The Hugo Valentin Centre
Master Thesis
Male Rape in Auschwitz?
An Exploration of the Dynamics of Kapo- Piepel Sexual Violence in KL Auschwitz during the Holocaust
Laura Jule Landwehrkamp
Programme: Holocaust & Genocide Studies (Two-Year) Year: 2019 Points: 45 c Supervisor: Dr Stefan C. Ionescu Word Count: 29,734 Table of Contents
ABSTRACT ...... 2
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... 3
INTRODUCTION ...... 4 Research Problems and Aims ...... 5 Disposition ...... 6
RESEARCH OVERVIEW, THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND METHODOLOGY ...... 8 Research Overview ...... 8 Initial Academic Reluctance to Address the Topic of Sexual Violence during the Holocaust ...... 9 The Trajectory of the Male Master Narrative ...... 11 Continuing Neglect towards Male-Male Sexual Violence ...... 16 Critical Overview of the Literature on Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals .. 19 The Focus of this Thesis ...... 23 Theoretical Framework ...... 28 Feminist Theory ...... 28 Gender and Masculinity Theory ...... 31 Wolfgang Sofsky - Theory of Absolute Power ...... 33 Social Identity Theory ...... 35 Research Questions ...... 38 Methodology ...... 40 Primary Sources and Relevance to the Research Questions Posed ...... 40 Oral Testimonies ...... 41 Written Accounts ...... 45 Rationale for the Use of these Ego Documents ...... 47
EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS ...... 52 Historical Context ...... 52 The Establishment of Auschwitz ...... 52 Structure and Population of Auschwitz Camp ...... 54 Auschwitz Administrative Procedure, Inmate Composition and Gender Segregation ...... 56 Daily Life in Auschwitz ...... 57 The Kapos and Camp Hierarchy ...... 58 Young Inmates in Auschwitz ...... 60 Interpretation of Primary Sources ...... 63 Part I: Victim Experiences ...... 63 PART II: Kapo-Piepel Sexual Violence – Selection, Initiation, and Evolution ...... 78 Part III: Witnesses’ Perceptions of Piepel ...... 93
CONCLUSION ...... 104
APPENDICES ...... 107
GLOSSARY ...... 119
BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 122
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ABSTRACT
Male-male sexual violence during the Holocaust is under-researched. Despite being a widespread occurrence in the Nazi concentration camps, very few accounts from primary sources are available of the sexual violence perpetrated against the Piepel: male Jewish children, adolescents, and young adults, by male Kapos or senior prisoner functionaries. Until now this phenomenon has been understood to be an exchange of sexual favours for food and protection, but little else was known. This study therefore aims to examine the dynamics of Kapo-Piepel sexual violence in the Auschwitz concentration camp through the perceptions of victims of, and witnesses, to this violence, within a framework of feminist theory, gender and masculinity theory, and group dynamics. Based on written accounts in the form of memoirs and oral testimony from audio-visual archives, this study finds that the Piepel were forced into sexual relationships to survive; that the Kapos used them as sexual substitutes for women; and that survivors’ attitudes towards the Piepel have become more sympathetic in more recently published ego-documents. This study therefore calls for a wider examination of this phenomenon, and of male-male sexual violence during the Holocaust, given the resultant improvement in attitudes towards these victims who for too long have not been heard due to the shame and stigma attached to being a male victim of rape.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr Stefan C. Ionescu for his supervision, comments and support that were invaluable to my writing process, and without whom this thesis would not have been possible.
My special appreciation goes to Dr Tolga Esmer at the Central European University who encouraged me to delve deeper into subject matter that many advised me would lead to a futile investigative endeavour; whose door was always open to me whenever I had questions, and who repeatedly pointed me in promising directions.
Lastly; to all those who were part of the process, who engaged in thoughtful discussions on my topic that helped me consider it from all possible angles, and who provided me with unwavering support throughout, even and especially when the going got tough, stubbornly sticking with me against all better reason, like a bramble: Thank you, so, so much.
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INTRODUCTION
While research on sexual violence against female Holocaust victims has evolved significantly in the last three decades, male-male sexual violence remains one of the most poorly researched areas in Holocaust studies. Following World War II (WWII), most Holocaust research was written from a male-centric view and did not account for the female experience of the Holocaust. This, however, began to be rectified from the late 1960s to the 1980s following the Civil Rights and Second-Wave Feminist movements, culminating in a more comprehensive examination of the phenomenon by female scholars in the 1990s-2010s, due to which we now possess a significantly richer and nuanced understanding of sexual violence against women during the Holocaust. However, research on male-male sexual violence has remained as unaddressed as it was through the mid-late 20th century. Apart from research on the persecution of homosexuals by the Nazis in the 1970s-1990s, which largely addressed it to cement its place in the historical record rather than to explore its dynamics and effects, male-male sexual violence has received negligible attention from researchers, despite the fact that it is widely acknowledged that male-male sexual violence was rampant in Nazi concentration camps. The silence around this issue is probably caused by the fact that male victims of sexual violence suffer an even greater degree of shame and stigmatisation than female victims, largely due to the endemicity of male gender stereotypes and male rape myths that prevents victims from speaking out. Male rape was a stark reality of life in the concentration camps, and homosexual males were not the only victims. The phenomenon of sexual violence perpetrated against young male Jewish children and adolescents, and/or young Jewish male adults, who would become known colloquially as Piepel, in the Nazi concentration camps, by prisoner functionaries or Kapos, is referred to in memoirs, autobiographies and, very rarely, in secondary literature, without ever being addressed in an empirical or theoretical manner, despite the shocking nature of these crimes.1 These victims bore the shame and
1 Piepel is a slang term for the young boys, adolescent males and young adult males that provided or were forced to provide sexual services in the concentration camps. The members of the Kameradschaftspolizei or Kapos, were prisoner functionaries in charge of a work Kommando; for more detailed etymologies see the Historical Context subchapter. I employ both terms as written and understood in German. Hence, they are capitalised; the plural form of Kapo is Kapos while the plural form of Piepel is the same as the singular: Piepel. 4
stigma of their abuse doubly: firstly by being males, and secondly by being child victims of sexual abuse. An incomplete picture of the Holocaust disrespects the memory of those who suffered such atrocities. The uniqueness of a specific category of atrocity should not preclude its thorough examination, both towards the furthering of knowledge that, hopefully, would prevent its recurrence, and the remembrance of the victims’ suffering. Hence, it is this under-researched facet of Holocaust history, specifically the male-male sexual violence perpetrated by the Kapos against the Piepel in the Auschwitz concentration camp, that I investigate in this thesis.
Research Problems and Aims The dynamics of the male-male sexual violence perpetrated by the Kapos against the Piepel in the concentration camps is poorly understood as there has not been an effort to examine the accounts of either victims of this violence, or witnesses to this violence, unlike similar efforts by scholars of sexual violence against women during the Holocaust. This has resulted in a near-absent body of research on the topic. There has long been hesitance on the part of scholars to address male-male sexual violence during the Holocaust, and this specific facet of male-male sexual violence has suffered doubly from also involving child sexual abuse. As with most survivors of sexual violence, there is an assumption on the part of investigators that these victims do not come forward to reveal their abuse, due to the shame and stigma attached. Further, it is assumed that when these victims are male, the likelihood of their coming forward is lower due to the prevalence of male rape myths and gender stereotypes. Hence, the little that is known about Kapo-Piepel sexual violence is recorded in memoirs, autobiographies and scattered testimonies produced by former victims and witnesses. Nothing is known conclusively about the selection of the Piepel by the Kapos, how the sexual violence evolved, or the experiences and responses of the victims. These limited sources and the unceremonious manner in which they depict the topic of Kapo-Piepel sexual violence suggest that the phenomenon was widespread, and that the Piepel were not viewed favourably owed to their (i) better material status in the camps due the sexual acts they engaged in with the Kapos, and (ii) their reported cruelty towards other inmates, though no definitive conclusions have been drawn by academics on either of these recollections.
