Caps Off . . .

A Report from the Punishment Company (SK) of the KZ Auschwitz

Zenon Rozanski, Schnusenberg, Christine C. Schnusenberg

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9781620326190
  9781498265607
• eBook ISBN:
  9781621898962
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Throughout the entire world, Auschwitz has become known as the Concentration Camp (KZ) in which the bureaucratic, alarmingly and perfectly organized mass exterminations of human beings found its abysmal culmination. Less well known is the first period of Auschwitz in which this Concentration Camp (KZ) was different from many others because Polish people had to live and die there. This book makes unambiguously clear that Auschwitz remains, in the memory of many Poles, a martyrology of its people. Caps Off . . . is the first ever English translation of Mutzen ab . . ., a report about the experiences in the Punishment Company (SK) of the KZ Auschwitz by the Polish journalist and prisoner Zenon Rozanski. This report, based on the immediacy of experience, offers an important contribution to current knowledge about concentration and death camps in National Socialist Germany. This narrative report by an individual Polish prisoner is a voice for the countless, anonymous victims of all nationalities who were exterminated in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. It also brings into focus the reality of an undaunted human spirit who endured and withstood the bestiality of the SS men. Rozanski not only casts into narrative this experience of utter darkness but also captures the rays and glimmers of light, hope, and precious moments of human dignity which penetrated this unbelievably hellish environment.

1

“Prisoner 8214 is obediently reporting to the Strafrapport (Penal Registry) . . .” SS-Hauptsturmführer (Captain), Fritzsch, the Lagerführer (camp leader) of the KZ Auschwitz, was sitting behind a wide desk beneath a picture of the Führer. He raised his head . . .

“Well . . .” Small, black, goggle eyes were scrutinizing my erect posture. “What mischief have you been up to?”

“I have taken two dishes of garbage from the SS kitchen,” I shouted as loudly as I could.

Fritzsch’s eyes flared up . . .

“What? You have taken? You have stolen, you, you dog! The garbage from the kitchen is designated for the fattening of the pigs, and the pigs are for the SS . . . Sabotage!!!” For a moment, he broke off, and then: “Have you already been punished??”

“No.”

He looked at me inquisitively.

“How long have you been in the camp?”

“A half year.”

SS–Hauptsturmführer Fritzsch stood up. Slowly he swayed on his comically thin X-legs toward me. The pale yellow face of the liver patient began to crimson . . .

“A half year,” he repeated. “Since when have you been stealing from the German state?”

“This was the first time,” I began, but a well-aimed punch in the stomach prevented me from finishing the sentence.

“Shut up, you are lying! If you had not been stealing, you would have already been flying through the chimney during the last three months; that has been calculated scientifically.” Briefly he looked at me. “You are living too long.” He turned to the prisoner in the orderly room (Schreibstube), who had been silent until now. “25 and SK. Out!” The latter was again aimed at me.

I clicked my heels.

“Prisoner 8214 is asking permission to leave,”

“Get out!”

Within the next moment, I was outside. Mechanically I registered at the gate and continued to walk towards the Block. I felt as if drunk. The unexpectedly harsh sentencing made me numb. I was so depressed that I could not think straight. Obtrusively, it was booming in my ears:

SK . . . SK . . . SK . . . (SK=Strafkompanie. Punishment Company, SK).

“You stupid dog!” I suddenly heard it yelled, and at the same moment, I felt a punch in my teeth. In a split second, I came to my senses . . .

In front of me stood the block leader (Blockführer), whom we called Tom Mix. When I passed by him, I had not taken off my cap, as was required by camp protocol.

“Prisoner 8214,” I noisily introduced myself while I was clicking my wooden clogs.

“You surely are drunk, aren‘t you?” With a charming smile, he belted a second punch into my stomach, which threw me to the ground. However, I immediately forced myself to get up because I remembered that the SS men had the habit of kicking prisoners who were lying on the ground.

“I beg your pardon, but I didn’t notice you because I have an important order from the reporting officer (Rapportführer) for the hospital barrack,” I lied outrightly.

Tom Mix became more condescending.

“Well, that’s certainly your luck, get lost!”

“I ask permission to leave!” I was already running away in a complete about-face.

At this point, I had really regained my senses and was coolheaded. When I had reached the Block, I crawled into the cellar and rolled myself a cigarette from the tobacco waste that I had found on the previous day. Now I could indeed deliberate more calmly and purposefully.

Well then, SK! . . .

What the entire camp considered more horrible than an execution: The Punishment Company! (SK) . . .

Instinctively, there arose before my mind’s eyes the daily image of the people in the SK column as they were returning from work.

A long line of human shadows that came staggering on their legs and with their wooden clogs made the cobblestone pavement resound in marching step. At the end of the line, they always carried the victims of the day . . . corpses of those who had been shot to death, murdered, or beaten to death with clubs, or those who had, during work, died of “natural causes.” And the marching step was drowned by the song of the Punishment Company (SK), “The blue dragons they are riding . . .” which they screamed out with their last strength.

As soon as this song started resounding, bit by bit the streets were deserted. For a too curious glance at the lines of the Punishment Company (SK), one could end up in there oneself . . .

During the following days, I ate. I ate in the camp as never before and as never afterwards. The block senior (Blockältester), actually a rather decent chap, relieved me from work for the rest of the days which still separated yet from the day on which I would be walking through the gate of the Punishment Company [SK]. The comrades slipped me some of their own meager portions. And in the evening, after the roll call, I was ordered to come to the block clerk, where a bucket of soup was awaiting me . . .

I ate. With cold calculation, I ate until I got stomach cramps. Whenever I became nauseated, I paused, lay down for one or two hours, and then continued to eat. Keep eating, eating as much as possible! . . .

About a week later, after the morning roll call, my number was called. A handshake from my comrades, a pat on the shoulder, an encouraging glance. “Hang in there!”

An hour later, accompanied by the camp senior (Lagerältester) and the Blockführer, I walked through the gate of Block Number 11.

In the square, which was enclosed by three high walls, there were three similarly convicted prisoners. Across from the stairs which led to the SK,...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Translator’s Remarks
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Preface
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Chapter 11
• Chapter 12
• Chapter 13
• Chapter 14
• Chapter 15
• Chapter 16
• Chapter 17
• Literature
• Editorial Remarks
• Translator’s Appendix A
• Translator’s Appendix B
• Translator’s Selected Bibliography