and the conditions that prevailed in the Slo-vakian deportation camps and, subsequently, in Auschwitz. After the young womenreached the deportation camps, the guards appropriated some of the personal posses-sions that they had been allowed to bring. Members of the fascist Hlinka Guard sub-jected the internees to coarse, humiliating treatment. Behavior toward the women

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was especially brutal in Patronka, where the commander, the fanatically antisemiticgardist, Imrich Vasina, subjected internees to violence and looted their personal pos-sessions.*8

The young women in the first transports from Slovakia were representative ofyoung Slovakian Jewish women as a whole. A conspicuously large number of womenwho had been sent to Poprad came from villages and towns, corresponding to thedistribution of the Jewish population of eastern Slovakia. Most of the women camefrom the lower sodoeconomic classes, and most belonged to large traditional Ortho-dox or haredi (Ultraorthodox) families. In some cases, two or even three sisters fromone family were included in the first transports to Auschwitz. The largest age cohortwas the 16-21 group, to which more than 50 percent of the deportees belonged. Thesecond-largest (27 percent) was 21-26. About 23 percent of the women deportees inthe first transports from Poprad were over the age of 26."

An exception was the large group of 300 young women brought to Poprad fromPreSov, where the Jewish population was more diverse. The profile resembled that ofthe young women from western Slovakia who had been deported from the Patronkacamp. Jews in the western and central districts of Slovakia differed from those ofeastern Slovakia in their concentration in urban localities and their looser commit-ment to religion and tradition . The women in the transports that left Patronka wereolder than those deported from Poprad, because they married later in life and be-cause a higher proportion of Jewish women in western Slovakia remained single. InPatronka, too, however, the cohort up to age 21 was the largest, at about 40 percentof the deportees, but 20 percent of the deportees were single women over the age of32. One fourth of the women in the transports that left from Patronka were aged21-25.27 Roughly half of those Jewish women in the first transports to Auschwitz wereaged 16-21.

All preparations for the deportation of the Jews of Slovakia were completed onMarch 25, 1942. At eight o'clock that evening, Reich Security Main Office (RSHA)Transport No. 1 left the Poprad station for Auschwitz with 1,000 young womenaboard. The deportations had begun.28 Before the Jewish women boarded the depor-tation train, Dieter Wisliceny, Eichmann s aide in Bratislava who held the position ofadvisor on Jewish affairs, addressed them on the platform. He had played an activerole in all the planning and preparatory stages and monitored the deportations closely.According to the testimony of survivors, he stressed that they were being transportedto Germany for labor and would be taken home after they had finished their duties.88

Wisliceny s remarks merely jumbled the emotions of the women awaiting de-portation. Manifestations of anxiety and depression, caused by separation from theirfamilies and their treatment in the camp, were partially repressed. Feelings of hard-ship were overcome, for the time being, by the natural optimism of young people("hard work is nothing to be afraid of") and the vain hope of returning after a tempo-rary labor assignment—fueled by misinformation disseminated by the organizers of


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the deportation. Several deportees later described an atmosphere of a trip to summercamp when the transports set out Girls from the same youth groups and graduatingclasses met on the platforms. In the railroad cars, friends from youth movements,women from the same towns, and members of common extended families bandedtogether. When the two deportation trains at the stations of Poprad and Lamac beganto move, songs in Hebrew and Slovakian emanated from several cars.30 For many ofthe women aboard, this was the first journey outside Slovakia.

The second round of call-ups began immediately after the first transports haddeparted (see Appendix). Dispatch of young women began on March 28, 1942. Be-cause so many women had evaded the first summonses, raids and searches were con-ducted this time. To fill the quota, several women over the specified age were in-cluded in the two transports, one that left Patronka on April 1, and one Poprad thenext day.31

The third round of deportations, intended to fill the next two transports, nevertook place. There were two reasons: the Slovaks were unable to identify and mobilizeenough young women to make up additional transports, and a substantive changetook place among those implementing the operation. On March 24, 1942, the Ger-mans evidently informed the Slovakian Government that they were willing to re-ceive not only able-bodied young Jews but also transports including entire families.This change in the formula of "20,000 able-bodied Jews" was presumably the resultof additional developments. The Germans knew that the Slovakian fascists werestruggling to fill the transports. Both had an interest in keeping the transports moving.Moreover, the Germans were worried, by attempts from various sides to intervene.Of greatest concern were measures taken by the Vatican, which might disrupt theoperation.32 This explains why the Nazis consented to stop splitting up families. Toprepare for the change in the composition of the transports, a redeployment wasneeded and the deportation of young women ceased. The number of young Jewishwomen in the four transports from Slovakia had amounted to approximately 3,760,far fewer than the 7,000 agreed upon between the Germans and Slovakians33

In the Women's Camp at AuschwitzIn early March 1942, targets were set and a schedule prepared for the first twenty

deportation trains from Slovakia. Only then, it seems, was a place chosen and feverish

preparations made to accommodate 7,000 Jewish women. Haste forced the German

executive agencies to improvise solutions, particularly with respect to the transports

of women. At this time, Auschwitz II (Birkenau), designated by Himmler as one of

the main sites in the extermination of European Jewry,34 was still under construction.

Ravensbruck, the only concentration camp for women, was filled to saturation and

could not accommodate additional internees.35 Under these circumstances, it was

presumably the preferred solution to reserve a section of Auschwitz I, a camp desig-

nated for men only, and quickly prepare it to receive the young women from Slovakia.

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In early March 1942, the section of Auschwitz reserved for Soviet war prisoners wasliquidated, and its remaining inmates, along with some of the camp prisoners, trans-ferred to Birkenau to make room.

On March 8,1942, construction of a high concrete wall began along the row ofnewly vacated blocks, numbered one to ten. The wall partitioned Auschwitz I intotwo sectors, of which the smaller became the women's camp.* Five of the buildingswere equipped to house Jewish prisoners, two were set aside for Aryans. Block 1 wasused by the camp administration, Block 2 became a reception facility, and Block 3was supposed to house an infirmary.37 It was clear from the start that a block designedfor 400-500 prisoners would have to house at least 1,500. The inevitable congestionwas part of the plan, for such ratios were an important component of the methodused in Nazi concentration camps. On March 26,1942, when the first Jewish womenreached the camp, die facility was not yet ready to receive them.

In addition to the infrastructure problems that accumulated shortly before thearrival of the transports from Slovakia, difficulties arose in matters of administrationand formalities. When the women's division of Auschwitz was opened, it was adminis-tratively attached to die commander of Ravensbruck, Max Koegl, and was consideredan external camp of his,38 an "enclave" of RavensbrGck within the area commandedby Rudolf H6ss, a man of especially high stature among concentration-camp com-manders. A group of German women prisoners was transferred from Ravensbriick toAuschwitz in order to fill various internal administrative functions and integrate dieJewish prisoners, expected shortly, into the "camp routine." Concurrendy, a team ofSS supervisors—headed by chief supervisor Johanna Langenfeld—was dispatchedfrom RavensbrQck to manage die camp.39 Notwithstanding die SS supervisors' ex-treme cruelty toward prisoners in general and Jewish prisoners in particular, some ofthe supervisors, especially Langenfeld, brought with diem some of die patterns andmentalities diat had prevailed in Ravensbriick and stressed order over cruelty. Thiswas particularly evident in procedural affairs, which were different from diose ofAuschwitz.

