First in The Vale of Afflictions

First in the Vale of Affliction: Slovakian
Jewish Women in Auschwitz, 1942

Yehoshua R. Buchler
Moreshet Archives, Tel Aviv, Israel
Young Jewish women from Slovakia ware among the first contingents of
Jews sent to Auschwitz. They became the vanguard first for young men.
then families, and finally all Jews from Slovakia; the result of intimate
cooperation between a satellite state and the German Reich, the Slovakian
deportations served as a model for what would happen in other countries.
Downloaded from hgs.oxfordjournals.org at The University of British Colombia Library on May 23, 2011
Widespread evasion of the transports availed the victims little in the long
run; later in Auschwitz and its daughter camp Birkenau, Slovak Jewish
women would also seek to evade the relentless machinery of the Final
Solution, and with just as little success. Their determination to survive,
however, sometimes expressed through informal networks of women
coming from the same places, in many cases bore fruit. It was subse-
quently charged that some of the survivors had cooperated with the ad-
ministration in order to gain the. advantages that helped them hold out;
in numerous cases, however, it was precisely those who had had some
authority within the camp social structure who had proven best able to
help the defenseless.
Deportations from Slovakia: Decisions and Implementation

Reinhard Heydrich, until his assassination one of the principal figures in shaping the
Holocaust, remarked at the Wannsee Conference: "In Slovakia and Croatia the mat-
ter is no longer too difficult, as the most essential, central problems in this respect
have already been brought to a solution there." Heydrich was referring to "evacuation
operations," Le., the deportation of Jews from these two countries.1
Heydrich knew what he was talking about. At that time, Slovakian and German
government officials were discussing the deportation of Jews from Slovakia to occu-
pied Poland. The Slovakian administration s eagerness to effect the "solution of the
Jewish problem" was evident even in the preparations for the Wannsee Conference.
It meshed smoothly with the Nazis' overall strategy in the implementation of the
Final Solution.*
Heydrich energetically sought a convenient environment in which to set the
wheels of the deportation trains in motion. The Slovakian authorities were willing to
Holocaust and CenockU Studies, VIOm.Wnter 1996. pp. 299-325 299

make their country the first German satellite from which Jews could be deported.
German decision-makers accepted with satisfaction the Slovakian extremists' ambi-
tion to banish the Jews. The eviction of the Jews from Slovakia was well tailored to
their schemes, both in its timing and in terms of the operation itself. The plans, as
unveiled at the Wannsee Conference, could be carried out within a relatively short
time—about two months. 3 The Germans did not hesitate. The transports from Slo-
vakia were set in motion and Heydrich claimed another accomplishment
However, the haste of the Slovakian leaders and SS commanders to deport Jews
from Slovakia caused much disorder and forced officials to improvise. Several organi-
zational and technical problems disrupted their schedule slightly, and they found it
difficult to set goals. None of this, however, affected the overall implementation of
the policy as set forth at the highest echelons.*4 Deportations from Slovakia began
earlier than expected. Slovakian Jews were among the first to be transported to exter-
mination camps. Between March 5 and October 20, 1942, fifty-seven deportation
trains left Slovakia: thirty-eight to the Lublin district and nineteen, bearing 18,600
Jews, to Auschwitz.5
The First To Go
Some researchers believe the deportation of Slovakian Jewry proceeded so rapidly
because of German demands to mobilize Slovakian labor for the war economy in
the Reich. Since the Slovakians were unable—or perhaps unwilling—to meet the
Germans' demands, they bruited the possibility of supplying 20,000 young Jews in-
stead of the Slovakian workers whom the Germans wanted. Those who espouse this
version credit the idea to Dr. Isidor Koso, Chief of die Presidium of the Slovakian
Ministry of the Interior, which administered Department 14, which dealt with Jewish
affairs. Gila Fatran writes in this respect "A rare opportunity arose to solve two
cardinal problems that greatly troubled the administration in one sagacious stroke:
To offer the Germans Jews instead of the Slovakian workers whom they had sought"*
Because the minutes of the discussions among officials in the Slovakian administra-
tion and the German authorities have not yet been found, this version rests on hearsay
and postwar testimony in the trials of persons involved. However a cable from Martin
Luther, Head of the Germany Department of the German Foreign Ministry, to the
German Ambassador in Bratislava, dated March 16,1942, states that the Government
of Germany agreed to admit 20,000 young Jews from Slovakia.7 This document, how-
ever, lends itself to more than one interpretation and defies any unequivocal infer-
ence, especially since another document in our possession implies that the deporta-
tion of 20,000 young Jews from Slovakia took place at the request of Germany. The
latter document shows that once the deportation of the young Jews was completed,
the Germans intended to continue "evacuating" die remaining 70,000.*
The Nazis presumably intended the young Jews to serve as a "vanguard'* for
those remaining^ and for Jews in other countries, on their way to extermination. How-
300 Holocaust and Genocide Studta

ever, they first meant to assign them to the back-breaking task of building the infra-
structure of two death camps, Auschwitz and Majdanek. Nearly all of them were
among the first victims of the mass-murder system that Heydrich had proposed at
the Wannsee Conference and that Himmler had outlined at approximately the same
time: murder by means of labor.*
The Deportation of Young Women

The agreement to deport Slovakian Jewry was evidently concluded by die Slovakian
authorities and representatives of Germany in the first half of February 1942. They
intended first to deport 20,000 able-bodied Jews—7,000 girls and young women and
13,000 young men—and later all the rest 10
The organizational preparations for internment and deportation were already
completed in the first half of March 1942. On March 12, Department 14 of the Inter-
ior Ministry forwarded instructions to county executives and commanders of district
police headquarters concerning the Jews "designated for labor." Lists of Jews slated
for deportation were attached. Mobilization orders were enclosed for distribution
among the Jews by local audiorities. The camps to which die Jews were to be sent
and the dates of dieir transfer were also specified.11
Concurrently, die audiorities instructed the commanders of two camps set up
for this purpose to gather the Jews there pending deportation from Slovakia. Organi-
zational and technical measures "to ensure d i a t . . . transports cross die border in an
orderly fashion" were set forth in a circular dated March 12,1942."
The lists of designated deportees were compiled by Interior Ministry officials
on die basis of more complete lists and statistical data drawn up earlier by members
of die Jewish Center. As agreed, die deportation was to include women aged 18-35.
When Interior Ministry officials updated die lists and found diat diey could not attain
die number of women stipulated, die age direshold was lowered to girls of 16. u
The first round-up was scheduled for March 21, 1942. Beginning on diat day,
die young women were transferred to die Patronka camp on die outskirts of Brati-
slava (for women from western and central Slovakia) and die Poprad camp (eastern
and northern Slovakia)." The deportees were made to report to diese centers in ways
diat varied from place to place. Because diese facts had a bearing on die deportation
process, it is worth devoting a few lines to diem.
The Slovakian administration, especially in die provinces, was not noted for
excessive commitment to obeying instructions from die central audiorities. There
was considerable latitude for local initiative, leading to occasional deviations from die
rules set forth by die policymakers. Akhough die Interior Ministry issued specific
instructions for summoning Jews for deportation, not all localities followed diem. For
example, according to the circular of March 12,1942, issued by die head of Depart-
ment 14, local audiorities were to deliver die summonses to die prospective depor-
tees shortly before transfer to die deportation center so as "to exploit die factor of
Flnt in the Vale of Affliction 301

surprise and prevent desertions."15 It seems that the orders were not implemented
precisely in many localities. In several places, die summonses were distributed
twenty-four hours in advance. In some cities and towns the order to report was issued
publicly, by means of outdoor notices or announcements by the town crier, one day
or even two days before the appointed date. Reports of the planned "concentration"
of young people spread to remote localities, where women had not been included in
the first round. In these places, individuals were able to consider how to respond.16
As it happened, these facts had a considerable impact on the Jews' response to
the menace of deportation. In the time between the publication of the summons and
its implementation, Jews took organized action—mainly spontaneous and local—to
evade. Families' efforts to save a daughter or sister from deportation should not be
construed as resistance activity in the accepted sense, but rather flowed chiefly from
traditionalism and a highly developed sense of family ties. The authorities' intention
to transfer adolescent girls to unknown destinations caused severe anxiety and panic
among the remaining family members. Although Slovakian Jewry was strongly pre-
disposed to respect the law and obey die audiorities' instructions, notices about
die deportation of girls triggered immediate counter-reactions, mostiy spontaneous,
meant to foil die decree.
As we have seen, rumors of die intention to deport Jews from Slovakia spread
even before preparations were complete. Evidendy, Jewish public functionaries and
youdi-movement activists also circulated diem. The question, however, is to what
extent die Jewish public assimilated such information, or whedier die reports of die
impending deportation were confined to die elite circle of Jewish leaders and diose
close to diem. Because diis complex issue has not yet been dioroughly explored, no
unequivocal conclusion may be drawn. One should not disregard die activity of sev-
eral organized entities diat may have emerged soon after die rumors.17 Most of die
initiatives, however, were taken from below, by families or resourceful individuals.18
After die intention to deport became known, Jewish families faced a severe
dilemma; to obey die order or, to help dieir daughters escape, exploit vacuums left
by die audiorities. As we review die decisions of Jews whose daughters faced deporta-
tion, we should take several factors into account
a) Until tiien, die Jews of Slovakia had not experienced die trauma of depor-
tation;
b) The organizers of die deportation direatened to deport die entire family of
women who failed to report;
c) To allay die Jews' fears, Slovakian officials spread rumors diat die young
women would be put to work for a fixed period and dien return to dieir homes.19
Nonedieless, many concerned families began to seek places of shelter for dieir
daughters or to send diem to relatives elsewhere until die danger had passed. Anodier
way of avoiding deportation was hasty marriage, usually dirough fictitious nuptials.
This seemed a reasonable option in view of die organizers' stated intent to draft only
single men and women for labor."
302 Holocaust and Genocide Studies

