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| Chapter 10 |
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| Socialization to
Killing |
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They [the SS doctors] did their work just as someone who goes to an
office goes about his work. They were gentlemen who came and went, who
supervised and were relaxed, sometimes smiling, sometimes joking, but never
unhappy. They were witty if they felt like it. Personally I did not get the
impression that they were much affected by what was going on — nor
shocked. It went on for years. It was not just one day. |
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— Auschwitz prisoner doctor |
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Virtually all Nazi doctors in Auschwitz complied in
conducting selections, although they varied in how they did so and in their
attitudes toward what they were doing. These attitudes ranged from enthusiasm
to ambivalence to reluctance and temporary refusal, and in at least one case,
to successful resistance or at least avoidance.
For most SS doctors,
selections were a job — somewhat unpleasant and often exhausting, and an
occasion for heavy drinking, as Dr. Karl K. explained: |
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The selections were mostly an ordeal [Strapaze,
suggesting exertion, fatigue, physical strain, drudgery]. Namely, to stand all
night. And it wasn’t just standing all night — but the next day was
completely ruined because one got drunk every time .... By the last half of the
night he is already half high, and at the end he is drunk ....
[The
drinking] was during the selection . . . . A certain number of bottles were
provided for each selection and everybody drank and toasted the others .... One
could not stay out of it [the drinking]. And the result was — when it was
getting to be two, three o’clock, and one started getting very tired, then
one just drank more.* |
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* SS doctors in their own
way shared in the sense of entitlement described by Konrad Morgen (see pages
138-39) when visiting an SS guard room that, far from spartan, contained
couches with SS men “with glassy eyes” lying about and being served
“like pashas” by beautiful Jewish female prisoners. The SS person
(probably an officer) escorting Morgen, upon seeing how appalled the judge
seemed, “only shrugged his shoulders and said: ‘The men have had a
tough night behind them, they had to get several transports out of the
way.’”¹ The escort too believed in that entitlement. |
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