Chief supervisor Langenfeld, unlike Auschwitz commander Hoss, was evidendyoblivious to die true purpose of Auschwitz as conceived by die architects of die FinalSolution. She intended to run die women's facility of Auschwitz I along die lines of"classical" concentration camps, in which most prisoners were not Jewish. The re-sulting tension between HSss and Langenfeld would eventually bring about die undo-ing of die latter.*1 H5ss, updated regularly by Himmler, strove to separate die wom-en's camp from Ravensbriick and bring it under his audiority. When Himmler visitedAuschwitz on July 17-18,1942, his wish was fulfilled. Himmler, who personally re-viewed die camp procedures, haH already decided diat the women's camp should beconverted for its true goal—extermination.41

The deportation of die first thousand women from Slovakia marked die begin-ning of a new chapter in die history of die Holocaust. The transport diat left Popradon March 25,1942, was die first in a lengdiy series of trains dispatched to Auschwitz


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by RSHA Bureau IV B4, headed by Adolf Eichmann.42 As we review the transportsfrom Slovakia to Auschwitz in 1942, we discern several trends, reflected in the com-position of the transports, themselves a direct outcome of deportation policy. Thegradual change in the composition of the transports points to an escalation in thedeportation of Jews and a transition from selective deportation (able-bodied youngadults only) in the early stages to total deportation (including children and the elderly)later on. As we see below, the fate of the deportees after arrival in Auschwitz waslargely a function of the composition of die transports and the dates of their dispatch.

The first four transports from Slovakia, between March 25 and April 3, 1942,delivered approximately 3,760 teenage and young adult women to Auschwitz. Allwere directly transferred to the camp upon arrival.43 The next seven transports, be-tween April 13 and June 20,1942, contained 7,063 deportees, mostly single men andwomen and able-bodied childless couples. Again, most of them were sent to thecamp. To fill the quota, several families with children were attached to two transportsin this group, which reached Auschwitz on April 29 and June 20. After they arrived,mothers with young children were separated from the other deportees, quarantinedin a special barracks, and murdered some time later. The camp authorities dissemin-ated a rumor to the effect that they had been transferred to the Lublin camp.*1

Eight deportation trains that left Slovakia between July 3 and October 20,1942,delivered entire families to Auschwitz: 7,887 men, women, children, and the elderly.When the first transport in this group reached Auschwitz on July 4, 1942, the first"selection on die ramp" took place, after which 372 deportees were moved into thecamp and the remaining 628 murdered From then on, SS selections were conductedfor all transports; only about one-third of the Slovakian deportees survived them andwere sent to the camp.45

Thus, nineteen transports made the trip from Slovakia to Auschwitz in 1942,bearing 18,587 Jews. The SS conducted selections for eight of these. Approximately5,900 deportees were killed immediately upon arrival. The remainder, 5,637 men and7,153 women, were transferred to the camp. (See Appendix.)

Whenever the history of Jewish women from Slovakia in Auschwitz is reviewed,the focus is mainly on die first four transports, diose of late March and early April1942. However, Table 1 shows that this group constitutes only about half of all Jewishwomen from Slovakia sent to Auschwitz. The others arrived between April and Octo-ber 1942. Although the two groups had much in common and, by virtue of necessity,soon became a more or less uniform and close-knit group, diey exhibited severaldistinguishing features, principally age and marital status: those in the first transportswere all teenagers and young women, nearly all were single. The second group in-cluded somewhat older women. (There were instances of mothers and daughtersin die camp alongside each odier.) Conspicuous in die second group were marriedwomen who had been deported together witih their husbands, some of whom wereinterned in the nearby men's camp.4" These indicators, along widi die timing of diearrival, had considerable bearing on die prisoners' prospects of winning dieir struggle

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Transports from Slovakia to Auschwitz In 1942 and the Number of Woman WhoEntered th« Camp from Each Transport, by Month

Women Prisoners EnteringDate of Arrival the Camp Monthly Total

March 26March 28

April 2April 3ApriM3ApriM7ApnM9April 23April 24April 29June 20

July 4July 11July 18July 25

August 1

September 19September 23

October 21

Grand total:

999 girls798 girls

965 girls997 girts443 women and girls

27 women and girls536 women and girts457 women and girls558 women and girts300 women and girls

255 women and girls

108 women and girls148 women and girts178 women and girls93 women and girts

75 women and girls

71 women and girts67 women and girls

78 women and girts

7,153 women and girls

March total: 1,797

Apnl total: 4,283

June total: 255

July total: 527

August total: 75

September total: 138

October total: 78

Sourct of datt cud catalogue of deportees from Sovatii, MW Vtahem Archive JM 10675-10694 et *L, Katendirium (see n. 35)

for survival. The fact that more women survived from the first transports, which in-cluded mainly young women, than from later transports speaks for itself. Further-more, insofar as one can estimate, most of the women who were deported from Slo-vakia to Auschwitz in 1942 and survived had arrived in the two first transports.47

Precise data on the number of prisoners in Auschwitz is lacking because theNazis destroyed most of the evidence and documents that might have revealed thepurposes of this facility before they evacuated. Scholars have attempted to apply vari-ous research techniques to generate statistical information on manpower in thecamps. Despite the problems in obtaining reliable data, cross-tabulation of sourcesmakes possible estimates that probably approximate the realities.*8

During its first three months, the women's division in Auschwitz had no Jewishprisoners other than those from Slovakia (Table 2). As we shall see, this affected thestatus of those internees from Slovakia who managed to survive. By the end of June1942, approximately 6,340 Jewish internees, all from Slovakia, had been registered inthe women's division, as had another 1,600 non-Jewish women. During this time,Jewish women from Slovakia accounted for about 80 percent of prisoners in the wom-en's wing of Auschwitz.48

In late June 1942, the first transports from other countries were brought toAuschwitz, initially from France, the Netherlands, and Belgium. (See Table 2) From

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labf«2Jewish Prisoners at th« Woman's Camp In Auschwitz Pending transfer to Birkenau.by Counliy of Depot lallonJewish prisoners from-Month Slovakia France Netherlands Belgium

March 1942 1,797April 1942 6,080May 1942 6,000June 1942 6,400 100July 1942 6,500 2,900 1,417August 1942 6,370 3,783 1,902 319

early July until the women prisoners were transferred to Birkenau (beginning on Au-gust 6), the proportion of Slovalcian Jewish women among Jewish prisoners decreasedto about 55 percent. An estimated 12,000 Jewish internees were transferred from thewomen's division of Auschwitz to the women's camp in Birkenau—6,200 from Slo-vakia, 3,500 from France, 1,700 from the Netherlands, and 350 from Belgium—aswere about 2,000 non-Jewish prisoners.50 From March 1942, when the women's divi-sion was opened, until the end of that year, more than 18,000 registered prisonerswere murdered or otherwise perished in Auschwitz and Birkenau.51 The victims in-cluded approximately 6,700 Jewish women from Slovakia. Nearly 40 percent of diewomen victims in Auschwitz in 1942 were Slovakian Jews.