In contrast, crossing into Hungary—an effective way to evade deportation—be-
came frequent only after the first round of transports. The flow to Hungary intensified
after deportation of families began and reports on the deportees' fate started to filter
back into Slovakia.
By virtue of the families' refusal and of rescue initiatives, only 4,000 of the 7,000
young women designated for deportation reported to the transit centers; the rest
became "absentees." In the Michalovce district of eastern Slovakia, 629 girls had been
ordered to report and only 126 did so; in Presov district, only 305 of approximately
600 were deported. This pattern was especially evident in the town of Michalovce,
where several hundred young women had been ordered to report and only seventeen
complied.*1 The trend was amply demonstrated by a letter dated March 30, 1942,
from the head of the Giraltovce district to the Interior Ministry. The author explained
that his men had managed to deliver to the camp only 28 people: T h e remainder are
scattered in forests or have found hiding places in remote localities," he confessed,
noting that "there are also Aryan families that are hiding Jewesses." Attached to the
letter is a list of more than one hundred women "absentees" from the town of Giral-
tovce.** By bribing the district medical officer, the Bardejov community's leaders, par-
ticularly its head, Raphael Lowi, managed to obtain a document confirming that an
epidemic had broken out among the Jews of the locality and that the deportation
from Bardejov had been postponed to a different date.23
Escaping the first round of deportations did not necessarily guarantee survival.
Most of the young women whose deportation was deferred were later annexed to
family transports and eventually delivered to Auschwitz or extermination camps in
the Lublin area. However, at this early phase of the "Final Solution" most of the
Jewish community remained unaware that families would follow in their wake.
Concentration and Deportation

In view of the limited capacity of the two deportation camps, the plans envisioned
three rounds of arrests and transfers. Transfer from the concentration centers in the
provincial towns, which began on March 21,1942, took place according to geographi-
cal division. The first to reach the Poprad camp, on the slopes of the lofty Tatra moun-
tains, were young women from the Presov district (SariS-Zemphn) in northeastern
Slovakia. Concurrently, women from the Bratislava district were taken to the camp at
Patronka. Once the deportation from these districts was completed, roundups of
women in other districts were to take place."
The young women were delivered to the deportation camps directly from their
homes and families. This basic fact was especially significant in terms of the psycho-
logical effect of separation from family and the conditions that prevailed in the Slo-
vakian deportation camps and, subsequently, in Auschwitz. After the young women
reached the deportation camps, the guards appropriated some of the personal posses-
sions that they had been allowed to bring. Members of the fascist Hlinka Guard sub-
jected the internees to coarse, humiliating treatment. Behavior toward the women
Flirt in the Vale of Affliction 303

was especially brutal in Patronka, where the commander, the fanatically antisemitic
gardist, Imrich Vasina, subjected internees to violence and looted their personal pos-
sessions.*8
The young women in thefirsttransports from Slovakia were representative of
young Slovakian Jewish women as a whole. A conspicuously large number of women
who had been sent to Poprad came from villages and towns, corresponding to the
distribution of the Jewish population of eastern Slovakia. Most of the women came
from the lower sodoeconomic classes, and most belonged to large traditional Ortho-
dox or haredi (Ultraorthodox) families. In some cases, two or even three sisters from
one family were included in thefirsttransports to Auschwitz. The largest age cohort
was the 16-21 group, to which more than 50 percent of the deportees belonged. The
second-largest (27 percent) was 21-26. About 23 percent of the women deportees in
the first transports from Poprad were over the age of 26."
An exception was the large group of 300 young women brought to Poprad from
PreSov, where the Jewish population was more diverse. The profile resembled that of
the young women from western Slovakia who had been deported from the Patronka
camp. Jews in the western and central districts of Slovakia differed from those of
eastern Slovakia in their concentration in urban localities and their looser commit-
ment to religion and tradition . The women in the transports that left Patronka were
older than those deported from Poprad, because they married later in life and be-
cause a higher proportion of Jewish women in western Slovakia remained single. In
Patronka, too, however, the cohort up to age 21 was the largest, at about 40 percent
of the deportees, but 20 percent of the deportees were single women over the age of
32. One fourth of the women in the transports that left from Patronka were aged
21-25.27 Roughly half of those Jewish women in thefirsttransports to Auschwitz were
aged 16-21.
All preparations for the deportation of the Jews of Slovakia were completed on
March 25, 1942. At eight o'clock that evening, Reich Security Main Office (RSHA)
Transport No. 1 left the Poprad station for Auschwitz with 1,000 young women
aboard. The deportations had begun.28 Before the Jewish women boarded the depor-
tation train, Dieter Wisliceny, Eichmann s aide in Bratislava who held the position of
advisor on Jewish affairs, addressed them on the platform. He had played an active
role in all the planning and preparatory stages and monitored the deportations closely.
According to the testimony of survivors, he stressed that they were being transported
to Germany for labor and would be taken home after they hadfinishedtheir duties.88
Wisliceny s remarks merely jumbled the emotions of the women awaiting de-
portation. Manifestations of anxiety and depression, caused by separation from their
families and their treatment in the camp, were partially repressed. Feelings of hard-
ship were overcome, for the time being, by the natural optimism of young people
("hard work is nothing to be afraid of") and the vain hope of returning after a tempo-
rary labor assignment—fueled by misinformation disseminated by the organizers of

the deportation. Several deportees later described an atmosphere of a trip to summer
camp when the transports set out Girls from the same youth groups and graduating
classes met on the platforms. In the railroad cars, friends from youth movements,
women from the same towns, and members of common extended families banded
together. When the two deportation trains at the stations of Poprad and Lamac began
to move, songs in Hebrew and Slovakian emanated from several cars.30 For many of
the women aboard, this was the first journey outside Slovakia.
The second round of call-ups began immediately after the first transports had
departed (see Appendix). Dispatch of young women began on March 28, 1942. Be-
cause so many women had evaded the first summonses, raids and searches were con-
ducted this time. To fill the quota, several women over the specified age were in-
cluded in the two transports, one that left Patronka on April 1, and one Poprad the
next day.31
The third round of deportations, intended to fill the next two transports, never
took place. There were two reasons: the Slovaks were unable to identify and mobilize
enough young women to make up additional transports, and a substantive change
took place among those implementing the operation. On March 24, 1942, the Ger-
mans evidently informed the Slovakian Government that they were willing to re-
ceive not only able-bodied young Jews but also transports including entire families.
This change in the formula of "20,000 able-bodied Jews" was presumably the result
of additional developments. The Germans knew that the Slovakian fascists were
struggling tofillthe transports. Both had an interest in keeping the transports moving.
Moreover, the Germans were worried, by attempts from various sides to intervene.
Of greatest concern were measures taken by the Vatican, which might disrupt the
operation.32 This explains why the Nazis consented to stop splitting up families. To
prepare for the change in the composition of the transports, a redeployment was
needed and the deportation of young women ceased. The number of young Jewish
women in the four transports from Slovakia had amounted to approximately 3,760,
far fewer than the 7,000 agreed upon between the Germans and Slovakians33
In the Women's Camp at Auschwitz

In early March 1942, targets were set and a schedule prepared for the first twenty
deportation trains from Slovakia. Only then, it seems, was a place chosen and feverish
preparations made to accommodate 7,000 Jewish women. Haste forced the German
executive agencies to improvise solutions, particularly with respect to the transports
of women. At this time, Auschwitz II (Birkenau), designated by Himmler as one of
the main sites in the extermination of European Jewry,34 was still under construction.
Ravensbruck, the only concentration camp for women, was filled to saturation and
could not accommodate additional internees.35 Under these circumstances, it was
presumably the preferred solution to reserve a section of Auschwitz I, a camp desig-
nated for men only, and quickly prepare it to receive the young women from Slovakia.
First in the Vale of Affliction 305

