Daily Life in the Camp of Auschwitz Birkenau

Daily Life in the Camp of Auschwitz. Birkenau Created By: Denise Zivkovic

Order of the Day in the Camp

Selection: Initial Selection: work to death or die now Random Selection: too weak to continue work Constant fear for their lives

Disinfection: Placed in quarantine to prevent spread of disease All body hair is shaven off and prisoners are rubbed down with disinfectant No access to clean water or soap after this disinfection

“Survival in Auschwitz” Primo Levi “I suddenly see Steinlauf, my friend aged almost fifty, with nude chest, scrub his neck and shoulders with little success (he has no soap) [He] sees me and asks me severely why I do not wash. Why should I wash? Would I be better off than I am? Would I please someone more? Would I live a day longer? …. Does Steinlauf not know that after half an hour with the coal sacks every difference between him and me will have disappeared? …. [Steinlauf says]“…even in this place one can survive, and therefore one must want to survive, to tell the story, to bear witness; and that to survive we must force ourselves to save at least the skeleton, the scaffolding, the form of civilisation. “We are slaves, deprived of every right, exposed to every insult, condemned to certain death, but… … we must certainly wash our faces without soap in dirty water and dry ourselves on our jackets. . . . for dignity. . . We must walk erect, without dragging our feet. . . to remain alive, not to begin to die. ” – Primo Levi, “Survival in Auschwitz”

Labor: Building Auschwitz: roads, drainage ditches, leveling ground People dug mass graves, including their own WVHA decree of March 31, 1942 required a minimum 11 hour work day

Food Rations: Received 3 ‘meals’ per day 1, 300 -1, 700 calories per day Starvation rations caused a state of muselmann

THE BARRACKS Death, Disease, and Despair

Sources: https: //www. jewishvirtuallibrary. org/jsource/Holocaust/auc onditions. html http: //www. holocaust-trc. org/the-holocaust-educationprogram-resource-guide/auschwitz-the-camp-of-death/ http: //auschwitz. org/en/history/life-in-the-camp/ http: //www. theholocaustexplained. org/ks 3/the-camps/daily -life/processing-and-routines/#. Vyzg. KEC 2 F-o http: //www. holocaustresearchproject. org/othercamps/ausc hwitzbasics. html