| Selections in the Camp |
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They are all in torment, groaning, hungry,
thirsty, shivering from cold under their meager coverings and yet fighting for
their pitiful lives.21 |
| The French-trained prisoner doctor, Alexander O., described
an equivalent situation on the men’s side: |
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We had mostly Jews to take care of, . .
.the“‘convalescence’ ward” on the second floor of Block 20.
The room was called the“diarrhea room,” and there we would get
patients who for the most part had edemas of the lower limbs which we would
call “general weakness.” Almost all of them had ulcers, ulcers that
did not heal because of the edema in the legs. So all these patients,
classified as ill; were simply waiting their turn to go to the
gas. |
| Dr. O. went on to tell how, when a selection was expected
soon after his arrival on that ward, he had been confused by his prisoner
colleague’s insistence that he urge inmates to get down off their bunks,
even beat them if necessary: this, it turned out, was the only way to save
their lives. After the two doctors had managed to get all but a few of the
patients down, the selection began: |
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They announced, “Achtung, Lagerarzt!
[‘Attention, camp doctor!’].” A young man, nicely built, thin,
tall, an SS officer, came in, followed by noncommissioned officer. These were
called ... let us say medical staff, with a caduceus .... All, in turn —
naked — go before the doctor, running past him, chest out, in a very
military fashion .... Whoever has not seen this military bearing in a skeleton
does not know what degradation and contempt are .... If a skeleton walks
stooped over, slowly, slowly, that is a skeleton presenting a normal
appearance, one might say even a decent appearance. But to see this procession
of skeletons marching at a military pace, chest out, shoulders thrown back, and
coming to a stop abruptly — well, it is something saddening, debasing,
beyond description. A skeleton marching that way — the edema [fluid] in
the scrotum swinging, the completely emaciated scrotum swinging — that is
something one cannot forget. |
| In order to avoid being deceived by prisoner doctors’
attempts to save lives, the more fanatical and vicious SS doctors, such as
Friedrich Entress, created what became known, according to a survivor and
nonmedical scientist, as the “negative selection”: “That is, he
picked the healthiest-looking in order to uncover the ones hidden by block
personnel — to uncover deceptions of one kind or another. The SS never
discovered a foolproof way of preventing these deceptions. Entress did not do
it often — but he did do it. He was the only man I knew of who did that
negative selection.” |
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