In early March 1942, the section of Auschwitz reserved for Soviet war prisoners was
liquidated, and its remaining inmates, along with some of the camp prisoners, trans-
ferred to Birkenau to make room.
On March 8,1942, construction of a high concrete wall began along the row of
newly vacated blocks, numbered one to ten. The wall partitioned Auschwitz I into
two sectors, of which the smaller became the women's camp.* Five of the buildings
were equipped to house Jewish prisoners, two were set aside for Aryans. Block 1 was
used by the camp administration, Block 2 became a reception facility, and Block 3
was supposed to house an infirmary.37 It was clear from the start that a block designed
for 400-500 prisoners would have to house at least 1,500. The inevitable congestion
was part of the plan, for such ratios were an important component of the method
used in Nazi concentration camps. On March 26,1942, when the first Jewish women
reached the camp, die facility was not yet ready to receive them.
In addition to the infrastructure problems that accumulated shortly before the
arrival of the transports from Slovakia, difficulties arose in matters of administration
and formalities. When the women's division of Auschwitz was opened, it was adminis-
tratively attached to die commander of Ravensbruck, Max Koegl, and was considered
an external camp of his,38 an "enclave" of RavensbrGck within the area commanded
by Rudolf H6ss, a man of especially high stature among concentration-camp com-
manders. A group of German women prisoners was transferred from Ravensbriick to
Auschwitz in order to fill various internal administrative functions and integrate die
Jewish prisoners, expected shortly, into the "camp routine." Concurrendy, a team of
SS supervisors—headed by chief supervisor Johanna Langenfeld—was dispatched
from RavensbrQck to manage die camp.39 Notwithstanding die SS supervisors' ex-
treme cruelty toward prisoners in general and Jewish prisoners in particular, some of
the supervisors, especially Langenfeld, brought with diem some of die patterns and
mentalities diat had prevailed in Ravensbriick and stressed order over cruelty. This
was particularly evident in procedural affairs, which were different from diose of
Auschwitz.
Chief supervisor Langenfeld, unlike Auschwitz commander Hoss, was evidendy
oblivious to die true purpose of Auschwitz as conceived by die architects of die Final
Solution. She intended to run die women's facility of Auschwitz I along die lines of
"classical" concentration camps, in which most prisoners were not Jewish. The re-
sulting tension between HSss and Langenfeld would eventually bring about die undo-
ing of die latter.*1 H5ss, updated regularly by Himmler, strove to separate die wom-
en's camp from Ravensbriick and bring it under his audiority. When Himmler visited
Auschwitz on July 17-18,1942, his wish was fulfilled. Himmler, who personally re-
viewed die camp procedures, haH already decided diat the women's camp should be
converted for its true goal—extermination.41
The deportation of die first thousand women from Slovakia marked die begin-
ning of a new chapter in die history of die Holocaust. The transport diat left Poprad
on March 25,1942, was die first in a lengdiy series of trains dispatched to Auschwitz

by RSHA Bureau IV B4, headed by Adolf Eichmann.42 As we review the transports
from Slovakia to Auschwitz in 1942, we discern several trends, reflected in the com-
position of the transports, themselves a direct outcome of deportation policy. The
gradual change in the composition of the transports points to an escalation in the
deportation of Jews and a transition from selective deportation (able-bodied young
adults only) in the early stages to total deportation (including children and the elderly)
later on. As we see below, the fate of the deportees after arrival in Auschwitz was
largely a function of the composition of die transports and the dates of their dispatch.
The first four transports from Slovakia, between March 25 and April 3, 1942,
delivered approximately 3,760 teenage and young adult women to Auschwitz. All
were directly transferred to the camp upon arrival.43 The next seven transports, be-
tween April 13 and June 20,1942, contained 7,063 deportees, mostly single men and
women and able-bodied childless couples. Again, most of them were sent to the
camp. To fill the quota, several families with children were attached to two transports
in this group, which reached Auschwitz on April 29 and June 20. After they arrived,
mothers with young children were separated from the other deportees, quarantined
in a special barracks, and murdered some time later. The camp authorities dissemin-
ated a rumor to the effect that they had been transferred to the Lublin camp.*1
Eight deportation trains that left Slovakia between July 3 and October 20,1942,
delivered entire families to Auschwitz: 7,887 men, women, children, and the elderly.
When the first transport in this group reached Auschwitz on July 4, 1942, the first
"selection on die ramp" took place, after which 372 deportees were moved into the
camp and the remaining 628 murdered From then on, SS selections were conducted
for all transports; only about one-third of the Slovakian deportees survived them and
were sent to the camp.45
Thus, nineteen transports made the trip from Slovakia to Auschwitz in 1942,
bearing 18,587 Jews. The SS conducted selections for eight of these. Approximately
5,900 deportees were killed immediately upon arrival. The remainder, 5,637 men and
7,153 women, were transferred to the camp. (See Appendix.)
Whenever the history of Jewish women from Slovakia in Auschwitz is reviewed,
the focus is mainly on die first four transports, diose of late March and early April
1942. However, Table 1 shows that this group constitutes only about half of all Jewish
women from Slovakia sent to Auschwitz. The others arrived between April and Octo-
ber 1942. Although the two groups had much in common and, by virtue of necessity,
soon became a more or less uniform and close-knit group, diey exhibited several
distinguishing features, principally age and marital status: those in the first transports
were all teenagers and young women, nearly all were single. The second group in-
cluded somewhat older women. (There were instances of mothers and daughters
in die camp alongside each odier.) Conspicuous in die second group were married
women who had been deported together witih their husbands, some of whom were
interned in the nearby men's camp.4" These indicators, along widi die timing of die
arrival, had considerable bearing on die prisoners' prospects of winning dieir struggle
Fint in the Vale of Affliction 307

Transports from Slovakia to Auschwitz In 1942 and the Number of Woman Who
Entered th« Camp from Each Transport, by Month
Women Prisoners Entering
Date of Arrival the Camp Monthly Total
March 26 999 girls
March 28 798 girls March total: 1,797
April 2 965 girls
April 3 997 girts
ApriM3 443 women and girls
ApriM7 27 women and girls
ApnM9 536 women and girts
April 23 457 women and girls
April 24 558 women and girts
April 29 300 women and girls Apnl total: 4,283
June 20 255 women and girls June total: 255
July 4 108 women and girls
July 11 148 women and girts
July 18 178 women and girls
July 25 93 women and girts July total: 527
August 1 75 women and girls August total: 75
September 19 71 women and girts
September 23 67 women and girls September total: 138
October 21 78 women and girts October total: 78
Grand total: 7,153 women and girls
Sourct of datt cud catalogue of deportees from Sovatii, MW Vtahem Archive JM 10675-10694 et *L, Katendirium (see n. 35)
for survival. The fact that more women survived from the first transports, which in-
cluded mainly young women, than from later transports speaks for itself. Further-
more, insofar as one can estimate, most of the women who were deported from Slo-
vakia to Auschwitz in 1942 and survived had arrived in the two first transports.47
Precise data on the number of prisoners in Auschwitz is lacking because the
Nazis destroyed most of the evidence and documents that might have revealed the
purposes of this facility before they evacuated. Scholars have attempted to apply vari-
ous research techniques to generate statistical information on manpower in the
camps. Despite the problems in obtaining reliable data, cross-tabulation of sources
makes possible estimates that probably approximate the realities.*8
During its first three months, the women's division in Auschwitz had no Jewish
prisoners other than those from Slovakia (Table 2). As we shall see, this affected the
status of those internees from Slovakia who managed to survive. By the end of June
1942, approximately 6,340 Jewish internees, all from Slovakia, had been registered in
the women's division, as had another 1,600 non-Jewish women. During this time,
Jewish women from Slovakia accounted for about 80 percent of prisoners in the wom-
en's wing of Auschwitz.48
In late June 1942, the first transports from other countries were brought to
Auschwitz, initially from France, the Netherlands, and Belgium. (See Table 2) From
308 Holocaust and Gmoddt Studio

labf«2
Jewish Prisoners at th« Woman's Camp In Auschwitz Pending transfer to Birkenau.
by Counliy of Depot lallon
Jewish prisoners from-
Month Slovakia France Netherlands Belgium
March 1942 1,797
April 1942 6,080
May 1942 6,000
June 1942 6,400 100
July 1942 6,500 2,900 1,417
August 1942 6,370 3,783 1,902 319
early July until the women prisoners were transferred to Birkenau (beginning on Au-
gust 6), the proportion of Slovalcian Jewish women among Jewish prisoners decreased
to about 55 percent. An estimated 12,000 Jewish internees were transferred from the
women's division of Auschwitz to the women's camp in Birkenau—6,200 from Slo-
vakia, 3,500 from France, 1,700 from the Netherlands, and 350 from Belgium—as
were about 2,000 non-Jewish prisoners.50 From March 1942, when the women's divi-
sion was opened, until the end of that year, more than 18,000 registered prisoners
were murdered or otherwise perished in Auschwitz and Birkenau.51 The victims in-
cluded approximately 6,700 Jewish women from Slovakia. Nearly 40 percent of die
women victims in Auschwitz in 1942 were Slovakian Jews.
Consequently, within a period of about nine months, 92 percent of Jewish
women from Slovakia who had registered in diis camp either were murdered or died
in odier ways. As Table 2 shows, mortality occurred primarily after transfer to Birk-
enau, in the four months between the second half of August and late December 1942.
On January 1,1943,5,367 women prisoners were enumerated in the women's camp at
Birkenau; at approximately the same time only 600-650 Jewish women from Slovakia
remained alive in the entire Auschwitz complex.58 Table 2 shows that all Jewish in-
ternees in the women's camp in Auschwitz were from Slovakia during the first three
months of the camp's existence. Of approximately 8,000 women internees registered in
Auschwitz in late June 1942, nearly 6,400—about 80 percent—came from Slovakia.
The Ladies from Ravensbrtidc

