Civilization and Barbarity: An Examination of Several Abnormalities in the Death Camps of the Holocaust
by In the midst of the Nazis’ industrialized killing system, prisoners disembarking from trains and herded toward the gas chambers often did so with a camp orchestra playing; Sonderkommando and their SS masters played games of soccer in the shadow of crematoria chimneys; inmates performed plays in camp theaters; hospitals were an integral part of even purpose-built death camps.
This essay seeks to examine a Holocaust phenomenon so foreign to the standard conception of death camps that it seems to defy both comprehension and belief. The persistence of such apparently humane and civilized features in such horrific circumstances demands historical attention and, as far as is possible, explanation.
For lack of a better word, I will refer to these occurrences in the concentration camps of Europe as abnormalities. This term is not intended to imply that they were uncommon, but, rather, that they are not easily reconcilable with a standard understanding of the Holocaust as an event devoid of any marks of humanity, lacking elements of civilization in any form. In fact, that such abnormalities could have existed in a place like Auschwitz seems impossible, bordering on ridiculous.
When comedian Lewis Black, in a stand-up routine about the lack of sportsmanship in modern quail hunting, exclaimed that “they turned a petting zoo into Auschwitz” he was capitalizing on the outright absurdity of this comparison; surely, for a modern audience confronted with the term Auschwitz, one of the last things to come to mind would be a petting zoo. However, in the camp grounds of Auschwitz there was indeed a petting zoo, where inmates were employed. Incredibly, in the death camps of Europe, it is evident that the absurd was not absent or uncommon, but a daily reality.
That these abnormalities actually occurred is uncontroversial fact. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum displays photographic evidence of prisoners’ orchestras in Auschwitz I, Buchenwald, Westerbork, Janowska, and other concentration camps. Numerous news agencies, including CNN, have recently featured stories about these camp orchestras. Evidence for the existence of concentration camp theater companies is similarly plentiful, such that even the programs for concentration camp theater productions are preserved and on display at Mauthausen camp.
Evidence of SS v. Sonderkommando Only the most ardent disbelievers in the Holocaust could attempt to refute these factual claims, which rest upon mountains of historical evidence. soccer games is abundant in Debarati Sanyal’s work, most notably her article “A Soccer Match in Auschwitz: Passing Culpability in Holocaust Criticism.” Countless inmates’ memoirs refer to the hospital of their camp, and some, such as Primo Levi, testify that they were actually kept alive in part because of them.
Accordingly, this essay does not seek further verification, but rather to account for these phenomena by examining four possible reasons for their existence. One obvious reason is that the seeming abnormalities may actually have had nothing to do with humanitarian concerns, but existed merely for reasons of efficiency, to increase worker productivity and to bolster a deception scheme designed to smooth the process to the gas chambers.
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