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Thus, the overarching aim of this thesis is to explore the dynamics of Kapo- Piepel sexual violence in Auschwitz – the concentration camp in which the Nazis committed the most murders and atrocities – through the perceptions of the victims and witnesses of this violence. It is important to clarify the use of the word “witness” at the outset, given its ambiguity, and due to the fact that it is more commonly used with a judicial connotation. In this thesis I use the term “witness” to encompass those individuals who were present in Auschwitz as inmates and had direct, indirect, or contextual exposure (acquired knowledge of the event while in an Auschwitz barrack/block) to the sexual violence targeting their family, friends, and neighbors/colleagues and testified about it in one way or the other – that is, in whatever format – during the postwar era. This conception borrows from the meaning of the German word ‘Zeitzeuge’, which in the German dictionary Der Duden is defined as ‘sb. who as a contemporary can give testimony on certain occurrences (of historical importance)’. This will be elaborated on in more detail in the methodology section. The perceptions of the victims and witnesses will be drawn from primary sources such as victim and witness postwar accounts, and examined through a theoretical framework comprising feminist, gender and masculinity theories of sexual violence, and theories that account for group dynamics in confined spaces, like the concentration camps. Through the Zeitzeugen’s perceptions, this thesis will attempt to address specific aspects of the dynamics of sexual violence. These will include the experiences and responses of the victims to the violence as it occurred; the selection of the Piepel by the Kapos and the subsequent initiation and evolution of the sexual violence; and the opinions and attitudes of the witnesses.
Disposition I begin this paper by providing an overview of previous research on sexual violence during the Holocaust. The research overview highlights the dearth in research on male- male sexual violence during the Holocaust. It examines the evolution of the research on sexual violence against women during the Holocaust, before moving on to scrutinize and critically evaluate the research on the one facet of male-male sexual violence in the Nazi camps that has been investigated to some degree: namely the sexual violence committed against homosexuals. It also examines, in brief, the effects of childhood sexual violence during the Holocaust, one of the most poorly researched areas in 6
Holocaust literature, to emphasise the importance of addressing Kapo-Piepel sexual violence in Auschwitz. I then outline the theoretical framework. I employ to examine my specific research questions regarding Kapo-Piepel sexual violence in Auschwitz, that utilises feminist theory, gender and masculinity theory, opportunistic theory of sexual violence, theory of absolute power and social identity theory. I then state the specific research questions I wish to address regarding the dynamics of Kapo-Piepel sexual violence, namely those related to (i) victims’ experiences and their responses to the sexual violence; (ii) selection of the Piepel by the Kapos and the subsequent initiation and evolution of the violence; and (iii) the opinions and attitudes of witnesses towards the Piepel. Following this, I present my thesis’ methodological approach. After providing some historical context, I engage in an empirical and exploratory analysis of the research questions, while concurrently providing a theoretically-informed interpretation of the patterns detected. Lastly, I explain the limitations of my research and present my conclusions on the topic of Kapo-Piepel sexual violence, while highlighting the need for future research in the same investigatory realm.
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RESEARCH OVERVIEW, THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND METHODOLOGY
Research Overview Nowadays, there is a near-consensus on the importance of including gender as a category of analysis in Holocaust research.2 It is generally accepted that the inclusion of gender as a variable in the analysis of genocide is beneficial, and that using gender as a lens through which to approach mass killings permits a rethinking of political, social, economic and cultural factors leading to genocide.3 In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the ad hoc Tribunals of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) established novel and significant case law that included acts of rape and sexual violence within crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity.4 Sexual violence is defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as:
[…] any sexual act, attempt to obtain a sexual act, unwanted sexual comments or advances, or acts to traffic, or otherwise directed, against a person’s sexuality using coercion, by any person regardless of their relationship to the victim, in any setting, including but not limited to home and work.”
The WHO included among the criminalized sexual violence activities the following: “rape by strangers”, “systematic rape during armed conflict”, “unwanted sexual advances or sexual harassment”, “including demanding sex in return for favours”, “sexual abuse of mentally or physically disabled people”, “sexual abuse of children”,
2 Joshua D. Goldstein, “War and gender.” In Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender, pp. 107-116. Springer US, 2003; Marie Joyce Mushaben, "Memory and the Holocaust: processing the past through a gendered lens." History of the Human Sciences, no. 2-3 (2004): 147-185; Joan W. Scott, “Gender: A useful category of historical analysis.” The American Historical Review 91, no. 5 (1986): 1053-1075; Mary Anne Warren, “Gendercide: The implications of sex selection.” (1985); Susan B. Whitney, "History through the Lens of Gender." Journal of Women's History 11, no. 1 (1999): 193-202. 3 Adam Jones, “Problems of genocide-gendercide studies and future agendas: A comparative approach.” Journal of Genocide Research 4, no. 1 (2002): 127-135; Elisa von Joeden-Forgey, “Gender and Genocide” in Donald Bloxham and Dirk Moses, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies. Oxford UP, 2004. 4 Charlotte Lindsey, “Women Facing War” Geneva: ICRC. 2001, pp. 57–58; M. Cherif Bassiouni, “The Commission of Experts established pursuant to Security Council resolution 780: Investigating violations of international humanitarian law in the former Yugoslavia.” Chicago, IL: International Human Rights Law Institute, (1996). 8
“violent acts against the sexual integrity of women”, “including female genital mutilation” and, “[...] trafficking of people for the purpose of sexual exploitation. 5 While these definitions and prohibited activities were formulated in contemporary contexts, the varieties of sexual violence during the Holocaust fit within its strictures. Research by psychologist Eva Fogelman shows Holocaust rape survivors need validation to address their personal pain and suffering.6 However, unwillingness to talk about sexual violence in the camps, by victims, witnesses, and scholars made this topic an under-researched aspect of the literature on the Holocaust for nearly a half century after WWII.7
Initial Academic Reluctance to Address the Topic of Sexual Violence during the Holocaust Hitler believed that Aryan Germans “must fight for […] the existence and reproduction of [their] race […] and the purity of [their] blood”.8 As part of anti-Jewish legislation, the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour was passed in September 1935 within the framework of the Nuremberg Laws. It prohibited marriage between Jews and non-Jewish Germans and criminalised sexual relations between them. Prior to the passing of these laws based on Rassenschande or racial defilement, sexual relations were defined as sexual intercourse or actions mimicking sexual intercourse. The German Supreme Court broadened it in 1936 to include “any natural or unnatural sexual act between members of the opposite sex, in which sexual urges are in any way gratified”,9 hence including verbal propositions towards sexual intercourse,