On March 26, 1942, several hours before the arrival of the first transport of young
Jewish women from Slovakia, several dozen SS supervisors and 999 German women
prisoners came to Auschwitz from die Ravensbruck camp. Most were "asocials"—
prostitutes, criminals, and internees of die "penalty block"—plus a few politicals and
Jehovah's Witnesses. (Members of die last two had volunteered for various reasons.)
The transport also included a certain number of special prisoners whom tie supervi-
sors wished to take widi diem to Auschwitz.33
In his memoirs, Auschwitz commander Rudolf Hoss noted that "Ravensbruck
looked about and found die 'elite' for Auschwitz." He defined most of die German
Fust in the Vale of Affliction 309

women as depraved and corrupt creatures. Other sources also indicate that the com-
mander of Ravensbruck exploited the transport to Auschwitz to cleanse his camp
"troublemakers." Many of these women had stood out for their uninhibited and sadis-
tic behavior, some were mentally disturbed. According to H6ss, Himmler considered
such prisoners very well suited to the function of Kapo over Jewish women.54 As
stated, they were to fill positions in the internal administration of the new women's
camp. The Nazis scoured the entire camp system to track down individuals who, by
means of incentives, favors, and false promises, became tools in their captors" hands.
The SS even exploited national sentiments to build a network of collaborators, includ-
ing some of the women in the Ravensbriick transport. Orli Reichert, a political pris-
oner in the transport, provides an instructive illustration in her memoirs, an SS officer
who appealed to the patriotic sentiments of a group of German prisoners, saying:
"Look, you are German women. Help us kill the Jews, and you'll eventually go free."35
Margitte Schwalb, a Jewish doctor from Slovakia, confirms this attitude in her mem-
oirs. The doctor of the women's camp, an SS officer named Mayer, told die German
woman Kapos who reported to him, "Ihr seid deutsche Frauen und habtfreie Hand
ilber das JudengesindeT (You are German women and you have a free hand over
the Jewish rabble).58 Orli Reichert writes that some of the German prisoners were
susceptible to such appeals. She describes a young German Kapo who, in the initial
period of the camp, was in charge of a group of Jewish women building a road. Be-
cause of her exceptional brutality this Kapo was nicknamed Engdmacherin, i.e., one
who murders children entrusted to her protection. According to Reichert, no one in
the detail remained ahve a week later: her boundless cruelty had led to die death of
all the Jewish prisoners.57
Rudolf H6ss says the German women Kapos: "were much worse than die male
Kapos. They were more unfeeling, ruthless, base, and corrupt than [die m e n ] . . . .
One could understand that diese she-animals would vent their fury on die prisoners
in dieir charge, but one could not prevent it."98 Much evidence confirms Hdss's de-
scription of the German women Kapos. Most important, die fate of Jewish women
internees was very much in dieir hands. The women from Slovakia were the first to
fall into dieir clutches.
Notwidistanding the ordeals that all inmates of Auschwitz endured, diere was
a fundamental difference between die Nazis' treatment of Jewish prisoners and other
internees. The difference originated in die Nazi racist dogma, which carried die clear
distinction between Jews and non-Jews even to the midst of the extermination camps.
The administrative practices and living conditions in die camps created vast disparit-
ies Jewish and other prisoners.
Via Dolorosa
The purpose of Auschwitz, for all Jews, was extermination, even diose who passed
preliminary selection and were registered as inmates. They, too—some sooner, odiers

later—were marked for the same fate that befell those murdered upon arrival. AD
elements in the daily lives of Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz-Birkenau were planned
and orchestrated with this goal in mind.
Even so, several thousand Jewish prisoners of Auschwitz, and possibly several
tens of thousands, managed to survive. Some of them endured more than two years
in the extermination camp. Some Jewish women from Slovakia endured Auschwitz
for two and a half years, a smaller group for nearly three.
How they managed to survive is too complex an issue to discuss in the context
of this article. Here I wish merely to illuminate one aspect of the struggle in order to
represent the Via Dolorosa of all Jewish in the camps.
The method practiced at the death factory of Auschwitz was preconceived to
humiliate the prisoners and bring about their total surrender from the moment they
entered. It was designed to destroy the prisoners' dignity by snapping their ethical
spine, stripping them of their identity, and eclipsing their humanity.
The prisoners in Auschwitz bore the scars of admission throughout their ago-
nies in the camp. They were deeply engraved in the souls of those who managed to
survive. The shock that seized the internees upon entering the camp—the shock of
violence, intimidation, and harassment—are described graphically in most testimo-
nies. In these admission procedures, and in other horrors that the Nazis introduced
in Auschwitz, the young Jewish women in the first transports from Slovakia served
the Nazis as guinea pigs.
Newly arrived women walked to the camp area carrying their belongings from
the point of disembarkation, not far from the Auschwitz railroad station. In the admis-
sions building their belongings were taken from them. They were forced to strip.
Their hair was shorn,.their entire bodies were shaved, and they were made to wash
in a large basin of filthy water. All of this was done to the shouts and beatings by the
German women prisoners.
The next steps were registration and distribution of clothing—a man's shirt,
Red Army uniforms (used, filthy, bloodstained, buttonless), and a pair of wooden
clogs. This attire elicited disgust, embarrassment, and anxiety among the "newcom-
ers" (Zugange in camp slang). The shaven heads, the soiled men's clothing, and, after
a while, the cessation of menstruation as a result of depression and chemical sub-
stances introduced in the food, had a purpose of their own: to corrupt die women's
feminine self-image and thereby magnify the general torment. Vera Alexander, who
came to Auschwitz in the second transport, summarized the admissions procedure in
her subsequent testimony, "After that, we ceased to be women."*8
Importantly, the method described here was still evolving. The experience the
Nazis derived from "handling" the transports from Slovakia permitted them to refine
their procedures; soon afterwards, when the deportations to Auschwitz became more
frequent, the destructive power of these methods reached its peak.
It should be noted that admission was not implemented in a uniform manner.

Different groups of prisoners were admitted to the camp via different procedures.
Here, too, the Nazis drew a clear distinction in their behavior toward Jewish and non-
Jewish prisoners. Yisrael Gutman argues that precisely those people who reached the
camp directly from normal circumstances found it harder to integrate into the camp
than those who arrived from ghettos and prisons.* On the other hand, even though
most of the young women who were deported from Slovakia had come from relatively
normal circumstances, their memoirs and testimonies suggest that the adjustment
to camp life was not as difficult for them as it was for Jewish women prisoners from
other countries.41
There seem to be several reasons. At first, the regimen and atmosphere in the
women's division were not those of an extermination camp. Selections inside the
camp had not begun, and the tattooing of prisoners' arms with identification numbers,
a traumatic occurrence in itself, had not yet come into vogue.™ Moreover, for the first
three months, all the Jewish prisoners were young women from Slovakia. Members
of this group had much in common (language, previous acquaintance, and so on),
making it easier to unite and form support groups. Their solidarity was an exceedingly
valuable asset in the adjustment to camp reality; so it was later, too, in the struggle
for survival. Moreover, in their distress, most of the young women from Slovakia seem
to have fallen prey to the lies that SS officer Dieter Wisliceny fed them shortly before
departure: that they were being taken away for a fixed period of labor, at the end
of which they would return home. Following his example, the Slovaks continued to
disseminate this fraud.
One presumes that these women's vain hope of returning home after the speci-
fied time attenuated their psychological hardship and the difficulty of adjusting to
camp conditions. The attitude that was frequently expressed—The Slovakians have
lent us to the Germans for a limited period of time; we'll go home three months or
half a year from now"83—bolstered their morale when depression struck. The testi-
monies suggest that the illusion of homecoming was an important tool in coping with
daily hardships in the initial period, when the women prisoners from Slovakia were
still unaware of the purpose of the camp and had not received information on the
mass murder already being perpetrated in Auschwitz.64
Their suspicions were aroused on April 29,1942, after a transport bearing sev-
eral families with children was taken into the camp but housed separately. Anxieties
mounted when several weeks later the children and their mothers were "transferred'*
to a "family camp" in Lublin. The truth came out when workers at the laundry identi-
fied clothing of the children from Slovakia among the items they were to wash. In
her memoirs, Julia Skodova provides a detailed account of this dawning. She regards
the murder of the children and mothers as a milestone, a matter of tragic significance
that the female prisoners did not fully appreciate at the time. Skodova explains:
Then, for thefirsttime, the word 'gas' was engraved into our minds after the German
prisoner in charge of the laundry stated that the clothing had belonged to those who
312 Hdocaust and Genocide Studio

had been sent to the gas . . . ."" Additional testimonies mention learning the fate of
the children as an especially harsh trauma in the Jewish internees' ordeaL
The arrival of the family transports dashed the illusion of a return to Slovakia.
Rumors to the effect that the Nazis had conducted selections among members of
all transports that reached Auschwitz after Jury 4, 1942,98 marked a further stage in
undermining the inmates' psychological and physical resistance. The new reality
evolving in Auschwitz elicited despair and hopelessness that had a fatal impact on the
endurance of the women, who to some degree had been able to cope with camp
reality until then.
The Women's Camp at Birkenau: The Struggle for Survival

