Looking for scraps – Polish Painter Jan Komski

Polish painter Jan Komski’s painting; Food line in the main camp (Auschwitz I).

“MUSELMANN (German for Muslim), death camp slang word for prisoners on the edge of death who have surrendered to their fate, i.e., showing the symptoms of the last stages of hunger, disease, mental indifference and physical exhaustion.

This term was mostly used at Auschwitz. It seems to have originated from the typical deportment of the sufferers, e.g., to squat with their legs tucked in an “Oriental” fashion, their faces masklike in stiffness.

Often the muselmann was the target of anger from fellow prisoners, who avoided them lest they too be overcome by despair at the conditions they faced.”

Source: Encyclopedia.com

Related on Remember.org

Escapees from Auschwitz

“On April 7, 1944, two Slovakian Jews, twenty-six-year-old Alfred Weczler and twenty-year-old Rudolf Vrba, escaped from Auschwitz. They provided the first eyewitness account of the concentration and extermination camp to the western world, an account that set off the chain of events that led to the Nuremberg trial.

The Alfred Weczler – Rudolf Vrba Report

“On April 7, 1944, two Slovakian Jews, twenty-six-year-old Alfred Weczler and twenty-year-old Rudolf Vrba, escaped from Auschwitz.

They provided the first eyewitness account of the concentration and extermination camp to the western world, an account that set off the chain of events that led to the Nuremberg trial. …

Escape from Auschwitz was made difficult not only by the physical barriers, but by the negative attitude of the general camp population, which suffered after every escape.

If an escapee somehow made his way beyond the two electrified barbed-wire fences and watchtowers, blaring sirens alerted the whole countryside.

Dogs were put into pursuit, and SS and military personnel began to comb the fields and woods. With his shorn head and prison uniform, an inmate could expect no help from the local populace, for assisting an escapee meant death.