Consequently, within a period of about nine months, 92 percent of Jewishwomen from Slovakia who had registered in diis camp either were murdered or diedin odier ways. As Table 2 shows, mortality occurred primarily after transfer to Birk-enau, in the four months between the second half of August and late December 1942.On January 1,1943,5,367 women prisoners were enumerated in the women's camp atBirkenau; at approximately the same time only 600-650 Jewish women from Slovakiaremained alive in the entire Auschwitz complex.58 Table 2 shows that all Jewish in-ternees in the women's camp in Auschwitz were from Slovakia during the first threemonths of the camp's existence. Of approximately 8,000 women internees registered inAuschwitz in late June 1942, nearly 6,400—about 80 percent—came from Slovakia.

The Ladies from RavensbrtidcOn March 26, 1942, several hours before the arrival of the first transport of youngJewish women from Slovakia, several dozen SS supervisors and 999 German womenprisoners came to Auschwitz from die Ravensbruck camp. Most were "asocials"—prostitutes, criminals, and internees of die "penalty block"—plus a few politicals andJehovah's Witnesses. (Members of die last two had volunteered for various reasons.)The transport also included a certain number of special prisoners whom t ie supervi-sors wished to take widi diem to Auschwitz.33

In his memoirs, Auschwitz commander Rudolf Hoss noted that "Ravensbrucklooked about and found die 'elite' for Auschwitz." He defined most of die German

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women as depraved and corrupt creatures. Other sources also indicate that the com-mander of Ravensbruck exploited the transport to Auschwitz to cleanse his camp"troublemakers." Many of these women had stood out for their uninhibited and sadis-tic behavior, some were mentally disturbed. According to H6ss, Himmler consideredsuch prisoners very well suited to the function of Kapo over Jewish women.54 Asstated, they were to fill positions in the internal administration of the new women'scamp. The Nazis scoured the entire camp system to track down individuals who, bymeans of incentives, favors, and false promises, became tools in their captors" hands.The SS even exploited national sentiments to build a network of collaborators, includ-ing some of the women in the Ravensbriick transport. Orli Reichert, a political pris-oner in the transport, provides an instructive illustration in her memoirs, an SS officerwho appealed to the patriotic sentiments of a group of German prisoners, saying:"Look, you are German women. Help us kill the Jews, and you'll eventually go free."35

Margitte Schwalb, a Jewish doctor from Slovakia, confirms this attitude in her mem-oirs. The doctor of the women's camp, an SS officer named Mayer, told die Germanwoman Kapos who reported to him, "Ihr seid deutsche Frauen und habtfreie Hand

ilber das JudengesindeT (You are German women and you have a free hand overthe Jewish rabble).58 Orli Reichert writes that some of the German prisoners weresusceptible to such appeals. She describes a young German Kapo who, in the initialperiod of the camp, was in charge of a group of Jewish women building a road. Be-cause of her exceptional brutality this Kapo was nicknamed Engdmacherin, i.e., onewho murders children entrusted to her protection. According to Reichert, no one inthe detail remained ahve a week later: her boundless cruelty had led to die death ofall the Jewish prisoners.57

Rudolf H6ss says the German women Kapos: "were much worse than die maleKapos. They were more unfeeling, ruthless, base, and corrupt than [die m e n ] . . . .One could understand that diese she-animals would vent their fury on die prisonersin dieir charge, but one could not prevent it."98 Much evidence confirms Hdss's de-scription of the German women Kapos. Most important, die fate of Jewish womeninternees was very much in dieir hands. The women from Slovakia were the first tofall into dieir clutches.

Notwidistanding the ordeals that all inmates of Auschwitz endured, diere wasa fundamental difference between die Nazis' treatment of Jewish prisoners and otherinternees. The difference originated in die Nazi racist dogma, which carried die cleardistinction between Jews and non-Jews even to the midst of the extermination camps.The administrative practices and living conditions in die camps created vast disparit-ies Jewish and other prisoners.

Via DolorosaThe purpose of Auschwitz, for all Jews, was extermination, even diose who passed

preliminary selection and were registered as inmates. They, too—some sooner, odiers


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later—were marked for the same fate that befell those murdered upon arrival. ADelements in the daily lives of Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz-Birkenau were plannedand orchestrated with this goal in mind.

Even so, several thousand Jewish prisoners of Auschwitz, and possibly severaltens of thousands, managed to survive. Some of them endured more than two yearsin the extermination camp. Some Jewish women from Slovakia endured Auschwitzfor two and a half years, a smaller group for nearly three.

How they managed to survive is too complex an issue to discuss in the contextof this article. Here I wish merely to illuminate one aspect of the struggle in order torepresent the Via Dolorosa of all Jewish in the camps.

The method practiced at the death factory of Auschwitz was preconceived tohumiliate the prisoners and bring about their total surrender from the moment theyentered. It was designed to destroy the prisoners' dignity by snapping their ethicalspine, stripping them of their identity, and eclipsing their humanity.

The prisoners in Auschwitz bore the scars of admission throughout their ago-nies in the camp. They were deeply engraved in the souls of those who managed tosurvive. The shock that seized the internees upon entering the camp—the shock ofviolence, intimidation, and harassment—are described graphically in most testimo-nies. In these admission procedures, and in other horrors that the Nazis introducedin Auschwitz, the young Jewish women in the first transports from Slovakia servedthe Nazis as guinea pigs.

Newly arrived women walked to the camp area carrying their belongings fromthe point of disembarkation, not far from the Auschwitz railroad station. In the admis-sions building their belongings were taken from them. They were forced to strip.Their hair was shorn,.their entire bodies were shaved, and they were made to washin a large basin of filthy water. All of this was done to the shouts and beatings by theGerman women prisoners.

The next steps were registration and distribution of clothing—a man's shirt,Red Army uniforms (used, filthy, bloodstained, buttonless), and a pair of woodenclogs. This attire elicited disgust, embarrassment, and anxiety among the "newcom-ers" (Zugange in camp slang). The shaven heads, the soiled men's clothing, and, aftera while, the cessation of menstruation as a result of depression and chemical sub-stances introduced in the food, had a purpose of their own: to corrupt die women'sfeminine self-image and thereby magnify the general torment. Vera Alexander, whocame to Auschwitz in the second transport, summarized the admissions procedure inher subsequent testimony, "After that, we ceased to be women."*8

Importantly, the method described here was still evolving. The experience theNazis derived from "handling" the transports from Slovakia permitted them to refinetheir procedures; soon afterwards, when the deportations to Auschwitz became morefrequent, the destructive power of these methods reached its peak.

It should be noted that admission was not implemented in a uniform manner.