The transfer of women from Auschwitz to Birkenau on August 6,1942, is a milestone
of special importance in die implementation of the mass murder of Jews. Two events
that preceded this transfer are noteworthy because of their bearing on the transfer.
The transfer had been preceded by the first selection (in the conventional sense of
the term) in die women's camp in Auschwitz. Internees who were unable to march
to the new ramp, or whom t i e SS doctor deemed unfit for work, were separated from
the other women and murdered. The terrifying specter of selection became part of
routine life in die women's camp.87
Then systematic murder of most Jews immediately upon arrival at Auschwitz
began on July 4, 1942, when die first family transport from Slovakia reached the
camp. The murder was preceded by a procedure known as "selection on die Rampe,"
a term diat became a trademark of Auschwitz. From dien on, selection became part
of die camp routine and, apart from special cases, was carried out widi all transports
of Jews.48
The difference between Auschwitz and Birkenau was substantive in every re-
spect Conditions in die women's camp of Birkenau, which was still under construc-
tion at die time of die transfer, were much worse dian those at Auschwitz. All aspects
of life in Auschwitz were radicalized in Birkenau, including cruelty in die treatment
of women prisoners. Those who had anticipated "better" conditions found diemselves
in a place diat, from die very start, was designed as an extermination camp for hun-
dreds of thousands of Jews and members of odier peoples.*
The head of die agricultural administration at Auschwitz, SS officer Joachim
Caesar, said die following in reference to die transfer of women prisoners to Birk-
enau: "The Birkenau camp was in an impossible s t a t e . . . . It had no padis or water.
Throughout die area, not a well was found that was not contaminated widi cob' bacte-
ria, and not a puddle was not swarming widi malaria-bearing anopheles mosqui-
toes."70 Indeed, die appalling physical conditions in die camp—catastrophic sanita-
tion, nearly total deprivation of water, starvation, back-breaking labor, and general
abuse—spelled disaster for die women prisoners. Terrifying typhus and malaria epi-
demics further underscored die barbaric conditions diat prevailed in Birkenau. Nazis
Fiist in the Vale of Affliction 313

conducted urgent selections "to eradicate the epidemics" by eradicating the infected.
The first month in Birkenau had sealed the fate of most Jewish prisoners. In the
autumn and winter of 1942-1943, believed to be the worst period in the history of
this camp, some 18,000 women, mostly Jewish, were murdered or perished in other
ways.71
In an operation to "eradicate the typhus epidemic" in early October, the SS
murdered approximately 6,000 prisoners, mostly Jewish women from Slovakia,
including some who were healthy. The last large contingent of young women from
Slovakia was taken to the gas chambers after a selection on December 5,1942. After
this date, the Birkenau women's camp housed only a few hundred women from the
Slovakian transports.71
This remnant, exhausted and in extreme mental and physical distress, realized
that perhaps the only way to survive the hell of Birkenau was to secure a relatively
undemanding job or a position in the internal administration of the camp. Several of
the young women from Slovakia, as the longest-tenured Jewish women internees, had
managed to obtain better jobs before leaving the women's division at Auschwitz. A
few were even given a shred of authority in a barracks or a labor detail. The first
transports from Slovakia had been ordered to choose several among their number for
janitorial duties in their quarters. This position, termed Zimmerka (barracks cleaner)
in the jargon of the Slovakian women, was the lowliest position in the internal hierar-
chy of the barracks. As the population of women internees mounted, several of them
were appointed to the position of Stubendienst (room orderlies) in the Jewish wom-
en's barracks.73
Something similar took place with respect to jobs. The expansion of Auschwitz
and its satellites, along with structural changes in the camp, compelled the Nazis
to make massive use of prisoner manpower in administrative capacities. These jobs,
considered privileged, were usually reserved for non-Jewish prisoners. However, be-
cause most of the young Jewish women from Slovakia knew German and had occupa-
tional skills, some had already been given such duties in the spring of 1942. They
became clerks in various offices, nurses and orderlies in the women's camp infirmary,
workers in the warehouse where deportees' looted belongings were stored, and so
on.74 Only the privileged few among the Slovakian Jewish women obtained such jobs;
most spent their days in backbreaking labor notoriously known as Aussenkommando
("outside labor detail")—demolishing abandoned houses, paving roads, draining
marshes, and carrying out other infrastructural tasks.75
The prisoners struggled stubbornly to obtain better jobs and alleviate their des-
perate plight. In Birkenau, the strenuous effort to secure or hold a superior—i.e.,
indoor—job, indeed to secure a job of any kind and thereby ameliorate their suffer-
ing, were manifestations of the struggle for survival. Support groups that sprang up
among the prisoners constituted a significant factor in the prospects for survival under
this regimen of extreme psychological and physical deprivation.

The extermination camp dictated unusual behavior patterns, and the rules of
human interaction were reshaped commensurately. Julia Skodova provides an in-
structive account of the emergence of support groups among the women prisoners
from Slovakia in the early period of the camp. This phenomenon, which she terms
"the power of local patriotism," came to light after several of the young women from
Slovakia had obtained better jobs—or jobs of any kind. "When one of the girls from
Zilinn [a town in Slovakia] was appointed to be a barracks-cleaner, it was clear that
all the Ztmmerka would be from îlina."76 However, Skodovas "local patriotism" was
multifaceted. Margitte Schwalb, one of the first women in Auschwitz, testified about
the formation of support groups among members of Hashomer Hatza'ir who worked
in the women's camp infirmary. This group, apart from defending its own interests,
set itself the goal of succoring prisoners in distress, often at risk to their own lives.
Another support group was organized by religious girls housed in the staff building
(Stabsgebaude). The literature offers many examples of such behavior.77
These support groups expressed the prisoners' reaction to the insufferable
norms established by the Nazis in Birkenau. Orli Reichert describes various responses
and the rivalries and intrigues that pervaded the support groups in their struggle for
survival.78 Indeed, such rivalries often came at the expense of rank-and-file prisoners.
Human relations among prisoners in Auschwitz were extremely complex, and the
intricacies were blatantly evident both between prisoner groups and among prisoners
within one group. Primo Levi speaks of "a thousand demarcated units that waged a
desperate, surreptitious, and protracted struggle."79 Under the conditions that pre-
vailed in Birkenau in the autumn and winter of 1942-1943, the field of choice, includ-
ing ethical choice, narrowed to a minimum: the attitude was "every woman for
herself,"80 dictating the internees' patterns of behavior and response. Under such cir-
cumstances, it is natural that any improvement in living conditions and, in particular,
obtaining a less exhausting indoor job—thereby sparing oneself the rampant violence
of the Aussenkommando—became causes of existential importance.
The relentless influx of Jews to Auschwitz that began in the summer of 1942
expanded the demand for manpower in administration and services. To fill jobs of
this kind, prisoners with skills and experience in camp life were needed. By this time,
the proportion of Jewish women from Slovakia among the prisoners had dwindled
significantly, and the (non-Jewish) Polish women prisoners, whose numbers had
mounted, achieved a foothold and acquired positions of power in most of the privi-
leged jobs. The Slovakian Jews had to wage a resolute and uncompromising struggle
to keep their jobs and obtain any job that was easy. Notably, the struggle took place
between unequal forces—exhausted, famished Jewish prisoners pitted against Aryan
women whose status in Birkenau was significantly better. Nevertheless, a substantial
number managed to attain and retain good jobs, including positions in the camp's
administration.81
The SS men who ran the camp knew how to exploit these power struggles to
First in the Vak of Affliction 315

their own advantage. In certain cases, for reasons of their own, they preferred to
award a job that they considered "sensitive" to none other than a Jewish prisoner.
Their reasoning: the Jews' fate was sealed under any circumstances, but an' Aryan
prisoner might, under certain conditions, be released from die camp or escape. In-
deed, there were cases in which non-Jewish prisoners were liberated from Auschwitz,
and several successful getaways are known, mostly Polish men and women.81 There-
fore, the Nazis regarded Polish prisoners, including women, as security risks who
might reveal the guarded secrets of die Reich. As a result, Jewish women—especially
young women from Slovakia, who from die Nazi point of view constituted no security
risk—were given several jobs considered sensitive and, in most cases, offered condi-
tions much better than other jobs. Most Slovakian Jewish women who survived the
winter of 1942/43 worked in jobs of this land.83
But even a good job or a preferred position did not assure its holders survival.
The fatal typhus epidemic struck privileged prisoners, as indeed SS men and their
families.84 As we discuss the "privileged" Jewish women of Slovakia, we should bear
in mind that they were no more dian a few hundred out of die original 7,000-plus. In
terms of die status of Jewish prisoners, die young women from Slovakia had undoubt-
edly climbed to die highest rungs. This fact did much to create die stigma diat ad-
hered to diem in the women's camp.
Almost half of die six hundred Jewish women from Slovakia surviving in Ausch-
witz in 1943 held preferred jobs. More dian a hundred were employed in sorting die
belongings appropriated from incoming Jews who had been murdered. This detail
was later nicknamed die "Canada commando."86 Another group of more dian one
hundred Jewish teenagers was concentrated in die staff building, where all women
prisoners who worked for die SS were stationed. They included clerks and secretaries
in various offices, die political department, t i e post office, die registry of prisoners,
and the building administration; those employed at die SS laundry and the sewing
workshops; and approximately fifty young women who worked at die experimental
agricultural station in Rajsko. Because diey were lodged in separate barracks outside
die women's camp, diey were spared all me abuse diat die camp inmates endured as
a matter of routine. Their work entided diem to better conditions dian die odier
Jewish prisoners enjoyed.89 Starting in die summer of 1942, several score worked in
die various agricultural enterprises belonging to die Auschwitz conglomerate. Some
of these prisoners were housed in barracks built on die farms, principally at die Har-
mensee farm. This group also benefited from better conditions dian diose in
Birkenau.87
Most of die Slovakian women who worked in die infirmary met a totally differ-
ent fate. They were unable to retain dieir jobs in diis important workplace; according
••toÎargitte Schwalb, diey were displaced after denunciations by Polish prisoners. In
this struggle for jobs, the Polish women prisoners were helped by counterparts in die
men's camp who had attained positions of power in the Auschwitz heakh system and

alleged to the Germans that the Jewish women had caused the typhus epidemic. Very
few continued to work in the infirmary and survived.88
The Question of Guilt