5 World Health Organization, “Violence against women: intimate partner and sexual violence against women: intimate partner and sexual violence have serious short-and long-term physical, mental and sexual and reproductive health problems for survivors: fact sheet. No. WHO/RHR/14.11.” World Health Organization, 2014. 6 Jane M. Ussher et al., “Negotiating discourses of shame, secrecy, and silence: Migrant and refugee women’s experiences of sexual embodiment.” Archives of Sexual Behavior 46, no. 7 (2017): 1901-1921.; Eva Fogelman, “Rape during the Nazi Holocaust: Vulnerabilities and motivations.” Rape: Weapon of War and Genocide (2012): 15-28. 7 Ilya Ehrenburg, Vasily Grossman, and David Patterson, The Complete Black Book of Soviet Jewry. (2001), p. 212f. 8 Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf. No. 3. MVR, 1939, p. 269. 9 Great Senate for Appeals in Criminal Cases, December 9, 1936; Entscheidung des Reichsgerichts in Strafsachen, vol. 70, pp. 375-377. 9
and acts that could be construed as attempts to achieve sexual gratification that did not involve physical contact.10 Disbelief that Nazis and many Aryan Germans had been intimate with “inferior” races was widespread among scholars due to this concept of Rassenschande. For this reason, Jewish survivors have found it difficult to come forward and tell their stories, for fear of being dismissed; or worse, called liars. Indeed, the argument that rape of Jewish women (and men) did not occur due to German racial defilement laws, transgressions of which were punishable by death, is often cited to explain the relative dearth of scholarship on the topic.11 Historian Sybil Milton labels the notion that Jewish women were forced to prostitute themselves in SS brothels a “popular postwar myth, sometimes exploited and sensationalized” that was “a macabre postwar misuse of the Holocaust for popular titillation,” with no evidence to support the existence of instances of misuse.12 Historian Myrna Goldenberg asserted, “Although rape by the SS in the death camps was rare, the women were terrorized by rumours or threats of rape.”13 Anna Hardman’s Women and the Holocaust discounts the memoir of Fania Fenelon, which relayed instances of sexual violence in the camps as unmediated testimony, supporting this assertion through an account by another camp musician, Anita Lasker- Wallfisch, which did not report instances of sexual bartering.14 Recently, historian Wendy Jo Gertjejanssen, in a study examining a number of testimonies of Holocaust survivors, found that in the East, including and especially in Auschwitz, the German leadership tolerated all manner of violence against Jews, including sexual violence, due to its distance from the SS stronghold in Berlin.15 Indeed,
10 Alexandra Przyrembel, Rassenschande: Reinheitsmythos und Vernichtungslegitimation im Nationalsozialismus. Vol. 190. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003. 11 Wendy Jo Gertjejanssen, “Victims, Heroes, Survivors.” Sexual Violence on the Eastern Front during World War II. Dissertation. Minneapolis (2004), p. 57. 12 Sybil Milton, “Women and the Holocaust: The Case of German and German-Jewish Women,” in Different Voices: Women and the Holocaust, ed. Carol Rittner and John K. Roth (New York: Paragon House, 1993), 230-231. 13 Myrna Goldenberg, “Memoirs of Auschwitz Survivors,” in Women in the Holocaust, ed. Dalia Ofer and Lenore J. Weitzman (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998), 336 14 Anna Hardman, Women and the Holocaust. London: Holocaust Educational Trust, 2000; Fania Fénelon, and Marcelle Routier, Playing for Time. Syracuse University Press, 1997; Anita Lasker- Wallfisch, Inherit the Truth: A Memoir of Survival and the Holocaust. Macmillan, 2000. 15 Gertjejanssen, “Victims, Heroes, Survivors.” p. 303. 10
the attitudes towards raping Jews in the East were very different.16 It occurred frequently with numerous perpetrators never being charged. A number of women interviewed by Gertjejanssen revealed that they were terrified for their sexual and physical well-being. She also reports that there was no incentive for survivors of rape to come forward since German officials never effectively discouraged such acts from occurring.17 Historian Shulamit Reinharz notes, “The issue of sexual assault was always there but no one has pointed it out and labelled it as such.18 Hence, while the early scholarship on WWII is immense, little attention had been paid to the sexually violent kind of atrocities that clearly occurred. Historian Hannes Heer states that, “It almost seems that, as if by gentlemen’s agreement, many historians observe an internalized limit: not to describe the Wehrmacht as the apparatus of a violence-oriented society nor war as its natural expression.”19 While Heer does not refer to sexual violence per se, his ideas are pertinent to this topic.
The Trajectory of the Male Master Narrative Hence, for a long time, sexual violence was a neglected component of the Holocaust. Due to the availability of literary accounts and testimonies predominantly from males following the termination of WWII, early Holocaust researchers tended to construct the male experience as the master narrative of the Holocaust.20 Indeed, out of the seventeen well-known early Jewish Holocaust scholars, thirteen were men and only four were
16 See the opinion of historian Omer Bartov, who argues that, the Nazis viewed almost every person in the East as “inferior” to them and generally rated the Slavic people in the East lower on the hierarchical ladder than Westerners. Bartov posits that the Nazi laws had less of an effect in the East because the people there were regarded as lesser persons and in that vein as less entitled to equal treatment under the law (The Eastern Front, 1941-45: German Troops and the Barbarisation of Warfare (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1986), 29, 116, 127, 256-257); for a comparison of rape cases in Eastern and Western Europe, see Birgit Beck, “Rape: The Military Trials of Sexual Crimes Committed by Soldiers in the Wehrmacht, 1939-1944.” in Home/Front: The Military, War and Gender in Twentieth - Century Germany, ed. Karen Hagemann and Stefanie Schüler-Springorum (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2002). 17 See Kommandeur des Heeresstreifendienstes, beim Mil. Befh. Im Gen. Gouv. Nr. 442 / 42 geh. Erfahrungs –und Tätigkeitsbericht für die Zeit vom 1. – 31. Juli 1942, Tomaszow, Maz., 14 August 1942, NARA, RG 242, T 501, R. 215, Fr. 667; in: Gertjejanssen, “Victims, Heroes, Survivors,” p. 66. 18 Shulamit Reinharz, Forword, p. X in: Hedgepeth, Sonja Maria, and Rochelle G. Saidel, eds. Sexual violence against Jewish women during the Holocaust. UPNE, 2010. 19 Hannes Heer, “Killing Fields: The Wehrmacht and the Holocaust in Belorussia, 1941-42,” in War of Extermination: The German Military in World War II, 1941-1944, ed. Hannes Heer and Klaus Naumann (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2000), p. 73. 20 Elizabeth R. Baer and Myrna Goldenberg, Experience and expression: Women, the Nazis, and the Holocaust, Detroit (2003). 11
women.21 While these scholars produced important works, they regrettably neglected areas on aspects that were traditionally female, like social life and childcare, and focused more on political events, deportation and extermination, and ghetto and camp life. Historian Joan Ringelheim argues that the initial silence around female experiences of the Holocaust reflects how early scholars might have wanted to avoid the discomfort of acknowledging the gender-specific suffering of women.22 The reasons that male scholars and male survivors dominated research and testimony on the Holocaust were twofold. Firstly, the nature of the Holocaust was such that fewer women than men survived among European Jews. This can be attributed to their relatively slight physicality compared to the male survivors and their automatic Selektion, especially if they had children.23 Secondly, few women who survived the Holocaust had the time to write memoirs. They were rebuilding their lives, bearing the double burden of homemaker and supplementary breadwinner. Most memoirs written by women at the time were by key figures of Eastern European Jewish resistance movements, those who had been camp functionaries or had possessed crucial skills that increased their chances of survival, like Rozhka Korchak, Zivia Lubetkin, Vlakda Meed, Olga Lengyel or Gisella Perl.24 Also, their stories were of greater interest to the public, and thus better publishable, than those of the average survivor. Further, hardly any of these early accounts were in English, published instead in Polish, Yiddish or Hebrew, and thus were only available to the English-speaking public after being