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Different groups of prisoners were admitted to the camp via different procedures.Here, too, the Nazis drew a clear distinction in their behavior toward Jewish and non-Jewish prisoners. Yisrael Gutman argues that precisely those people who reached thecamp directly from normal circumstances found it harder to integrate into the campthan those who arrived from ghettos and prisons.* On the other hand, even thoughmost of the young women who were deported from Slovakia had come from relativelynormal circumstances, their memoirs and testimonies suggest that the adjustmentto camp life was not as difficult for them as it was for Jewish women prisoners fromother countries.41

There seem to be several reasons. At first, the regimen and atmosphere in thewomen's division were not those of an extermination camp. Selections inside thecamp had not begun, and the tattooing of prisoners' arms with identification numbers,a traumatic occurrence in itself, had not yet come into vogue.™ Moreover, for the firstthree months, all the Jewish prisoners were young women from Slovakia. Membersof this group had much in common (language, previous acquaintance, and so on),making it easier to unite and form support groups. Their solidarity was an exceedinglyvaluable asset in the adjustment to camp reality; so it was later, too, in the strugglefor survival. Moreover, in their distress, most of the young women from Slovakia seemto have fallen prey to the lies that SS officer Dieter Wisliceny fed them shortly beforedeparture: that they were being taken away for a fixed period of labor, at the endof which they would return home. Following his example, the Slovaks continued todisseminate this fraud.

One presumes that these women's vain hope of returning home after the speci-fied time attenuated their psychological hardship and the difficulty of adjusting tocamp conditions. The attitude that was frequently expressed—The Slovakians havelent us to the Germans for a limited period of time; we'll go home three months orhalf a year from now"83—bolstered their morale when depression struck. The testi-monies suggest that the illusion of homecoming was an important tool in coping withdaily hardships in the initial period, when the women prisoners from Slovakia werestill unaware of the purpose of the camp and had not received information on themass murder already being perpetrated in Auschwitz.64

Their suspicions were aroused on April 29,1942, after a transport bearing sev-eral families with children was taken into the camp but housed separately. Anxietiesmounted when several weeks later the children and their mothers were "transferred'*to a "family camp" in Lublin. The truth came out when workers at the laundry identi-fied clothing of the children from Slovakia among the items they were to wash. Inher memoirs, Julia Skodova provides a detailed account of this dawning. She regardsthe murder of the children and mothers as a milestone, a matter of tragic significancethat the female prisoners did not fully appreciate at the time. Skodova explains:Then, for the first time, the word 'gas' was engraved into our minds after the Germanprisoner in charge of the laundry stated that the clothing had belonged to those who

312 Hdocaust and Genocide Studio

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had been sent to the gas . . . ."" Additional testimonies mention learning the fate of

the children as an especially harsh trauma in the Jewish internees' ordeaL

The arrival of the family transports dashed the illusion of a return to Slovakia.

Rumors to the effect that the Nazis had conducted selections among members of

all transports that reached Auschwitz after Jury 4, 1942,98 marked a further stage in

undermining the inmates' psychological and physical resistance. The new reality

evolving in Auschwitz elicited despair and hopelessness that had a fatal impact on the

endurance of the women, who to some degree had been able to cope with camp

reality until then.

The Women's Camp at Birkenau: The Struggle for SurvivalThe transfer of women from Auschwitz to Birkenau on August 6,1942, is a milestoneof special importance in die implementation of the mass murder of Jews. Two eventsthat preceded this transfer are noteworthy because of their bearing on the transfer.The transfer had been preceded by the first selection (in the conventional sense ofthe term) in die women's camp in Auschwitz. Internees who were unable to marchto the new ramp, or whom t ie SS doctor deemed unfit for work, were separated fromthe other women and murdered. The terrifying specter of selection became part ofroutine life in die women's camp.87

Then systematic murder of most Jews immediately upon arrival at Auschwitzbegan on July 4, 1942, when die first family transport from Slovakia reached thecamp. The murder was preceded by a procedure known as "selection on die Rampe,"

a term diat became a trademark of Auschwitz. From dien on, selection became partof die camp routine and, apart from special cases, was carried out widi all transportsof Jews.48

The difference between Auschwitz and Birkenau was substantive in every re-spect Conditions in die women's camp of Birkenau, which was still under construc-tion at die time of die transfer, were much worse dian those at Auschwitz. All aspectsof life in Auschwitz were radicalized in Birkenau, including cruelty in die treatmentof women prisoners. Those who had anticipated "better" conditions found diemselvesin a place diat, from die very start, was designed as an extermination camp for hun-dreds of thousands of Jews and members of odier peoples.*

The head of die agricultural administration at Auschwitz, SS officer JoachimCaesar, said die following in reference to die transfer of women prisoners to Birk-enau: "The Birkenau camp was in an impossible s ta te . . . . It had no padis or water.Throughout die area, not a well was found that was not contaminated widi cob' bacte-ria, and not a puddle was not swarming widi malaria-bearing anopheles mosqui-toes."70 Indeed, die appalling physical conditions in die camp—catastrophic sanita-tion, nearly total deprivation of water, starvation, back-breaking labor, and generalabuse—spelled disaster for die women prisoners. Terrifying typhus and malaria epi-demics further underscored die barbaric conditions diat prevailed in Birkenau. Nazis

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conducted urgent selections "to eradicate the epidemics" by eradicating the infected.The first month in Birkenau had sealed the fate of most Jewish prisoners. In theautumn and winter of 1942-1943, believed to be the worst period in the history ofthis camp, some 18,000 women, mostly Jewish, were murdered or perished in otherways.71

In an operation to "eradicate the typhus epidemic" in early October, the SSmurdered approximately 6,000 prisoners, mostly Jewish women from Slovakia,including some who were healthy. The last large contingent of young women fromSlovakia was taken to the gas chambers after a selection on December 5,1942. Afterthis date, the Birkenau women's camp housed only a few hundred women from theSlovakian transports.71

This remnant, exhausted and in extreme mental and physical distress, realizedthat perhaps the only way to survive the hell of Birkenau was to secure a relativelyundemanding job or a position in the internal administration of the camp. Several ofthe young women from Slovakia, as the longest-tenured Jewish women internees, hadmanaged to obtain better jobs before leaving the women's division at Auschwitz. Afew were even given a shred of authority in a barracks or a labor detail. The firsttransports from Slovakia had been ordered to choose several among their number forjanitorial duties in their quarters. This position, termed Zimmerka (barracks cleaner)in the jargon of the Slovakian women, was the lowliest position in the internal hierar-chy of the barracks. As the population of women internees mounted, several of themwere appointed to the position of Stubendienst (room orderlies) in the Jewish wom-en's barracks.73

Something similar took place with respect to jobs. The expansion of Auschwitzand its satellites, along with structural changes in the camp, compelled the Nazisto make massive use of prisoner manpower in administrative capacities. These jobs,considered privileged, were usually reserved for non-Jewish prisoners. However, be-cause most of the young Jewish women from Slovakia knew German and had occupa-tional skills, some had already been given such duties in the spring of 1942. Theybecame clerks in various offices, nurses and orderlies in the women's camp infirmary,workers in the warehouse where deportees' looted belongings were stored, and soon.74 Only the privileged few among the Slovakian Jewish women obtained such jobs;most spent their days in backbreaking labor notoriously known as Aussenkommando

("outside labor detail")—demolishing abandoned houses, paving roads, drainingmarshes, and carrying out other infrastructural tasks.75

The prisoners struggled stubbornly to obtain better jobs and alleviate their des-perate plight. In Birkenau, the strenuous effort to secure or hold a superior—i.e.,indoor—job, indeed to secure a job of any kind and thereby ameliorate their suffer-ing, were manifestations of the struggle for survival. Support groups that sprang upamong the prisoners constituted a significant factor in the prospects for survival underthis regimen of extreme psychological and physical deprivation.