The issue of Jewish officials in t i e concentration and extermination camps is one of
the most complex subjects in Holocaust history. Primo Levi elaborates on this theme
in his work and confronts it from his own perspective.88 Historians find this an ex-
tremely difficult field to probe in depth. The young women from Slovakia were the
first Jews to obtain positions of authority—albeit minor—in Auschwitz, even before
they could adapt to the camp's conditions and realized its true purpose. The manner
in which they obtained authority was not uniform. As stated, the first secure ap-
pointees were given their duties by their peers. Later on, they obtained position by
virtue of "local patriotism" or because singled out by German prisoners serving as
their supervisors and administrators. However, devotion to the Jewish prisoners also
played a role." Most members of this first round of Slovakian deportee officials did
not hold their jobs for long. The policy was to bar Jews, to the extent possible, from
official positions. As long as there were few non-Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz, the
Germans had no alternative but to appoint Jewish women, but after the population
of "Aryan" prisoners increased, and after transfer to Birkenau, most of the Slovakian
Jewish women lost these jobs.
In time, as the proportion of Jewish women in Birkenau grew, several dozen
from Slovakia were assigned official duties in various sectors because of their camp
experience. This trend became especially salient after transports from Hungary began
arriving in spring of 1944.91 Several such women gained high positions, mosdy in
administrative posts that were previously reserved for non-Jews. Thus, for example,
Margitte Grossberg-Bachner served as Chief Quartermaster for the SS and is believed
to have been the only Jewish prisoner allowed to circulate throughout Auschwitz with-
out an SS escort Vera Foltin and Katia Singer served respectively as secretary in the
SS Building Administration and Chief Recorder (Raportschreiberin) in the women's
camp. The'latter was one of the highest-ranking positions in Birkenau and marked
the high-water mark of Jewish attainments in Auschwitz. Evidence suggests that both
utilized their positions to benefit the general prisoner community and provided im-
portant assistance to the underground movement that emerged in Auschwitz.91
The status and conduct of Slovakian Jewish women in Auschwitz-Birkenau has
attracted considerable hyperbole. Many publications give the impression that the Slo-
vaks accounted for the lion's share of officials in the women's camp.93 Most refer to
officials prisoners encountered as a matter of routine, such as block seniors and
Kapos. This version is not borne out by the facts. The number of Slovakian women
in such positions was negligible—perhaps several dozen.94 Importantly, "Aryan" and
Jewish prisoners were housed in completely separate quarters, and conditions in non-
Jewish barracks were superior. Jews were barred from any position in "Aryan" quar-
First to the Vale of Affliction 317

ters, while many non-Jewish women carried out various functions in the Jewish
lodgings.
It has also been argued that the weakest and most ethically refined of the Slo-
vakian Jewish women perished early, leaving behind the predatory, uninhibited, and
sometimes even sadistic and depraved86 These baseless generalizations do not pass
the test of reality. Attempts to besmirch the collective of. Jewish women with the
actions of an aberrant few do immeasurable injury to the survivors. Perusal of
the sources illuminates blatantly contradictory observations. One passage accuses
the young Slovaltian women of abuse and cruelty, yet another passage in the same
source describes them in a completely different light 96 A Blockalteste who in one
account collaborated with an SS doctor in selections is described by another witness
as a savior to whom prisoners owe their lives.97 These contradictions in survivors'
testimonies substantiate the complexity of the issue.
There are known cases of hard-heartedness, and even cruelty. Julia Skodova
describes the personality of her Kapo, a woman from Slovakia named Edith who ar-
rived with her in the first transport to Auschwitz;
Her favorite expression was, "Tilreportyou to Oberscharfuhrer Kirschner" [an SS-man

in the political department]... .Originally she intended to impose her authority through
her threats. Eventually, as she acquired power, Edith informed [on prisoners] for reaL
It took us some time to realize that such contemptible behavior was indeed possible.
Edith had become an informer."
Additional testimonies describe cruelties inflicted by several Jewish women officials

from Slovakia. Edith Lazar, deported to Auschwitz from Hungary, depicts the Kapo
of Camp C-III in Birkenau: "She looked good, dressed well, had her own room, and
slept under a d u v e t . . . . She even surpassed the SS men with her cruelty... .She
shouted endlessly, 'I'll teach you, you pigs, here you'll become corpses." (Even this
witness emphasizes that some of the young office-holders were exceptionally fair-
minded.)9*
Margitte Schwalb, taken to Auschwitz from Slovakia in the second transport,
observed in her testimony the process of degeneration: "Some of them did not have
the psychological strength. They became tough and obtuse from the suffering they
had endured in the difficult initial period in the camp. They were dazzled by the
power granted them and exploited their status. Luckily for us, they were just a few."100
Tamar Shefer, another deportee from Hungary, attests to the opposite kind of
behavior: "A Jewish woman from Slovakia who served as a Lageralteste ['camp se-
nior'] in Camp B saved us several times during the selections and taught us how to
slip away and escape after Mengele included us among those marked for extermina-
tion.1"101 Paula Radon also lavishes praise on her Kapo, a young woman from Slovakia:
"Because of her decency, the prisoners fought among themselves to become part of
the labor group that she commanded. I know that this Kapo was consigned to a pen-
alty detail because of her rescue work during the selection."101

A few of these women were arrested after the war, either in Slovakia or in Israel.
As far as we can ascertain, only one was sentenced to prison; none of the others was
even indicted.103 This, however, does not allow us to gloss over the phenomenon. The
case of H. R. illuminates one aspect of the fate of the Jewish officials, who, in the
final analysis—as Primo Levi states—were also victims of the Nazi method.
H. R. was a young girl when deported to Auschwitz in the first transport After
many months in the infamous Aussenkommando and penalty detail, she was ap-
pointed to a minor position in the women's camp and climbed the social ladder to
several higher duties. Survivors' testimonies exhibit significant disparities on the sub-
ject of her treatment of the prisoners under her command. Some describe H. R. as
"the worst of the officials," others as an exemplary leader who saved many lives. After
the Holocaust H. R. returned to Czechoslovakia, where she was investigated for her
activities in Auschwitz-Birkenau. She emigrated to Israel during the mass immigra-
tion following the establishment of the state. There she was identified and beaten by
survivors in an immigrants' residence, after which she was arrested. After several
weeks of interrogation, she was released without indictment and her file was closed.104
We sum up this episode with an opinion signed by ten former inmates demon-
strating the uncertainties that arise when we ponder this aspect of the Holocaust:
"Under the circumstances, in a state of poweriessness, she behaved like thousands of
others, as anyone would have behaved when in the grip of the survival instinct. She
acted as many did to save her life, but not at the cost of others' lives."108
Grasping at straws, the Slovakian women in Auschwitz attempted to apprise the
outside world of their presence and plight. During the early period, they also pon-
dered ways of escape, although it is not known whether any attempts were made.108
In 1942, a large number of SS men who were ethnic Germans from Slovakia were
posted to Auschwitz. There are known instances in which these conveyed messages
and letters from the prisoners to Slovakia. Hermina Hirschler, a member of the sec-
ond transport, recognized one of these SS men as hailing from her home town of
Bratislava. During his tenure in Auschwitz, Rudasch sent letters to her relatives con-
taining information on the fate of Slovakian Jewry at the camp, and brought Hirschler
letters and parcels from her relatives in Slovakia.107
In September 1942, as the deportations from Slovakia continued, the SS men
allowed women housed in the staff building to begin a correspondence, including
delivery of letters from Slovakia, that lasted throughout their stay in Auschwitz, a
notable benefit of their position.108 Starting in late December 1942, women were
allowed to write to their relatives in Slovakia on several occasions. In the summer
of 1943, evidently in response to pressure from the Slovakian Government to allow a
mission to visit the camp, 2,332 letters from Birkenau written by 844 prisoners, in-
cluding approximately 500 women from Slovakia, were received in Slovakia. Copies
of some were forwarded to Jewish institutions abroad, providing first-hand informa-
tion on the Auschwitz extermination camp. As a result, urgent initiatives were taken
to help the deportees. Nazi constraints limited the effectiveness of these activities,
Fust in the Vale of Affliction 319