21 Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959), Gerald Reitlinger (1900-1978), H.G. Adler (1910-1988), Léon Poliakov (1910-1997), Franklin Littell (1917-2009), Richard L. Rubenstein (b. 1924), Raul Hilberg (1926-2007), Yehuda Bauer (b. 1926), Martin Gilbert (b. 1936), Alan L. Berger (b. 1939), Christopher Browning (b. 1944), Michael Berenbaum (b. 1945), Peter Longerich (b. 1955); Hannah Arendt (1906- 1975), Lucy Dawidowicz (1915-1990), Alena Hájková (1924-2012), Carol Rittner (DOB unknown) 22 Joan Ringelheim, “The Split Between Genders and the Holocaust,” in Ofer, Dalia, and Lenore J. Weitzman, eds. Women in the Holocaust. Yale University Press, 1999, pp. 340-350; See also Mary Lagerwey, Reading Auschwitz. Vol. 5. AltaMira Press, 1998, p. 75. 23 See statistics quoted by Judith Tydor Baumel in “’You Said the Words You Wanted Me to Hear But I Heard The Words You Couldn't Bring Yourself To Say’: Women's First Person Accounts of the Holocaust,” The Oral History Review 27, no. 1 (2000): 17-56; p. 28 that she found in I. Wilner, “Foehrenwald--The Last DP Camp in Germany, 1951- 1957,” (in Hebrew) master's thesis, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, 1988) and learned about during a telephone conversation with I. Wilner, 25 December 1994.; Ringelheim, “Women and the Holocaust: A reconsideration of research.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 10, no. 4 (1985): 741-761.; Carol Rittner and John K. Roth eds., Different voices: Women and the Holocaust, (1993), p. 394. 24 Baumel, “You Said the Words You Wanted Me to Hear But I Heard The Words You Couldn't Bring Yourself To Say,” p. 28; Olga Lengyel, Five Chimneys: The Story of Auschwitz, trans. Clifford Coch and Paul P. Weiss (Chicago, IL: Ziff-Davis, 1947) (1947).; Gisella Perl, I was a Doctor in Auschwitz (Lexington Books, 2019). 12
translated in the 1960s and 1970s.25 Hence the early scholarship on the Holocaust was not gender-neutral, given male, subjective bias in interpretation. Historian Elisabeth Baer explains the issues with this approach:
Even though gender sometimes did affect historical events and decisions in these ways, more often was it the case that men and women were treated similarly by the Nazis. Most differences in their testimony can and need to be explained by the fact that men and women assign meaning disparately on three different levels: men and women experience, remember, and recount events differently. In other words, because of gender, men and women experience the same treatment in different ways. Gender plays a role as it inflects the memory of these war experiences (women and men tend to emphasise different kinds of experiences in their prices of remembering), and gender plays a role in how men and women narrate, how they write and speak about their memories and experiences.26
Women’s identities were hence constructed around typical gender roles, such as those of “caregiver”, “mother” and “daughter”.27 Scholars neglected to include in their research issues related specifically to the female body and experience during the Holocaust, including menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth and/or abortion. Baumel suggests that while some early female testimonies revealed experiences unique to their gender, it was never truly permitted a space within the larger literature.28 In the 1960s and 1970s in the US, important legislation led to the emergence of the female voice in the workplace in general, and academia specifically.29 Female
25 Baumel [in Baumel, “You Said the Words You Wanted Me to Hear But I Heard The Words You Couldn't Bring Yourself To Say”, p. 29] provides a list of women’s writers works, including, in chronological order: Hanka H. [sic], W ghetcie i obozie, Pamietnik dwunastolet- niej dziewczyny (Cracow: n.p., 1946); R. Auerbach, In the Streets of Warsaw 1939-1945 (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: n.p., 1954); B. Berman-Temkin, An Underground Diary (in Hebrew) (Tel-Aviv: n.p., 1957); G. Salus, Eine Frau Erzaehlt (Bonn: n.p., 1958); C. Klinger, From a Ghetto Diary (in Hebrew) (Merhavia: n.p., 1959); H. Sharshevsky, Between the Cross and the Mezuzah (in Hebrew) (Merhavia: n.p., 1959); G. Bellak, ed., Donne e bambini nei lageri nazisti (Milan: n.p., 1960); F. Mazia, Comrades in the Storm (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: n.p., 1964); H. Birnbaum, Nadzieja umiera ostatnia (Warsaw: n.p., 1967); Friedman, Roads to Extinction: Essays on the Holocaust (New York and Philadelphia: JPS, 1980). 26 Baer and Goldenberg, Experience and expression, p. 33. 27 Deborah Lupton, The Emotional Self (London: Sage, 1998), 55-61. 28 Baumel, “You Said the Words You Wanted Me to Hear But I Heard The Words You Couldn't Bring Yourself To Say,” p. 29. 29 Holocaust research for the most part after the war was driven by US academia due to their relative distance to the site of the horrors of this genocide. Europe was still recovering from the Holocaust, and 13
Holocaust researchers emerged into prominence, coinciding with the second wave of feminism that lasted two decades.30 Several remarkable feminist female Holocaust scholars published landmark literature. The works included those of Gisela Bock, Renate Bridenthal, Lucy Davidowicz, Atina Grossmann, Marion Kaplan, Claudia Koonz, Sybil Milton, Carol Rittner and Annemarie Tröger, covering a wealth of female-centric aspects of the Holocaust including sexuality, gender roles, female politics, women’s biology, the female experience, sexism, pregnancy, abortion, motherhood, sterilisation and patriarchy.31 In 1979, Ann Firor Scott, who would become the President of the Organisation of American Historians, would argue for the relevance of female historians of the Holocaust, “Woman's place is in the history books."32 Gisela Bock, in response, would add, “This was less the state of affairs than a challenge to it. In traditional history-writing, history was seen as something that men did, suffered from and wrote about. Male experience in and of history was identified with universal history; with history in general.”33
the topic hit too close to home for most academics to confront. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 called for equal rights for minority groups and an end to sexual discrimination. Title XI of the Education Amendments of 1972 was pivotal in the evolution of higher education institutions into establishments based on merit. See Clifford M. Lytle, “The history of the civil rights bill of 1964,” The Journal of Negro History 51, no. 4 (1966): 275-296; K. Tuttle, “The historical perspective of women administrators in higher education,” NASPA Alice Manicur Symposium. Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas. 2004; see also United States. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Legislative History of Titles VII and XI of Civil Rights Act of 1964, WS Hein, 1972. 30 Judith Evans, Feminist theory today: An introduction to second-wave feminism (Sage, 1995). 31 Gisela Bock, “Racism and sexism in Nazi Germany: Motherhood, compulsory sterilization, and the state,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 8, no. 3 (1983): 400-421; Bock, “Women's history and gender history: aspects of an international debate,” Gender & History 1, no. 1 (1989): 7-30; Bock, “Geschichte, Frauengeschichte, Geschlechtergeschichte,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 14, no. H. 3 (1988): 364-391; Bock, “Körper, Fremdkörper, Volkskörper: Die Eroberung der Macht über das Private,” in Zwangssterilisation im Nationalsozialismus, pp. 79-140. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 1985; Renate Bridenthal, Atina Grossmann, and Marion Kaplan, “When biology became destiny: Women in Weimar and Nazi Germany,” (1986); Lucy S. Dawidowicz, “The Holocaust and the historians,” Harvard University Press, 1981; Dawidowicz, The war against the Jews, 1933-1945. Bantam, 1986; Dawidowicz, “Toward a History of the Holocaust,” Commentary 47, no. 4 (1969): 51; Marion A. Kaplan, “Jewish Women in Nazi Germany: Daily Life, Daily Struggles, 1933-1939,” Feminist Studies 16, no. 3 (1990): 579-606; Claudia Koonz, “Mothers in the Fatherland: Women in Nazi Germany,” in Becoming Visible: Women in European History (1977): 445-473; Koonz, “Die Frauen und der Nationalsozialismus,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 15 (1989): 563-579; Koonz, “Das 'zweite' Geschlecht im 'Dritten Reich',” Feministische Studien 5, no. 2 (1986): 14; Sybil Milton, “The context of the Holocaust,” German Studies Review 13, no. 2 (1990): 269-283; Carol Rittner and Sondra Myers. “The Courage to Care,” NYU Press, 1986; Annemarie Tröger, “Review of ‘Women in Nazi Germany’ by Jimm Stephenson,” Science and Society Vol. 41, No. 2 (1977): 237-240; Tröger, “Die Dolchstoßlegende der Linken: Frauen haben Hitler an die Macht gebracht,” Frauen und Wissenschaft. Beiträge zur Berliner Sommeruniversität für Frauen Juli (1976): 324-355. 32 As quoted in Bock, “Geschichte, Frauengeschichte, Geschlechtergeschichte,” p. 1. 33 Ibid. 14