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The extermination camp dictated unusual behavior patterns, and the rules ofhuman interaction were reshaped commensurately. Julia Skodova provides an in-structive account of the emergence of support groups among the women prisonersfrom Slovakia in the early period of the camp. This phenomenon, which she terms"the power of local patriotism," came to light after several of the young women fromSlovakia had obtained better jobs—or jobs of any kind. "When one of the girls fromZilinn [a town in Slovakia] was appointed to be a barracks-cleaner, it was clear thatall the Ztmmerka would be from îlina."76 However, Skodovas "local patriotism" wasmultifaceted. Margitte Schwalb, one of the first women in Auschwitz, testified aboutthe formation of support groups among members of Hashomer Hatza'ir who workedin the women's camp infirmary. This group, apart from defending its own interests,set itself the goal of succoring prisoners in distress, often at risk to their own lives.Another support group was organized by religious girls housed in the staff building(Stabsgebaude). The literature offers many examples of such behavior.77

These support groups expressed the prisoners' reaction to the insufferablenorms established by the Nazis in Birkenau. Orli Reichert describes various responsesand the rivalries and intrigues that pervaded the support groups in their struggle forsurvival.78 Indeed, such rivalries often came at the expense of rank-and-file prisoners.Human relations among prisoners in Auschwitz were extremely complex, and theintricacies were blatantly evident both between prisoner groups and among prisonerswithin one group. Primo Levi speaks of "a thousand demarcated units that waged adesperate, surreptitious, and protracted struggle."79 Under the conditions that pre-vailed in Birkenau in the autumn and winter of 1942-1943, the field of choice, includ-ing ethical choice, narrowed to a minimum: the attitude was "every woman forherself,"80 dictating the internees' patterns of behavior and response. Under such cir-cumstances, it is natural that any improvement in living conditions and, in particular,obtaining a less exhausting indoor job—thereby sparing oneself the rampant violenceof the Aussenkommando—became causes of existential importance.

The relentless influx of Jews to Auschwitz that began in the summer of 1942expanded the demand for manpower in administration and services. To fill jobs ofthis kind, prisoners with skills and experience in camp life were needed. By this time,the proportion of Jewish women from Slovakia among the prisoners had dwindledsignificantly, and the (non-Jewish) Polish women prisoners, whose numbers hadmounted, achieved a foothold and acquired positions of power in most of the privi-leged jobs. The Slovakian Jews had to wage a resolute and uncompromising struggleto keep their jobs and obtain any job that was easy. Notably, the struggle took placebetween unequal forces—exhausted, famished Jewish prisoners pitted against Aryanwomen whose status in Birkenau was significantly better. Nevertheless, a substantialnumber managed to attain and retain good jobs, including positions in the camp'sadministration.81

The SS men who ran the camp knew how to exploit these power struggles to

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their own advantage. In certain cases, for reasons of their own, they preferred toaward a job that they considered "sensitive" to none other than a Jewish prisoner.Their reasoning: the Jews' fate was sealed under any circumstances, but an' Aryanprisoner might, under certain conditions, be released from die camp or escape. In-deed, there were cases in which non-Jewish prisoners were liberated from Auschwitz,and several successful getaways are known, mostly Polish men and women.81 There-fore, the Nazis regarded Polish prisoners, including women, as security risks whomight reveal the guarded secrets of die Reich. As a result, Jewish women—especiallyyoung women from Slovakia, who from die Nazi point of view constituted no securityrisk—were given several jobs considered sensitive and, in most cases, offered condi-tions much better than other jobs. Most Slovakian Jewish women who survived thewinter of 1942/43 worked in jobs of this land.83

But even a good job or a preferred position did not assure its holders survival.The fatal typhus epidemic struck privileged prisoners, as indeed SS men and theirfamilies.84 As we discuss the "privileged" Jewish women of Slovakia, we should bearin mind that they were no more dian a few hundred out of die original 7,000-plus. Interms of die status of Jewish prisoners, die young women from Slovakia had undoubt-edly climbed to die highest rungs. This fact did much to create die stigma diat ad-hered to diem in the women's camp.

Almost half of die six hundred Jewish women from Slovakia surviving in Ausch-witz in 1943 held preferred jobs. More dian a hundred were employed in sorting diebelongings appropriated from incoming Jews who had been murdered. This detailwas later nicknamed die "Canada commando."86 Another group of more dian onehundred Jewish teenagers was concentrated in die staff building, where all womenprisoners who worked for die SS were stationed. They included clerks and secretariesin various offices, die political department, t i e post office, die registry of prisoners,and the building administration; those employed at die SS laundry and the sewingworkshops; and approximately fifty young women who worked at die experimentalagricultural station in Rajsko. Because diey were lodged in separate barracks outsidedie women's camp, diey were spared all me abuse diat die camp inmates endured asa matter of routine. Their work entided diem to better conditions dian die odierJewish prisoners enjoyed.89 Starting in die summer of 1942, several score worked indie various agricultural enterprises belonging to die Auschwitz conglomerate. Someof these prisoners were housed in barracks built on die farms, principally at die Har-mensee farm. This group also benefited from better conditions dian diose inBirkenau.87

Most of die Slovakian women who worked in die infirmary met a totally differ-ent fate. They were unable to retain dieir jobs in diis important workplace; according

••toÎargitte Schwalb, diey were displaced after denunciations by Polish prisoners. Inthis struggle for jobs, the Polish women prisoners were helped by counterparts in diemen's camp who had attained positions of power in the Auschwitz heakh system and


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alleged to the Germans that the Jewish women had caused the typhus epidemic. Very

few continued to work in the infirmary and survived.88

The Question of GuiltThe issue of Jewish officials in t i e concentration and extermination camps is one ofthe most complex subjects in Holocaust history. Primo Levi elaborates on this themein his work and confronts it from his own perspective.88 Historians find this an ex-tremely difficult field to probe in depth. The young women from Slovakia were thefirst Jews to obtain positions of authority—albeit minor—in Auschwitz, even beforethey could adapt to the camp's conditions and realized its true purpose. The mannerin which they obtained authority was not uniform. As stated, the first secure ap-pointees were given their duties by their peers. Later on, they obtained position byvirtue of "local patriotism" or because singled out by German prisoners serving astheir supervisors and administrators. However, devotion to the Jewish prisoners alsoplayed a role." Most members of this first round of Slovakian deportee officials didnot hold their jobs for long. The policy was to bar Jews, to the extent possible, fromofficial positions. As long as there were few non-Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz, theGermans had no alternative but to appoint Jewish women, but after the populationof "Aryan" prisoners increased, and after transfer to Birkenau, most of the SlovakianJewish women lost these jobs.