but some of them—such as sending parcels from neutral countries—were successful
and bolstered die internees' morale.106
One unique rescue attempt deserves mention. In the summer of 1944, tie Pal-
estine Office in Geneva sent letters of approval to the British administration in Pales-
tine for the issue of immigration certificates for several young Slovakian women in
Auschwitz—members of Hashomer Hatza'ir—who had been traced by the letters
they had written. The permits were received by the Political Department of the camp
(the Gestapo). Several of the prospective emigrants were brutally interrogated by the
SS, the Nazis evidently fearing information leaks. The young women were forced to
falsely affirm over their signatures that they had received the certificates and then
taken back to the camp. With this, the certificate episode ended.110
Appendix
Transport* of Slovakian Jews to Auschwitz in 1942
Transport Number of Date of Women Men Murdered
number deportees arrival delivered delivered upon arrival Notes
1 1,000 26.3 999
2 798 28.3 798
3 965 2.4 965
4 997 3.4 997 Transports of girls
5 1,077 13.4 443 634
6 1,000 174 27 973
7 1,000 19.4 536 46
8 1,000 23.4 457 543
9 1,000 24.4 558 442 "
10 1,054 29.4 300 423 300*
11 1,000 20.6 255 404 341* Mixed transports
12 1,000 4.7 108 264 628**
13 1,000 11.7 148 182 670
14 1,000 18.7 178 327 459
15 1,000 25.7 93 192 715
16 848 1.8 75 165 608
17 1,000 19.9 71 206 723
18 1,000 23.9 67 294 639
19 848 21.10 78 121 649 Transports of families
• * *
total 18,587 7,153 5,634 5,799
. . . H i . . . I i lli .k n i • M • , .
prisoners. At were murdered some time later.

"From tha transport on, selections Were conducted on the "rampe" of Auschwitz. and most of the arrfcah went summarly murdered
'"Appendh compfltd by tht author from dtta in tht card catalogue of deportees prepared by tht Spedal Department of tht Jewish
Center (UZXâdVashtrn Archives JM 10675-10694 Set abo a 6st of trensporo from SlowaUa in 19CMoreshHArchws(aHtHavfc<a)
D.I .5705, and Cafendanum.
Notes
1. Yitshak Arad, Yisrael Gutman, Abraham Margaliot, eds., Documents on the Holocaust (Jeru-
salem Yad Vashem, 1981), p. 257.
2. Gila Fatran, Struggle for Survival? Leadership of Slovakian Jewry During the Holocaust,
1938-1944 (in Hebrew), (Tel Aviv: Moreshet, 1992), pp. 106ff.

3. Christopher R. Browning, The Final Solution and the German Foreign Office (New York
Holmes and Meier, 1978), p. 94.
4. Cf. Yehoshua BQchler, "Deportation of Slovakian Jews to the Lublin Area 1942" (in He-
brew), YaDcut Moreshet 50 (1991), p. 120.
5. See Appendix 1, and list of transports from Slovakia in 1942, Moreshet Archives (hereafter, •
MA), D.1.5705.
6. Fatran, p. 108.
7. Eichmann Trial, Document No. 837, copy in MA, C.18.
8. See Document 132 in Peter Longerich, Die Ermordung der europaischen Juden (Munich:
Piper, 1989), p. 301.
9. See Hermann Kaienburg, "Vernichtung durch Arbeit" (Bonn: J.H.W. Dietz, 1991), pp. 26ff.
10. See protocol by Luther, March 29,1942, in Longerich.
11. Dezider T6th, ed, Tragedia shvenskych iidov (Bansld Bystrica: Datei, 1992), pp. 264ff.
12. Ibid.
13. Fatran, pp 109ff.
14. Yad Vashem Archives (hereafter, YVA), M-5/97.
15. T6th, Tragedia.
16. On this subject, see letter of March 30,1942, from the head of the county of Giraltovce to
the Ministry of the Interior; YVA, JM 10.992.
17. See Fatran, pp. 150ff.
18. Doris Fflrstenberg, Jeden Moment war dieser Tod- Interviews mttjudischen Frauen die
Auschwitz uberlebten (DOsseldorf: Droste, 1986), pp. 52ff.
19. JuBa Skodova, Tri roky bez mena (Bratislava, 1962), p. 17; this is die memoir of a young
woman sent to Auschwitz in the first transport.
20. See testimonies in Fflrstenberg, pp. 52ff.
21. See letter of May 20, 1942, by the Chief of Staff of the HHnka Guard concerning the
deportation of young women from Michalovce Central State Archives of Slovakia, Bratislava
(hereafter SSA), MV-242-8057/42.
22. See n. 16.
23. Furstenberg, p. 52.
24. Toth, p. 268.
25. Ibid., p. 87.
26. Cf. lists of deportees, YVA, M-5/112.
27. Cf. lists of deportees, YVA, M^5/lll.
28. See Iivia Rothkirchen, The Destruction of Slovakian Jewry (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Yad
Vashem, 1961), pp. 21ff.

29. Quoted from Toth, p. 145.
30. See testimony of Fanny Tachs, MA, A. 1599, and of Martin FOrst, MA, A. 182.
31. YVA, M-5/97 and M-5/112.
32. Fatran, pp. 120ff.
33. Toth, p. 149.
3 4 See article by Yehuda Bauer in Eberhard Jgckel and Jurgen Rohwer, Der Mord an den
Juden tm Zweiten Wettkrieg (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch, 1987), p. 167.
35. Ino Arndt, "Das Frauenkonzentrationslager Ravensbrtick," in Dachauer Hefte 3 (1987),

pp. 138ff.
36. Danuta Czech, Kalendarium der Ereignisse im Konzentrationslager Auschwitz-Birkenau

1939-1945 (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1989), pp. 185ff.
37. See T6th, p. 158.
38. On this subject see J6zef Buszko, Auschwitz, faschistisches Vernichtungshger (Warsaw,
1988), p. 23.
39. Czech, p. 189.
40. Cf. Zvi Schner, ed., The Commander of Auschwitz Testifies: The Writings of Rudolf Ferdi-
nand Hdss (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv, 1964), pp. 122-124. Hoss goes to special lengths to challenge
Langenfeld's qualifications.
41. Czech, pp. 250-251, and Buszko, p. 23.
42. On arrival of first transport to Auschwitz, see Czech, pp. 189-190.
43. Ibid., pp. 189ff.
44. Testimony of Helena Engel, transported to Auschwitz on April 29, 1942, MA, A.1618-3,
and testimony of Zehava Pollak, MA, A.1721.
45. Czech, pp. 241ff.
46. YVA, M-5, files 108-115, Helena Engel, op. cat, and Rachel Schlesinger, MA, A.1436.
47. See Register cf Jewish Survivors (Jerusalem, 1945-47) vols. 1-4, and additional lists of
survivors, YVA, M-5/106.
48. Kalendarium; Wolfgang Benz, ed. Dimension des Vb'Jkermords: Die Zahl der Judischen
Opfer des Nazionalsozialismus (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1991); and Franciszek Piper, Die Zahl
der Opfer von Auschwitz (Oswiecim: Verlag StaatBches Museum Oswiecim, 1993).
49. Piper, p. 50; Czech, pp. 189ff.

50. On transfer to Birkenau, Czech, pp. 266-267.
51. Piper, p. 76.
52. Ibid., p. 67. Data on the mortality of Slovaldan Jewish women from MargHte Schwalb, a
doctor at the Birkenau infirmary. According to die survivors' estimate, in 1943 600 to 650
Slovaldan Jewish women were left in Auschwitz and its satellites. The Polish underground says
322 Holocaust and OnocuU Stadia

684 Jewish women from Slovakia were alive in Auschwitz in August 1944 This number seems
high; it may include women of Slovakian origin who had been transported to Auschwitz from
Hungary in 1944 Cf. Nachman Blumental, Dokumenty i materialy (Lodz: Obozy, 1946), voL
1, p. 120.
53. Concerning transfer from Ravensbrflck, see letter of July 1,1992 from the administration
of the Ravensbrflck memorial site to the author, and Czech, p. 189. OrH Reichert, a German
political prisoner who arrived in the same transport, alleges dial diere were Polish prisoners
among them. Bernd Steger, Gflnter ThieJe, Der dunkle Schatten-Leben mti Auschwitz: Ertn-
nerungen an Orii Reichert-Wald (Marburg: Schuren, 1985), p. 47.
54. H6ss, p. 119.
55. Reichert, pp. 59 and 100.
56. Svalbova, Vyhasnute o6y (Bratislava, 1948), p. 96.
57. Reichert, p. 101.
58. Hdss, p. 119. Characterization of German prisoners as "asocial" surfaces in testimony of
Margitte Schwalb, Yaflart Moreshet 53, pp. 94ff.
59. Testimony of Vera Alexander at the Eichmann TriaL See Attorney-General us. Adolf Eich-
mann. Documents (B) (Jerusalem, 1964), p. 1215. On intake procedures, see Aliza Green, MA,
A.1573, and Helena Citron, YVA, 03/6711, both of whom arrived at Auschwitz in the first
transport.
60. Yisrael Gutman and Rahel Manbar, Nazi Concentration Camps (Hebrew), (Jerusalem: Yad
Vashem, 1984), p. 124.
61. Skodova, pp. 23ff.
62. Numbers tattooed on arms of Slovakian Jewish women only after transfer to Birkenau.
Skodova, p. 37, and Helena Engel, MA, A. 1618.
63. See M. Schwalb, p. 94, and Skodova, p. 14
64. Skodova, p. 20, and testimony of Helena Citron, YVA, 03/6711.
65. Skodova, p. 21. Many testimonies describe the murder of die children as a particularly
difficult experience for die prisoners. Cf. Schwalb and Engel, who had come to Auschwitz in
the same transport, MA, A. 1618.
66. Czech, pp. 241-242.
67. Schwalb, pp. 95-96. Schwalb, who worked as a nurse in the infirmary, attended die selec-
tions.
68. See Czech, pp. 241-242. See also LUi Kopecky, Im Schatten der Flammen (Dusseldorf,
1992), pp. 23ff. LiH Kopecky was taken to Auschwitz in die transport of July 4 1942.
69. Conditions in Birkenau described in Schwalb.
70. Testimony of Caesar at Auschwitz trial, quoted in Hermann Langbein, Der Auschwitz-
Prozess: Eme Dokumentation (Vienna: Europa, 1965), p. 5 4
Fint in the Vale of Affliction 323