Interestingly, in the same era, a significant account of an aspect of male-male sexual violence, namely the persecution of homosexuals by the Nazis, emerged around the time of gay liberation and gay pride movements in the 1970s.34 Until this point in time, the persecution of homosexuals by the Nazis was unknown to society at large, and Eugen Kogon’s The Theory and Practice of Hell: The German Concentration Camps and the System behind Them, published in 1958, was the only early text of its kind to include an account of male-on-male rape of homosexuals.35 It was the seminal text The Men with the Pink Triangle by Heinz Heger in the year 1972 that first exposed the horrors of persecution of homosexuals during the Holocaust to popular conscience; a poignant, searing personal memoir of a homosexual prisoner in the Sachsenhausen camp.36 This account spawned early academic work by Frank Rector, Rüdiger Lautmann, and Richard Plant that would form the core record of this aspect of the Holocaust.37 In addition to Heger’s account, new testimonies further exposing the horror of Nazi persecution of homosexuals emerged in the 1990s in both written and video formats, perhaps due to the advanced age of the victims and their need to finally reveal the atrocities perpetrated against them.38 The documentary Paragraph 175, released in 2000, comprised five testimonies from homosexual males who were persecuted during the Holocaust, in addition to a few others.39
34 See Simon Hall, “Protest movements in the 1970s: The long 1960s,” Journal of Contemporary History 43, no. 4 (2008): 655-672.; John D'Emilio, “The gay liberation movement,” na, 2009. 35Eugen Kogon, The Theory and Practice of Hell: The German Concentration Camps and the System Behind Them, trans. Heinz Norden. New York: Berkley (1958). 36 Heinz Heger, The Men with the Pink Triangle [Die Männer mit dem rosa Winkel], 1972. 37 Frank Rector, The Nazi Extermination of Homosexuals. Stein & Day Pub, 1981; Rüdiger Lautmann, "The Pink Triangle: The Persecution of Homosexual Males in Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany." Journal of Homosexuality 6, no. 1-2 (1981): 141-160.; Richard Plant, The Pink Triangle: The Nazi war against Homosexuals, Holt Paperbacks, 2011. 38For written accounts see Pierre Seel, Moi. Pierre Seel, déporté homosexuel, Paris, Calmann- Levy (1994), for English version see Seel, Pierre, I, Pierre Seel, deported homosexual: a memoir of Nazi terror, Basic Books, 2011. 39 While some use humour in telling their stories, others, like Heinz, F, express shame for their past. Karl Gorath was still haunted by the trauma incurred on the day, to the point of not appearing on video; Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman. “Paragraph 175.” Videorecording. New York, New Yorker Video, 2002; of interest is also Kurt von Ruffin, who awaited his trial for homosexuality while at Lichtenburg concentration camp, and recounted many of the abuses, such as men being forced to perform oral sex on the SS guards, severe beatings of homosexual transvestites, and the flogging of gay men’s genitals and testicles (see Rector, The Nazi Extermination of Homosexuals, p. 157). It was von Ruffin who revealed that, prior to the advent of the triangle demarcation system, gay men were labeled with a large ‘A’ for “Arschficker” (“ass-fucker”), which served to further their abuse and discrimination.; Friedrich-Paul von Groszheim has recounted his internment at Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he agreed to undergo castration so he could go home, showing how some people chose survival over their losing a 15
Continuing Neglect towards Male-Male Sexual Violence Unfortunately, this would be the only aspect of male sexual violence during the Holocaust that would be examined to any degree. Due to a lack of testimonials, eventual death of the victims, and the fact that the Nazis steadfastly destroyed most of their records, the emergence of new research has stalled since, highlighting how the availability of testimonies is a crucial limiting factor. More significantly, this trend indicates that research of male-male sexual violence in general, absent greater interest, and a keener search for accounts in source documents, archives and other primary sources, all but ceases to develop. This was not the case for scholarship on sexual violence against women during the Holocaust, which drew on the strengths of the feminist scholars of the 1970s and 1980s. New material became available with the collapse of the Soviet Bloc and the opening up of archives in Eastern Europe.40 Additionally, the news now featured widely publicised instances of mass rape and sexual violence in Bosnia and Rwanda.41 In the 1990s, the works of Susan Brownmiller, Rhonda Copelon, Karin Doerr, Helen Fein, Atina Grossman, Myrna Goldenberg, Dalia Ofer and Lenore J. Weitzman expanded the scope of Holocaust research to include sexual violence against women.42 In the 2000s, the literature by Sue Andrews, Doris Bergen and Dagmar Herzog, Sonja Maria Hedgpeth and Rochelle G. Saidel, Elizabeth D. Heineman, Catherine A. MacKinnon,
component of their humanity; Paul Gerhard Vogel spent seven years in the Emsland camp and recounts his solitary confinement; and how on one occasion Nazi guards tied his hands to his feet, forcing him into a bent-over position for six months. 40 Soviet-published documents and memoirs were “heavily censored until the opening of the archives”; John Garrard, “The Nazi Holocaust in the Soviet Union: interpreting newly opened Russian archives,” East European Jewish Affairs 25, no. 2 (1995): 3-40; see Karel Berkhoff, “Ukraine under Nazi Rule: (1941-1944): Sources and Finding Aids [Part I & Part II],” in Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas (Stuttgart: 1997), pp. 274-276 and pp. 288-290 for a discussion of the censorship. 41 For a discussion of newspaper coverage in Rwanda and Bosnia, see Garth Myers, Thomas Klak, and Timothy Koehl, “The inscription of difference: news coverage of the conflicts in Rwanda and Bosnia,” Political Geography 15, no. 1 (1996): 21-46. 42 Susan Brownmiller, Against our Will: Men, women, and rape. Ballantine Books, 1993; Rhonda Copelon, “Surfacing gender: Re-engraving crimes against women in humanitarian law,” Hastings Women's LJ 5 (1994): 243; Karin Doerr, “Memories of History: Women and the Holocaust in autobiographical and fictional memoirs,” Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 18, no. 3 (2000): 49-63; Helen Fein, “Genocide and gender: the uses of women and group destiny,” Journal of Genocide Research 1, no. 1 (1999): 43-63; Atina Grossmann, “A question of silence: the rape of German women by occupation soldiers,” October 72 (1995): 43-63; Myrna Goldenberg, “Lessons learned from gentle heroism: Women's holocaust narratives,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 548, no. 1 (1996): 78-93; Dalia Ofer and Lenore J. Weitzman, eds., Women in the Holocaust, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999. 16
and Na’ama Shik openly addressed sexual violence against Jewish women, discussing its extent and stressing the importance of female sexuality and gender.43 By the 2010s, scholars such as Alana Fangrad, Anna Hajkova, Laura Sjoberg, Jessica Ravitz and Zoë Waxman had begun to address mechanisms, theories and psychological implications of sexual violence.44 In contrast, research on male-male sexual violence during the Holocaust has remained undeveloped since the 1970s-1990s. According to historian Yehuda Bauer, no gradation of human suffering is possible, and any attempt to elevate any one victim of Nazi atrocities to a position in which he or she suffered more than others constitutes a cardinal sin.45 If, as per political scientist Raul Hilberg, “the road to annihilation was marked by events that specifically affected men as men and women as women”, the master narrative of the Holocaust is deficient for not only neglecting the occurrence of sexual violence against female victims early on, but also that of sexual violence against male victims throughout the post-WWII period.46 While ego-documents of life in the camps include recollections of beatings, torture and killings of males, detailed accounts of personally intrusive atrocities, such as sexual harassment and abuse are rare. Hence, the scholarship on the atrocities in the camps has not examined the latter. Therefore, while several topics related to sexual violence against women during the Holocaust have been de-tabooed, the same is not the case for male-male sexual