In time, as the proportion of Jewish women in Birkenau grew, several dozenfrom Slovakia were assigned official duties in various sectors because of their campexperience. This trend became especially salient after transports from Hungary beganarriving in spring of 1944.91 Several such women gained high positions, mosdy inadministrative posts that were previously reserved for non-Jews. Thus, for example,Margitte Grossberg-Bachner served as Chief Quartermaster for the SS and is believedto have been the only Jewish prisoner allowed to circulate throughout Auschwitz with-out an SS escort Vera Foltin and Katia Singer served respectively as secretary in theSS Building Administration and Chief Recorder (Raportschreiberin) in the women'scamp. The'latter was one of the highest-ranking positions in Birkenau and markedthe high-water mark of Jewish attainments in Auschwitz. Evidence suggests that bothutilized their positions to benefit the general prisoner community and provided im-portant assistance to the underground movement that emerged in Auschwitz.91

The status and conduct of Slovakian Jewish women in Auschwitz-Birkenau hasattracted considerable hyperbole. Many publications give the impression that the Slo-vaks accounted for the lion's share of officials in the women's camp.93 Most refer toofficials prisoners encountered as a matter of routine, such as block seniors andKapos. This version is not borne out by the facts. The number of Slovakian womenin such positions was negligible—perhaps several dozen.94 Importantly, "Aryan" andJewish prisoners were housed in completely separate quarters, and conditions in non-Jewish barracks were superior. Jews were barred from any position in "Aryan" quar-

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ters, while many non-Jewish women carried out various functions in the Jewish

lodgings.

It has also been argued that the weakest and most ethically refined of the Slo-

vakian Jewish women perished early, leaving behind the predatory, uninhibited, and

sometimes even sadistic and depraved86 These baseless generalizations do not pass

the test of reality. Attempts to besmirch the collective of. Jewish women with the

actions of an aberrant few do immeasurable injury to the survivors. Perusal of

the sources illuminates blatantly contradictory observations. One passage accuses

the young Slovaltian women of abuse and cruelty, yet another passage in the same

source describes them in a completely different light96 A Blockalteste who in one

account collaborated with an SS doctor in selections is described by another witness

as a savior to whom prisoners owe their lives.97 These contradictions in survivors'

testimonies substantiate the complexity of the issue.

There are known cases of hard-heartedness, and even cruelty. Julia Skodova

describes the personality of her Kapo, a woman from Slovakia named Edith who ar-

rived with her in the first transport to Auschwitz;

Her favorite expression was, "Til report you to Oberscharfuhrer Kirschner" [an SS-manin the political department]... .Originally she intended to impose her authority throughher threats. Eventually, as she acquired power, Edith informed [on prisoners] for reaLIt took us some time to realize that such contemptible behavior was indeed possible.Edith had become an informer."

Additional testimonies describe cruelties inflicted by several Jewish women officialsfrom Slovakia. Edith Lazar, deported to Auschwitz from Hungary, depicts the Kapo

of Camp C-III in Birkenau: "She looked good, dressed well, had her own room, andslept under a duvet . . . . She even surpassed the SS men with her cruelty... .Sheshouted endlessly, 'I'll teach you, you pigs, here you'll become corpses." (Even thiswitness emphasizes that some of the young office-holders were exceptionally fair-minded.)9*

Margitte Schwalb, taken to Auschwitz from Slovakia in the second transport,observed in her testimony the process of degeneration: "Some of them did not havethe psychological strength. They became tough and obtuse from the suffering theyhad endured in the difficult initial period in the camp. They were dazzled by thepower granted them and exploited their status. Luckily for us, they were just a few."100

Tamar Shefer, another deportee from Hungary, attests to the opposite kind ofbehavior: "A Jewish woman from Slovakia who served as a Lageralteste ['camp se-nior'] in Camp B saved us several times during the selections and taught us how toslip away and escape after Mengele included us among those marked for extermina-tion.1"101 Paula Radon also lavishes praise on her Kapo, a young woman from Slovakia:"Because of her decency, the prisoners fought among themselves to become part ofthe labor group that she commanded. I know that this Kapo was consigned to a pen-alty detail because of her rescue work during the selection."101


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A few of these women were arrested after the war, either in Slovakia or in Israel.As far as we can ascertain, only one was sentenced to prison; none of the others waseven indicted.103 This, however, does not allow us to gloss over the phenomenon. Thecase of H. R. illuminates one aspect of the fate of the Jewish officials, who, in thefinal analysis—as Primo Levi states—were also victims of the Nazi method.

H. R. was a young girl when deported to Auschwitz in the first transport Aftermany months in the infamous Aussenkommando and penalty detail, she was ap-pointed to a minor position in the women's camp and climbed the social ladder toseveral higher duties. Survivors' testimonies exhibit significant disparities on the sub-ject of her treatment of the prisoners under her command. Some describe H. R. as"the worst of the officials," others as an exemplary leader who saved many lives. Afterthe Holocaust H. R. returned to Czechoslovakia, where she was investigated for heractivities in Auschwitz-Birkenau. She emigrated to Israel during the mass immigra-tion following the establishment of the state. There she was identified and beaten bysurvivors in an immigrants' residence, after which she was arrested. After severalweeks of interrogation, she was released without indictment and her file was closed.104

We sum up this episode with an opinion signed by ten former inmates demon-strating the uncertainties that arise when we ponder this aspect of the Holocaust:"Under the circumstances, in a state of poweriessness, she behaved like thousands ofothers, as anyone would have behaved when in the grip of the survival instinct. Sheacted as many did to save her life, but not at the cost of others' lives."108

Grasping at straws, the Slovakian women in Auschwitz attempted to apprise theoutside world of their presence and plight. During the early period, they also pon-dered ways of escape, although it is not known whether any attempts were made.108

In 1942, a large number of SS men who were ethnic Germans from Slovakia wereposted to Auschwitz. There are known instances in which these conveyed messagesand letters from the prisoners to Slovakia. Hermina Hirschler, a member of the sec-ond transport, recognized one of these SS men as hailing from her home town ofBratislava. During his tenure in Auschwitz, Rudasch sent letters to her relatives con-taining information on the fate of Slovakian Jewry at the camp, and brought Hirschlerletters and parcels from her relatives in Slovakia.107

In September 1942, as the deportations from Slovakia continued, the SS menallowed women housed in the staff building to begin a correspondence, includingdelivery of letters from Slovakia, that lasted throughout their stay in Auschwitz, anotable benefit of their position.108 Starting in late December 1942, women wereallowed to write to their relatives in Slovakia on several occasions. In the summerof 1943, evidently in response to pressure from the Slovakian Government to allow amission to visit the camp, 2,332 letters from Birkenau written by 844 prisoners, in-cluding approximately 500 women from Slovakia, were received in Slovakia. Copiesof some were forwarded to Jewish institutions abroad, providing first-hand informa-tion on the Auschwitz extermination camp. As a result, urgent initiatives were takento help the deportees. Nazi constraints limited the effectiveness of these activities,

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but some of them—such as sending parcels from neutral countries—were successfuland bolstered die internees' morale.106

One unique rescue attempt deserves mention. In the summer of 1944, tie Pal-estine Office in Geneva sent letters of approval to the British administration in Pales-tine for the issue of immigration certificates for several young Slovakian women inAuschwitz—members of Hashomer Hatza'ir—who had been traced by the lettersthey had written. The permits were received by the Political Department of the camp(the Gestapo). Several of the prospective emigrants were brutally interrogated by theSS, the Nazis evidently fearing information leaks. The young women were forced tofalsely affirm over their signatures that they had received the certificates and thentaken back to the camp. With this, the certificate episode ended.110

Appendix

Transport*

Transportnumber

12345678910111213141516171819total

of Slovakian JewsNumber ofdeportees

1,000798965997

1,0771,0001,0001,0001,0001,0541,0001,0001,0001,0001,000

8481,0001,000

84818,587

. . . H i . . . I i lli . k

Date ofarrival

26.328.3

2.43.4

13.417419.423.424.429.420.64.7

11.718.725.7

1.819.923.921.10

n i • M • , .

to Auschwitz in 1942Womendelivered

99979896599744327

5364575583002551081481789375716778

7,153

Mendelivered

63497346

543442 "423404264182327192165206294121

5,634

Murderedupon arrival

300*341*628**670459715608723639649

5,799

Notes

Transports of girls

Mixed transports

Transports of families• * *

prisoners. At were murdered some time later.

