Birkenau Latrines – Behave yourself, quiet.

On the wall in the Birkenau Latrines for men and women was a huge written warning — “Verhalte dich ruhig” (Behave yourself quiet) seen below — Gisella Pearl, an inmate in BIa described in her book the situation the prisoners faced:

“There was one latrine for thirty to thirty-two thousand women and we were allowed to use it at only certain hours of the day. We stood in line to get in to this tiny building, knee deep in human excrement.

As we all suffered from dysentery, we could rarely wait until our turn came and soiled our ragged clothes, which never came off our bodies, thus adding to the horror of our existence by the terrible smell which surrounded us like a cloud.” Perl, Gisella. 1948 memoir, I Was a Doctor in Auschwitz.

Latrines for Women and Men are Oddly Similar

Birkenau Latrines in Women’s Camp BlB

There was no privacy, very little water for washing and little or no opportunity for personal cleanliness in Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Prisoners were often afflicted with typhus and other diarrhea-producing illnesses.

Author Terrence Des Pres described it as an “excremental assault” and wrote:

“How much self-esteem can one maintain, how readily can one respond to the needs of another, if both stink, if both are caked with mud and feces?”

Terrence Des Pres, The Survivor: An Anatomy of Life in the Death Camps (Pocket Books: New York, 1976) p. 66.

Birkenau Latrines in Men’s Quarantine Camp – BIIa

The front half of these barracks contained washing facilities. There were only three such barracks in BIIa. There were 16 living barracks. The latrines were accessible for only short periods.

There was no privacy, very little water for washing and little or no opportunity for personal cleanliness in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Prisoners were often afflicted with typhus and other diarrhea-producing illnesses.

Dehumanized by ideology and brutality:

“What motivates men and women to treat their fellow humans in this fashion? Places so primitive, so bereft of human dignity, they are really nothing more than what we offer cattle, if that. At least we feed our cattle and protect them from disease.

One answer is the SS saw the prisoners as less than human, dehumanized, even not human, merely insects. There was also a dehumanization of the SS accomplished by an insurmountable arrogance, one that supplies answers and disregards important questions, one that believes it has the answer to the riddle of existence.

The prisoners were dehumanized by brutality, and the SS by ideology.

In Auschwitz 1270 To The Present, Dwork, D, and van Pelt, R. New York: WW Norton. 1996.