43 Sue Andrews, “Remembering the Holocaust – gender matters,” Social Alternatives 22, no. 2 (2003): 16; Doris L. Bergen and Dagmar Herzog, “Sexual Violence in the Holocaust: Unique and Typical?” in Lessons and Legacies VII: The Holocaust in International Perspective (2006): 182-84; Sonja Maria Hedgepeth and Rochelle G. Saidel, eds. Sexual Violence against Jewish Women during the Holocaust, UPNE, 2010; Elizabeth D. Heineman, “Sexuality and Nazism: The Doubly Unspeakable?” Journal of the History of Sexuality 11, no. 1 (2002): 22-66; Catharine A. MacKinnon, “Genocide's Sexuality,” Nomos 46 (2005): 313-356; Na’ama Shik, “Sexual abuse of Jewish women in Auschwitz-Birkenau,” in Brutality and Desire, pp. 221-246, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. 44 Alana Fangrand, Wartime Rape and Sexual Violence: An Examination of the Perpetrators, Motivations, and Functions of Sexual Violence Against Jewish Women During the Holocaust. AuthorHouse, 2013; Anna Hájková, “Sexual Barter in Times of Genocide: Negotiating the Sexual Economy of the Theresienstadt Ghetto: Winner of the 2013 Catharine Stimpson Prize for Outstanding Feminist Scholarship,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 38, no. 3 (2013): 503-533; Laura Sjoberg, “Women and the genocidal rape of women: The gender dynamics of gendered war crimes,” in Confronting Global Gender Justice, pp. 39-52. Routledge, 2010; Jessica Ravitz, “Silence lifted: The untold stories of rape during the Holocaust,” Retrieved May 12, 2019; Zoë Waxman, Women in the Holocaust: A feminist history. Oxford University Press, 2017. 45 Yehuda Bauer, “Holocaust and Genocide Today,” Yad Vashem. (2015). Retrieved from: http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/education/international_projects/chairmanship/yehuda_bauer_genoci de_today.pdf. 46 Raul Hilberg, Perpetrators, Victims, and Bystanders: The Jewish Catastrophe 1933-1945, (New York: Harper Collins, 1992), p. 126. 17
violence. Gender roles have evolved for female scholars and survivors in that they are now able to address sexual assault and rape, whereas for men, traditional ideals of masculinity continue to hold back the field. Due to the gender-blind portrayal of survivors’ experiences that dominated early research and the oversimplification of male and female sex roles during armed conflict through history, there is presently a large body of work that cements sex roles for males in perpetuity, rendering men as aggressors and women as victims.47 Gender and masculinity theory correctly predicts men’s tendencies not to speak of their victimization, since talking about one’s problems is incompatible with rigid notions of masculinity, or stereotypes of the “strong male”; and due to the fact that male rape myths hold that men cannot be sexually abused unless they are homosexual.48 Indeed, various studies indicate that female victims are significantly more likely to report instances of sexual assault than males.49 While it is clear that sexual violence against females is all too common in genocidal and armed conflict, evidence indicates male-on-male sexual violence occurs in almost all armed conflicts as well, though reporting is sporadic.50 This is predominantly due to feelings of guilt, fear, shame, stigma and confusion on the part of the victim.51 Male victims suffer the impression that they cannot be vulnerable, helpless or express pain, and allowing them to continue to direct themselves away from processes of healing is egregious.
47 David Lisak, “Men as victims: Challenging cultural myths,” Journal of Traumatic Stress 6, no. 4 (1993): 577-580. 48 Steve Stanko and Kathy Hobdell, “Assault on Men: Masculinity and Male Victimization,” 33 British Journal of Criminology (1993), 400, pp. 403 – 4; World Health Organisation, Reproductive Health during Conflict and Displacement (2000), p. 112.; Sandesh Sivakumaran, “Male/Male Rape and the “Taint” of Homosexuality,” 27 Human Rights Quarterly (2005) 1274, p. 1288. 49 Philip M. Sarrel and William H. Masters, “Sexual molestation of men by women,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 11, no. 2 (1982): 117-131. 50 See in chronological order Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (1976), p. 31; Christine Chinkin, “Rape and Sexual Abuse of Women in International Law,” 5 EJIL (1994) 326, p. 327; Copelon, “Surfacing Gender: Re-engraving Crimes Against Women in Humanitarian Law”, 5 Hastings Women’s LJ (1994) 243, pp. 243f; Ruth Seifert, “The Second Front: The Logic of Sexual Violence in Wars, 19 Women’s Studies International Forum (1996), p. 37; K.D. Askin, “War Crimes Against Women: Prosecution in International War Crimes Tribunals” (1997), at p. 1f; Judith .G. Gardam and Michelle J. Jarvis, “Women, Armed Conflict and International Law” (2001), p. 27– 29. On rape and sexual violence see L. Shanks et al., “Responding to Rape,” 357 The Lancet (2001) 304, at 304; Adrian Coxell et al., “Lifetime Prevalence, Characteristics, and Associated Problems of Non-consensual Sex in Men: Cross Sectional Survey,” 318 British Medical Journal (1999) 846, at 846. On male rape and male sexual violence see Michael King et al., “The Prevalence and Characteristics of Male Sexual Assault”, in G. Mezey and M.B. King (eds), Male Victims of Sexual Assault (2000), p. 1, 5; E. Krug et al., World Report on Violence and Health (2002), p. 154. 51 Sivakumaran, “Male/male rape and the taint of homosexuality,” p.1274. 18
Hence, due to this silence, the consequent dearth of accounts of male-on-male sexual violence during the Holocaust has meant that the corresponding research has been sparse. The next section will go through the important literature on the Nazi persecution of homosexuals to highlight how scholars have examined the most well- known form of male-male sexual violence during the Holocaust.
Critical Overview of the Literature on Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals Paragraph 175 was codified in 1871 in the Weimar Republic, making homosexuality a punishable offense.52 Although a 1929 attempt to repeal the law launched by the Social Democrats (SD), the Communist Party (KPD) and the German Democratic Party (DDP) burnished hope for repeal, the rise of the National Socialist Party (NSDAP, Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) prevented it.53 The Nazis added further provisions to Paragraph 175, permitting the arrest of men for non-physical acts of intimacy. Innocent gestures or acts, such as a friendly embrace, could now be interpreted as homosexual behaviour, and there was an actual risk of denunciation of men by individuals bent on besmirching them. Later amendments made it possible to send individuals who were suspected of having engaged in homosexual relations to concentration camps without a proper conviction. Thus, while half of approximately 100,000 men that were arrested for homosexuality were sent to prison, another 10- 15,000 were transported to concentration camps.54 Historian Rüdiger Lautmann suggests that the death rate for homosexuals in the camps was roughly sixty percent.55 If only 4,000-6,000 homosexual males therefore survived the Holocaust, the few testimonials that emerged in the 1970s to 1990s were invaluable resources for research alongside official Nazi documents of their anti- homosexual policies. Following the Stonewall Riots and gay civil rights movements,
52 Craig Kaczorowski, “Paragraph 175,” GLBTQ: An Encyclopaedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture, from http://www. glbtqarchive. com/ssh/paragraph_175_S. pdf (2015). 53 Günter Grau, “Return of the Past: The Policy of the SED and the Laws against Homosexuality in Eastern Germany between 1946 and 1968,” Journal of Homosexuality 37, no. 4 (1999): 1-21. 54 “Persecution of Homosexuals in the Third Reich,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved May 11, 2019. 55 Rüdiger Lautmann, “Gay prisoners in concentration camps as compared with Jehovah's Witnesses and Political Prisoners,” A Mosaic of Victims: Non-Jews Persecuted and Murdered by the Nazis (1990): 200-206. 19