"From tha transport on, selections Were conducted on the "rampe" of Auschwitz. and most of the arrfcah went summarly murdered

'"Appendh compfltd by tht author from dtta in tht card catalogue of deportees prepared by tht Spedal Department of tht Jewish

Center (UZXâdVashtrn Archives JM 10675-10694 Set abo a 6st of trensporo from SlowaUa in 19CMoreshHArchws(aHtHavfc<a)

D.I .5705, and Cafendanum.

Notes1. Yitshak Arad, Yisrael Gutman, Abraham Margaliot, eds., Documents on the Holocaust (Jeru-salem Yad Vashem, 1981), p. 257.

2. Gila Fatran, Struggle for Survival? Leadership of Slovakian Jewry During the Holocaust,1938-1944 (in Hebrew), (Tel Aviv: Moreshet, 1992), pp. 106ff.


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3. Christopher R. Browning, The Final Solution and the German Foreign Office (New YorkHolmes and Meier, 1978), p. 94.

4. Cf. Yehoshua BQchler, "Deportation of Slovakian Jews to the Lublin Area 1942" (in He-brew), YaDcut Moreshet 50 (1991), p. 120.

5. See Appendix 1, and list of transports from Slovakia in 1942, Moreshet Archives (hereafter, •MA), D.1.5705.

6. Fatran, p. 108.

7. Eichmann Trial, Document No. 837, copy in MA, C.18.

8. See Document 132 in Peter Longerich, Die Ermordung der europaischen Juden (Munich:Piper, 1989), p. 301.

9. See Hermann Kaienburg, "Vernichtung durch Arbeit" (Bonn: J.H.W. Dietz, 1991), pp. 26ff.

10. See protocol by Luther, March 29,1942, in Longerich.

11. Dezider T6th, ed, Tragedia shvenskych iidov (Bansld Bystrica: Datei, 1992), pp. 264ff.

12. Ibid.

13. Fatran, pp 109ff.

14. Yad Vashem Archives (hereafter, YVA), M-5/97.

15. T6th, Tragedia.

16. On this subject, see letter of March 30,1942, from the head of the county of Giraltovce tothe Ministry of the Interior; YVA, JM 10.992.

17. See Fatran, pp. 150ff.

18. Doris Fflrstenberg, Jeden Moment war dieser Tod- Interviews mttjudischen Frauen dieAuschwitz uberlebten (DOsseldorf: Droste, 1986), pp. 52ff.

19. JuBa Skodova, Tri roky bez mena (Bratislava, 1962), p. 17; this is die memoir of a youngwoman sent to Auschwitz in the first transport.

20. See testimonies in Fflrstenberg, pp. 52ff.

21. See letter of May 20, 1942, by the Chief of Staff of the HHnka Guard concerning thedeportation of young women from Michalovce Central State Archives of Slovakia, Bratislava(hereafter SSA), MV-242-8057/42.

22. See n. 16.

23. Furstenberg, p. 52.

24. Toth, p. 268.

25. Ibid., p. 87.

26. Cf. lists of deportees, YVA, M-5/112.

27. Cf. lists of deportees, YVA, M^5/l l l .

28. See Iivia Rothkirchen, The Destruction of Slovakian Jewry (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: YadVashem, 1961), pp. 21ff.


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29. Quoted from Toth, p. 145.

30. See testimony of Fanny Tachs, MA, A. 1599, and of Martin FOrst, MA, A. 182.

31. YVA, M-5/97 and M-5/112.

32. Fatran, pp. 120ff.

33. Toth, p. 149.

3 4 See article by Yehuda Bauer in Eberhard Jgckel and Jurgen Rohwer, Der Mord an denJuden tm Zweiten Wettkrieg (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch, 1987), p. 167.

35. Ino Arndt, "Das Frauenkonzentrationslager Ravensbrtick," in Dachauer Hefte 3 (1987),pp. 138ff.

36. Danuta Czech, Kalendarium der Ereignisse im Konzentrationslager Auschwitz-Birkenau1939-1945 (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1989), pp. 185ff.

37. See T6th, p. 158.

38. On this subject see J6zef Buszko, Auschwitz, faschistisches Vernichtungshger (Warsaw,1988), p. 23.

39. Czech, p. 189.

40. Cf. Zvi Schner, ed., The Commander of Auschwitz Testifies: The Writings of Rudolf Ferdi-nand Hdss (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv, 1964), pp. 122-124. Hoss goes to special lengths to challengeLangenfeld's qualifications.

41. Czech, pp. 250-251, and Buszko, p. 23.

42. On arrival of first transport to Auschwitz, see Czech, pp. 189-190.

43. Ibid., pp. 189ff.

44. Testimony of Helena Engel, transported to Auschwitz on April 29, 1942, MA, A.1618-3,and testimony of Zehava Pollak, MA, A.1721.

45. Czech, pp. 241ff.

46. YVA, M-5, files 108-115, Helena Engel, op. cat, and Rachel Schlesinger, MA, A.1436.

47. See Register cf Jewish Survivors (Jerusalem, 1945-47) vols. 1-4, and additional lists ofsurvivors, YVA, M-5/106.

48. Kalendarium; Wolfgang Benz, ed. Dimension des Vb'Jkermords: Die Zahl der JudischenOpfer des Nazionalsozialismus (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1991); and Franciszek Piper, Die Zahlder Opfer von Auschwitz (Oswiecim: Verlag StaatBches Museum Oswiecim, 1993).

49. Piper, p. 50; Czech, pp. 189ff.

50. On transfer to Birkenau, Czech, pp. 266-267.

51. Piper, p. 76.

52. Ibid., p. 67. Data on the mortality of Slovaldan Jewish women from MargHte Schwalb, adoctor at the Birkenau infirmary. According to die survivors' estimate, in 1943 600 to 650Slovaldan Jewish women were left in Auschwitz and its satellites. The Polish underground says

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684 Jewish women from Slovakia were alive in Auschwitz in August 1944 This number seemshigh; it may include women of Slovakian origin who had been transported to Auschwitz fromHungary in 1944 Cf. Nachman Blumental, Dokumenty i materialy (Lodz: Obozy, 1946), voL1, p. 120.

53. Concerning transfer from Ravensbrflck, see letter of July 1,1992 from the administrationof the Ravensbrflck memorial site to the author, and Czech, p. 189. OrH Reichert, a Germanpolitical prisoner who arrived in the same transport, alleges dial diere were Polish prisonersamong them. Bernd Steger, Gflnter ThieJe, Der dunkle Schatten-Leben mti Auschwitz: Ertn-nerungen an Orii Reichert-Wald (Marburg: Schuren, 1985), p. 47.