71. Piper, p. 76; also interview with M. Schwalb by author March 26, 1992. According to
Schwalb, "about 15,000-20,000 women perished in Birkenau" in the autumn of 1942.
72. See n. 72 above and Czech, pp. 312ff. On proportion of Slovakian Jewish women in 1943,
n. 51 above.
74. Ibid., pp. 21ff. Julia Skodova worked in the Political Department as a registrar of prisoners.
75. The Aussenkommando involved backbrealdng labor outdoors under all weather conditions.
See Schwalb, p. 94, and Kopecky, pp. 23ff.
76. Skodova, p. 15.
77. Schwalb, pp. 96ff, and testimony of Rachel Schlesinger, MA, A. 1436.
78. Reichert, pp. 42-43.
79. See Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv, 1991), p. 28.
80. Quoted from Reichert, p. 116.
81. See Tragedia. pp. 151E
82. Cf. Tadeusz Iwaszko, "Hafthngsfluchten aus dem KonzentrationlageT Auschwitz," in Hefte
von Auschwitz 7 (1964), pp. 3ff.
83. Skodova, pp. 29ff., deals extensively with this subject
84. Schwalb, p. 99.
85. The Nazis considered the "Canada commando" a sensitive job. Slovakian Jewish women
replaced Polish prisoners after objects taken from "Canada" were found on Poles attempting
to escape. See testimonies of Schlesinger, MA, A. 1436, and Citron, YVA, 03-6711, both of
whom worked in "Canada."
86. Julia Skodova, one of the prisoners in the Stabsgebdude, describes in her memoirs the
history of this group. Most of the young women were considered by the Nazis "possessors of
secrets" because of their sensitive jobs. They lived in constant fear, dreading the fate of the
Sonderkommando. See Skodova.
87. Testimony of Aliza Green, MA, A. 1573, who worked on the Harmensee Farm.
88. Episode mentioned by M. Schwalb, a doctor in the women's infirmary, pp. 98ff.
89. Primo Levi, Se questo e uh xiomo (Torino: G. Einaudi, 1976), pp. 82, and I sommersi e I
sahati (Torino: G. Einaudi, 1986), pp. 126ff.
90. Vera Alexander at Eichmann Trial; also Hermann Langbein, Menschen in Auschwitz (Vi-
enna: Europa, 1972), pp. 199ff.
91. Alexander, p. 1214. Fanny Talcs, also a Blockdlteste, argues that the Slovakian women were
appointed to various positions because they knew Hungarian. Interview with Fanny Taks,
MA, A.1598.
92. Kopecky, p. 26. Concerning Katia Singer, see Yehoshua Buchler, "Men in Auschwitz" (He-
brew), YaBcut Moreshet 30 (1980), p. 174.
324 Holocaust and Genocide Stadia

93. Among the many publications of this kind, see Langbein, Menschen, pp. 199ff, and Inka
Weissbort, Together and Alone in the Face of Terror (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv, 1992), p. 174.
94. Fanny Taks believes "about twenty to thirty" Slovakian women served in such positions;
interview, MA, A. 1598. Tzippy Spitzer-Tichauer, who worked in the registry of the women's
camp, told the author that the number of Kapos from Slovakia "could be counted on the fingers
of one hand."
95. Quoted in Weissbort, p. 174.

96. Langbein, Menschen, pp. 199ff; Halina Bimbaum, Life as Hope (in Hebrew), (Tel Aviv:
Ghetto Fighters' House, 1982), pp. lllff and 179; and Weissbort, p. 182.
97. Testimony of Tamar Shefer, MA, A. 205.
98. Quoted in Skodova, p. 108.

99. Testimony of Edith T^rrar February 5, 1950, MA, collection of testimonies from Ausch-
witz, 1693.
100. Schwalb, pp. 97-98.
101. Testimony of Shefer, MA, A^05.
102. Testimony of Paula Rodan-Schreiber, MA, A.1693.
103. As in materials in Interior Ministry Archives in Prague, AMV 2125-11-5.
104. The H. R. file in Interior Ministry Archives, Prague, AMV-425, and Israel Police, Crimi-
nal File 37/58.
105. Signed opinion by ten Auschwitz prisoners on February 10, 1950, in the author's pos-
session.
106. Skodova, p. 24.
107. See signed affidavit of Hermina Hirschler-Markowitz, MA, D.I.5818. The author thanks
Ms. Hermina Markowitz for making the letters available to him.
109. On letters and parcels, see list of Auschwitz prisoners from Slovakia who wrote letters in
YVA, M-5/106, and Leo Rosenthal's letter from Bratislava to Geneva, October 28, 1943, in
MA, Menahem Bader collection, SL-28; confirmation of receipt of parcel, MA, D.1.4641.
110. The episode of the certificates that were sent to Auschwitz is a separate subject for re-
search. Material available in MA, D.1.4845 and in the author's possession. I was informed of the
investigation conducted by the Political Department in Auschwitz by Leah Horowitz, Margitte
Schwalb, and Malka Gertner, for whom permits had been sent However; Lili Kopecky, another
internee on the list, was not interrogated and knew nothing of the matter.

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First in the Vale of Affliction: Slovakian

Jewish Women in Auschwitz, 1942

Deportations from Slovakia: Decisions and Implementation

Holocaust and CenockU Studies, VIOm.Wnter 1996. pp. 299-325 299

300 Holocaust and Genocide Studta

The Deportation of Young Women

Flnt in the Vale of Affliction 301

302 Holocaust and Genocide Studies

Concentration and Deportation

Flirt in the Vale of Affliction 303

304 Holocaust and Genocide Studies

In the Women's Camp at Auschwitz

First in the Vale of Affliction 305

306 Holocaust and Genocide Studies

Fint in the Vale of Affliction 307

308 Holocaust and Gmoddt Studio

The Ladies from Ravensbrtidc

Fust in the Vale of Affliction 309

310 Holocaust and Genocide Studies

First in the Vale of Affliction 311

312 Hdocaust and Genocide Studio

The Women's Camp at Birkenau: The Struggle for Survival

Fiist in the Vale of Affliction 313

314 Holocaust and Genocide Studies

First in the Vak of Affliction 315

316 Holocaust and Genocide Studies

The Question of Guilt

First to the Vale of Affliction 317

Her favorite expression was, "Tilreportyou to Oberscharfuhrer Kirschner" [an SS-man

Additional testimonies describe cruelties inflicted by several Jewish women officials

318 Holocaust and Genocide Studies

Fust in the Vale of Affliction 319

prisoners. At were murdered some time later.

320 Holocaust and Genocide Studies

7. Eichmann Trial, Document No. 837, copy in MA, C.18.

10. See protocol by Luther, March 29,1942, in Longerich.

13. Fatran, pp 109ff.

14. Yad Vashem Archives (hereafter, YVA), M-5/97.

15. T6th, Tragedia.

17. See Fatran, pp. 150ff.

20. See testimonies in Fflrstenberg, pp. 52ff.

22. See n. 16.

23. Furstenberg, p. 52.

24. Toth, p. 268.

25. Ibid., p. 87.

26. Cf. lists of deportees, YVA, M-5/112.

27. Cf. lists of deportees, YVA, M^5/lll.

First in the Vale of Affliction 321

31. YVA, M-5/97 and M-5/112.

32. Fatran, pp. 120ff.

33. Toth, p. 149.

35. Ino Arndt, "Das Frauenkonzentrationslager Ravensbrtick," in Dachauer Hefte 3 (1987),

36. Danuta Czech, Kalendarium der Ereignisse im Konzentrationslager Auschwitz-Birkenau

37. See T6th, p. 158.

39. Czech, p. 189.

41. Czech, pp. 250-251, and Buszko, p. 23.

42. On arrival of first transport to Auschwitz, see Czech, pp. 189-190.

43. Ibid., pp. 189ff.

45. Czech, pp. 241ff.

49. Piper, p. 50; Czech, pp. 189ff.

51. Piper, p. 76.

322 Holocaust and OnocuU Stadia