scholars paid more attention to this facet of the Holocaust.56 While the academic literature is limited, it is nonetheless vital. The works of Rector and Lautmann were published in the late 1970s in Germany, and English translations appeared in the Journal of Homosexuality and in books under the Stein and Day publication house respectively in the early 1980s.57 Rector’s text Nazi Extermination of Homosexuals examines the persecution of homosexuals and anti-homosexual propaganda used by the Nazis. He describes the events surrounding the assassination of Hitler’s close ally, the homosexual Ernst Röhm, and how Hitler decided that “it was far more effective to defame Röhm as a homosexual – everyone knew about that – than it was to try and discredit him as a traitor to the Movement”.58 Rector thus explains how the Nazi party’s campaigns against homosexuals in 1933 adopted similar methods to their anti-Jewish propaganda, and how ideas of survival and procreation were used to augment it in a speech in Munich.59 Recently, however, Rector’s work has been referred to much less by contemporary academics due to its apparent bias. Lautmann’s work is considered a mainstay in the field. Historian Richard Plant has stated that Lautmann “offered the first truly reliable statistics on the persecution, arrest, imprisonment, and fate of German and Austrian homosexuals”.60 He highlights a number of then lesser known facts, such as the fact that Paragraphs 174 and 176 contributed to roughly 10% of arrests of homosexuals by the Nazis, and that “a considerable percentage of all pink-triangle prisoners had been convicted previously for homosexuality”.61 He conducted a ground breaking study accumulating records on pink-triangle inmates in Buchenwald, Flossenbürg, Mauthausen and Dachau, where the material on these prisoners was best preserved. His work reveals that the pink triangle prisoners were among the worst-treated in the camps, had a higher mortality rate than other minorities, and that they were largely used for hard labour.62 There is some disagreement among scholars on the number of homosexual deaths as cited by
56 David Carter, Stonewall: The riots that sparked the gay revolution, Macmillan, 2004. 57 Rector, Nazi Extermination of Homosexuals, p. 107; Lautmann, “The Pink Triangle”. 58 Ibid, p. 107 59 Ibid, p. 108: “It is not necessary that you and I live, but it is necessary that the German people live…therefore we reject you, as we reject anything which hurts our own people….”. 60 Plant, The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War against Homosexuals. 61Lautmann, “The Pink Triangle,” p. 145. 62 Ibid, p. 152. 20
Lautmann, yet his numbers still suggest that among the non-Jews, homosexuals had the highest death rate.63 The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War against Homosexuals by Richard Plant, published in 1986, would form the foundation of research in this area.64 Plant painstakingly unearths anti-gay Nazi cruelty via extensive analysis of letters, memos and records that survived the war, thereby demonstrating that the abuse and violence against homosexuals was widespread. He reveals what Lautmann and Rector failed to highlight adequately: that arguably the most horrific aspect of the persecution of homosexuals was sexual abuse, irrespective of Himmler having enacted laws that condemned SS guards to death for homosexuality.65 He states, “…..homosexuals were brutally assaulted, sexually abused, and frequently murdered by other inmates…”, in particular prisoner functionaries or Kapos.66 Plant’s research was among the first of its kind, but one could argue that as an academic work, it suffers to some degree from being an odd mix of statistical survey, monograph and memoir. The statistical analysis draws from secondary sources perhaps too frequently for robust analysis, and the memoir aspect can never be quite unharnessed from the academic intent of the text. Yet it is an incredibly important accounting of one facet of male-male sexual violence in Nazi Germany. Another significant work from a documentation perspective was Günter Grau’s Hidden Holocaust.67 In this collection of primary sources, Grau uses original Nazi documents that determined the fate of homosexuals. Grau argues that the Nazis persecuted homosexuals for four reasons: (i) their inability to produce German children; (ii) the possible “corruption” of the German youth; (iii) their tendency to group together; and (iv) their endangering the morality of the German public. Grau explains how the Nazis put homosexuals to hard labour so they could regain their “masculinity”, and how homosexuals were isolated in the camps because of the notion
63 The number of homosexual deaths is said to be significantly higher than cited in Lautmann’s research. According to Lautmann’s estimates, there were only five to fifteen thousand homosexual prisoners in the camps; Lautmann also suggests that “60 percent [of the homosexual inmates] died, 26 [percent] were liberated, 13 [percent] percent were released, and 0.4 percent escaped”; Lautmann, “The Pink Triangle,” p. 348. 64 Plant, The Pink Triangle. 65 Ibid, p. 219 66 Ibid, p. 128 67 Grau, The Hidden Holocaust, p. 64. 21
that they might spread their “disease” to other camp members.68 While the text reads more as a collation of the variety of primary sources he employed than a narrative per se, every section is contextualised through commentary. The work of the above scholars serves as an outstanding record, including accounts of killings, beatings, rapes, castrations, genital mutilation, among other atrocities.69 Yet, what is deficient, perhaps due to reasons of sensitivity, in their work and in subsequent scholarship, is an analysis of the other intricacies of the sexual violence itself; its causes and effects, the patterns of victimisation and the contexts within which they occurred, of the nature of the trauma of being both a survivor of the Holocaust and a victim of male-male sexual assault, among other aspects. One of the few researchers who has tried to explain male-on-male sexual violence during the Holocaust is international relations scholar David Eichert, who suggested an audience- based perspective for male-on-male sexual violence in armed conflict. He argues that male-male sexual violence in conflict has three root causes. The first is the expression of power by weaponising masculinity. The second is a reaffirmation of hetero- masculinity among the perpetrators. The third, and key factor, is the message such acts send to the wider community. Eichert applies this to the case of male-male homosexual violence in the Holocaust, arguing that on an organisational level, Nazi anti- homosexual propaganda, by depicting homosexual males as untrustworthy, cowardly, effeminate and weak, sent a message to the wider community as to how such an orientation was the polar opposite of the racially and archetypally pure German male. This was further acted upon on an individual level, as Eichert notes that guards would routinely rain slurs upon the homosexual prisoners - “filthy queers” and “menswomen”, among others - effectively feminising them, and that forms of sexual assault such as anal rape and genital beatings were a form of eradicating their “effeminate” nature. 70 This thesis aims to move beyond the previous studies and thus fill the gap in scholarship on male-male sexual violence in Nazi concentration camps. There has been
68 For an overview of how Nazis viewed homosexuality as a contagious disease, passed on via “seduction”, see Grau, The Hidden Holocaust, p. 18 69 See Geoffrey J. Giles, “’The Most Unkindest Cut of All’: Castration, Homosexuality, and Nazi Justice.” Journal of Contemporary History 27.1 (January 1992): 41-61; or Elke Jeanrond and Joseph Weishaupt, “Wir Hatten Ein Grosses A Am Bein.”, Videorecording. Washington, D.C., United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1994. 70 David Eichert, “Homosexualization’ revisited: an audience-focused theorization of wartime male sexual violence.” International Feminist Journal of Politics, 2018. 22
no further examination by researchers as to why, for instance, perpetrators were willing to risk being killed for engaging in sexual acts with other men in a severely homophobic environment. What factors determined whether a victim was likely to be raped? Was it the sexual orientation of the victims per se, or their appearance, or the orientation of the perpetrators? Was rape a consequence of deprivation and isolation from women? How did the victims respond? What was the opinion of witnesses of this sexual assault? What were the effects of this trauma? What has this sexual violence meant in terms of the victim’s identity as a homosexual male?