54. H6ss, p. 119.

55. Reichert, pp. 59 and 100.

56. Svalbova, Vyhasnute o6y (Bratislava, 1948), p. 96.

57. Reichert, p. 101.

58. Hdss, p. 119. Characterization of German prisoners as "asocial" surfaces in testimony ofMargitte Schwalb, Yaflart Moreshet 53, pp. 94ff.

59. Testimony of Vera Alexander at the Eichmann TriaL See Attorney-General us. Adolf Eich-mann. Documents (B) (Jerusalem, 1964), p. 1215. On intake procedures, see Aliza Green, MA,A.1573, and Helena Citron, YVA, 03/6711, both of whom arrived at Auschwitz in the firsttransport.

60. Yisrael Gutman and Rahel Manbar, Nazi Concentration Camps (Hebrew), (Jerusalem: YadVashem, 1984), p. 124.

61. Skodova, pp. 23ff.

62. Numbers tattooed on arms of Slovakian Jewish women only after transfer to Birkenau.Skodova, p. 37, and Helena Engel, MA, A. 1618.

63. See M. Schwalb, p. 94, and Skodova, p. 14

64. Skodova, p. 20, and testimony of Helena Citron, YVA, 03/6711.

65. Skodova, p. 21. Many testimonies describe the murder of die children as a particularlydifficult experience for die prisoners. Cf. Schwalb and Engel, who had come to Auschwitz inthe same transport, MA, A. 1618.

66. Czech, pp. 241-242.

67. Schwalb, pp. 95-96. Schwalb, who worked as a nurse in the infirmary, attended die selec-tions.

68. See Czech, pp. 241-242. See also LUi Kopecky, Im Schatten der Flammen (Dusseldorf,1992), pp. 23ff. LiH Kopecky was taken to Auschwitz in die transport of July 4 1942.

69. Conditions in Birkenau described in Schwalb.

70. Testimony of Caesar at Auschwitz trial, quoted in Hermann Langbein, Der Auschwitz-Prozess: Eme Dokumentation (Vienna: Europa, 1965), p. 5 4

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71. Piper, p. 76; also interview with M. Schwalb by author March 26, 1992. According toSchwalb, "about 15,000-20,000 women perished in Birkenau" in the autumn of 1942.

72. See n. 72 above and Czech, pp. 312ff. On proportion of Slovakian Jewish women in 1943,n. 51 above.


74. Ibid., pp. 21ff. Julia Skodova worked in the Political Department as a registrar of prisoners.

75. The Aussenkommando involved backbrealdng labor outdoors under all weather conditions.See Schwalb, p. 94, and Kopecky, pp. 23ff.

76. Skodova, p. 15.

77. Schwalb, pp. 96ff, and testimony of Rachel Schlesinger, MA, A. 1436.

78. Reichert, pp. 42-43.

79. See Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv, 1991), p. 28.

80. Quoted from Reichert, p. 116.

81. See Tragedia. pp. 151E

82. Cf. Tadeusz Iwaszko, "Hafthngsfluchten aus dem KonzentrationlageT Auschwitz," in Heftevon Auschwitz 7 (1964), pp. 3ff.

83. Skodova, pp. 29ff., deals extensively with this subject

84. Schwalb, p. 99.

85. The Nazis considered the "Canada commando" a sensitive job. Slovakian Jewish womenreplaced Polish prisoners after objects taken from "Canada" were found on Poles attemptingto escape. See testimonies of Schlesinger, MA, A. 1436, and Citron, YVA, 03-6711, both ofwhom worked in "Canada."

86. Julia Skodova, one of the prisoners in the Stabsgebdude, describes in her memoirs thehistory of this group. Most of the young women were considered by the Nazis "possessors ofsecrets" because of their sensitive jobs. They lived in constant fear, dreading the fate of theSonderkommando. See Skodova.

87. Testimony of Aliza Green, MA, A. 1573, who worked on the Harmensee Farm.

88. Episode mentioned by M. Schwalb, a doctor in the women's infirmary, pp. 98ff.

89. Primo Levi, Se questo e uh xiomo (Torino: G. Einaudi, 1976), pp. 82, and I sommersi e Isahati (Torino: G. Einaudi, 1986), pp. 126ff.

90. Vera Alexander at Eichmann Trial; also Hermann Langbein, Menschen in Auschwitz (Vi-enna: Europa, 1972), pp. 199ff.

91. Alexander, p. 1214. Fanny Talcs, also a Blockdlteste, argues that the Slovakian women wereappointed to various positions because they knew Hungarian. Interview with Fanny Taks,MA, A.1598.

92. Kopecky, p. 26. Concerning Katia Singer, see Yehoshua Buchler, "Men in Auschwitz" (He-brew), YaBcut Moreshet 30 (1980), p. 174.

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93. Among the many publications of this kind, see Langbein, Menschen, pp. 199ff, and InkaWeissbort, Together and Alone in the Face of Terror (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv, 1992), p. 174.

94. Fanny Taks believes "about twenty to thirty" Slovakian women served in such positions;interview, MA, A. 1598. Tzippy Spitzer-Tichauer, who worked in the registry of the women'scamp, told the author that the number of Kapos from Slovakia "could be counted on the fingersof one hand."

95. Quoted in Weissbort, p. 174.

96. Langbein, Menschen, pp. 199ff; Halina Bimbaum, Life as Hope (in Hebrew), (Tel Aviv:Ghetto Fighters' House, 1982), pp. l l l f f and 179; and Weissbort, p. 182.

97. Testimony of Tamar Shefer, MA, A. 205.

98. Quoted in Skodova, p. 108.

99. Testimony of Edith T r̂rar February 5, 1950, MA, collection of testimonies from Ausch-witz, 1693.

100. Schwalb, pp. 97-98.

101. Testimony of Shefer, MA, A^05.

102. Testimony of Paula Rodan-Schreiber, MA, A.1693.

103. As in materials in Interior Ministry Archives in Prague, AMV 2125-11-5.

104. The H. R. file in Interior Ministry Archives, Prague, AMV-425, and Israel Police, Crimi-nal File 37/58.

105. Signed opinion by ten Auschwitz prisoners on February 10, 1950, in the author's pos-session.

106. Skodova, p. 24.

107. See signed affidavit of Hermina Hirschler-Markowitz, MA, D.I.5818. The author thanksMs. Hermina Markowitz for making the letters available to him.


109. On letters and parcels, see list of Auschwitz prisoners from Slovakia who wrote letters inYVA, M-5/106, and Leo Rosenthal's letter from Bratislava to Geneva, October 28, 1943, inMA, Menahem Bader collection, SL-28; confirmation of receipt of parcel, MA, D.1.4641.

110. The episode of the certificates that were sent to Auschwitz is a separate subject for re-search. Material available in MA, D.1.4845 and in the author's possession. I was informed of theinvestigation conducted by the Political Department in Auschwitz by Leah Horowitz, MargitteSchwalb, and Malka Gertner, for whom permits had been sent However; Lili Kopecky, anotherinternee on the list, was not interrogated and knew nothing of the matter.


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