| AUSCHWITZ: THE RACIAL CURE |
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whole thing” and insist that “this is a filthy
business [Schweinerei]!” Dr. B. described these outbursts as so
insistent as to be “like a mania [Sucht], . . . a sickness . . .
over Auschwitz and ... the gassings.”
Such inebriated protest
brought about no repercussions — indeed, may even have been encouraged
— and was unrelated to commitment or action. Consequently, “whether
one condemned it or not was not really so much the issue.” The issue, as
Ernst B. defined it, was that “Auschwitz was an existing fact. One
couldn't. . . really be against it, you see, one had to go along with it
whether it was good or bad.” That is, mass killing was the unyielding
fact of life to which everyone was expected to adapt.
Whenever
an SS doctor arrived at Auschwitz, the process was repeated as questions raised
by the newcomer were answered by his more experienced drinking companions:
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He would ask, “How can these things be done
here?” Then there was something like a general answer ... which clarified
everything. What is better for him [the prisoner] — whether he croaks
[verreckt] in shit or goes to heaven in [a cloud of] gas? And that
settled the whole matter for the initiates
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This ostensibly humane argument Dr. B was saying was
itself an assertion of Auschwitz reality as the baseline for all else. His
language of initiation is appropriate in that selections were the specific
“ordeal” the initiate had to undergo in order to emerge as a
functioning Auschwitz “adult.” And by exposing and combating doubts,
the drinking sessions helped suppress moral aspects of the prior self in favor
of a new Auschwitz self.
Doubts could include the fundamental matter of
a physician engaging in killing: “One would say, ‘Selecting is not
the province of the doctor, because it is a completely nonmedical
activity.’ … I must refuse to select because my only purpose is to
sustain life.” That too always evoked an answer to which nobody was able
to object “What do you do in war, … in battle, don’t you have to
select there as well? Since not all can be treated and not all can be
transported this [need to select] is the problem of every military
doctor.”
However absurd the comparison by any logical standards in
that setting it could seem credible. For, as Dr. B. added, “Whether you
believe something or not always depends on the situation.” And the
“essential psychological situation” of Auschwitz doctors, in his
view, was resignation to its killing structure: “I’m here. I cannot
get out. If prisoners come, that is a natural phenomenon
[Naturereignis]. And I have to do [make] the best of it.” (This
last sentence was spoken in English.)
Beyond mere resignation, SS
doctors moved psychologically into that perceived Auschwitz reality. Through
the drinking sessions, their resistance was “talked out”
(ausdiskutiert), so that after about fourteen days the newcomer “no
longer spoke of these things,” and since “everyone [knew] |
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