The Focus of this Thesis Finding nuanced literature on male-male sexual violence during the Holocaust is a virtual impossibility despite male-male rape being widespread during the Holocaust, referred to in passing by numerous primary and secondary sources.71 Historian Doris Bergen, in a paper discussing the perceived typicality or uniqueness of sexual violence during the Holocaust, notes the lack of testimonies from male victims who were raped or mutilated, suggesting that more research is vital to understanding the responses of the victims and the mindset of the perpetrators, including the impact on the latter.72 The only examination of the dynamics of male-male sexual violence during the Holocaust is found in the work of a researcher of sexual violence against Jewish women. In her chapter published in an edited volume on Sexual Violence against Jewish Women during the Holocaust, published in 2010, historian Monika Flaschka compares sexual violence against female victims to male-male sexual violence in the camps. Flaschka examines the assumption of gender and masculinity theory of sexual violence that holds that the main cause for sexual violence by males against males is the feminisation of the victim, which thereby renders the latter “less” masculine than the perpetrator. Using witness and victim testimonies, Flaschka concludes that Kapos tended to target young, effeminate males as their sexual victims.73 She also finds that one of the common perceptions held by witnesses who were interviewed in the postwar era about their
71 Gertjejanssen, “Victims, Heroes, Survivors,” p. 257. 72 Bergen and Herzog, “Sexual Violence in the Holocaust,” pp. 182-84. 73 See Monika J. Flaschka, “’Only Pretty Women were Raped’: The Effect of Sexual Violence on Gender Identities in Concentration Camps” in Sexual Violence against Jewish Women during the Holocaust, eds Hedgpeth and Saidel (2010): 77-93.; see also Sivakumaran, “Male/Male Rape and the ‘Taint’ of Homosexuality,” p. 1289. 23
experiential perceptions of these Kapos was that they were homosexuals. However, Flaschka does not indicate how many victim or witness testimonies she used. In fact, Flaschka often refers to victim testimonies generically, without quoting or paraphrasing them. Six witnesses are quoted, which is by no means a sufficient sample. Nothing can be inferred as to the methodology she used to arrive at these conclusions or which concentration camps were included in the analysis. Thus, her findings do not lead to robust or convincing conclusions.74 Currently, there are almost no studies available on Kapo-Piepel male-male rape in the camps, which is the cross-section of male-male sexual violence in Auschwitz that I will examine in this thesis. A prominent and high-profile fictional autobiography titled Piepel by Holocaust survivor Yehiel Dinur brought public attention to the plight of these young boys. Under the pseudonym Ka-Tzetnik, he relays the experiences of a pre-adolescent boy as a sex slave or “Lustknabe” for one of the Kapos in Auschwitz. According to Dinur, the official designation for a Piepel was often “cleaner”.75 He writes that Kapo-Piepel relationships were largely motivated by self-preservation, because a Kapo or Blockältester could provide additional food and protection to the boy and thereby prolong his survival. Dinur describes being chosen as a Piepel and providing sex in exchange for a better life inside the camps as psychologically torturous.76 His fictional work remains one of the most detailed accounts of Kapo- Piepel sexual violence in Auschwitz, and in concentration camps in general. A few witness accounts exist in memoirs, autobiographies, and scattered testimonies in academic literature, but are mentioned almost in passing.77 Some of the common threads that emerge are that Piepel received better food, protection and had better living conditions due to being sexually involved with the Kapos, and that the Piepel
74 Flaschka, “Only Pretty Women were Raped”. 75 The German tern Lustknabe designated male prostitutes; Heger, The Men with the Pink Triangle, p. 61. 76 Ka-tzetnik 135633, and Moshe Kohn. Piepel. A. Blond, 1961. P. 36. 77 Mordechai Strigler, Majdanek: Extinguished Lights. An early Eyewitness Testimony from the Death Camp (1947; Majdanek: Verloschene Lichter. Ein früher Zeitzeugenbericht vom Todeslager”); Bożena Shallcross, “The Pink Triangle and Gay Camp Identity in Marian Pankowskiʼs Writings,” Russian Literature 70, no. 4 (2011): 511-523.; Tadeusz Borowski, Auschwitz Phrases, 2010; Jeffrey Wallen, “Testimony and Taboo: The Perverse Writings of Ka-Tzetnik 135633” (2014), Dapim: Studies on the Holocaust, 28:1, 1-16. 24
themselves were often cruel to other inmates given their allegiance to the Kapos.78 These are by no means conclusions that can be drawn with any certainty given the small sample they are based upon. However, the fact that they are referred to so nonchalantly indicates that (i) the phenomenon was common enough to be taken as normally occurring, and (ii) the sensitive nature of the topic prevents the accounts from being more detailed. Victim accounts do not exist in written form outside of Dinur’s fictional autobiography. The sexual abuse of the Piepel by the Kapos might in fact be one of the most silenced topics within the subset of male-male sexual violence in the camps, since it involves the sexual abuse of adolescent and young adult Jewish males. Apart from the elderly, this age group was one of the most vulnerable demographics in the camps.79 Yet, one of the least reported and studied aspects of sexual violence during the Holocaust is the abuse of children. This dynamic is worsened by a tendency among Holocaust scholars to avoid examining the topic, often due to their own feelings of helplessness when faced with the terrible experiences of youngsters.80 Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is defined as “any sexual act between an adult and a child in which the child is used for the sexual satisfaction of the perpetrator”.81 The phenomenon of child sexual abuse during the Holocaust is not investigated broadly, despite victims of CSA routinely admitting that their sexual abuse was the most traumatic event of their lives.82 One of the pre-eminent scholars in the area, Rachel Lev-Wiesel, alongside Susan Weinger, in the book Hell within Hell provides accounts of child Holocaust survivors who were sexually abused while in hiding.83
78 Pinchas Gutter, Memories in Focus, Azrieli Foundation, 2017; Nate Leipciger, The Weight of Freedom, Azrieli Foundation, 2015. 79 Doris Bergen, “Sexual Violence in the Holocaust”, Rabin/Brill Holocaust Lecture at Michigan State University sponsored by Serling Institute of Jewish Studies and Modern Israel. East Lansing, Michigan. Published on April 24, 2019. 80 Rachel Lev-Wiesel and Marianne Amir, “Posttraumatic Growth among Holocaust Child Survivors,” Journal of Loss &Trauma 8, no. 4 (2003): 229-237. 81 John N. Briere, “Child abuse trauma: Theory and treatment of the lasting effects,” Sage Publications, Inc, 1992. 82 Rachel Lev-Wiesel and Susan Weinger, Hell within Hell: Sexually Abused Child Holocaust Survivors, (2011). P.16; A few high-profile cases have alse been acknowledged, most recently that of Molly Applebaum, who was sexually abused by her rescuer Viktor, a Polish farmer, who hid her and her cousin Kitty in his barn; see Molly Applebaum, Buried words: the diary of Molly Applebaum, The Azrieli series of Holocaust survivor memoirs, [Toronto]: The Azrieli Foundation, [2017]. 83 Lev-Wiesel and Weinger, Hell within Hell; For cases of child sexual violence against girls during the Holocaust and in the camps also see Helene Sinnreich, “‘And it was something we didn’t talk about’: 25
However, there are very few available accounts of sexual abuse of male Jewish children and adolsecents in the camps outside of three notable cases. These include the accounts of Roman Frister, Nate Leipciger, and Pinchas Gutter, the latter two of whom were sexual slaves to Kapos in the Fünfteichen and Majdanek concentration camps, respectively.84 While sidestepping sensitive issues out of concern for the young victims’ dignity is certainly considerate, it is also counterproductive. It is well known that sexual abuse at a young age is extremely traumatic.85 Paul Valent, a child Holocaust survivor and a clinician, found that sexually abused children and child Holocaust survivors both presented similar types and degrees of trauma in adulthood in terms of the trauma’s effects on interpersonal relations, resilience, coping skills, and both exhibited symptoms of psychological distress.86 Hence it is likely that a combination of these two sets of traumas would be devastating, and a definite contributor to the silence surrounding the topic. Indeed, a psychological study conducted by Lev-Wiesel & Amir in 2005 comprising interviews with children who suffered sexual abuse during the Holocaust – albeit not in the camps – found that the victims suffered physical and emotional pain, horror, fear, and loneliness at the time of their abuse, and experienced symptoms of depression, numbness, anxiety and emptiness later in life, with 76% of interviewees considering life worthless.87 The severity and extent of these reported effects emphasizes the importance of my thesis in attempting to address this topic, by giving a voice to a new subset of victims of sexual violence, and encouraging other victims to speak out about their abuse. Greater knowledge on the topic and an understanding of the dynamics of the violence would also help us to understand why such events occur, which would contribute to the development of novel ideas and policies aimed at the prevention of sexual violence in conflict situations or during instances of mass violence and genocide.
Rape of Jewish Women during the Holocaust,” Holocaust Studies 14, no. 2 (2008): 1-22; and Steven T. Katz, “Thoughts on the Intersection of Rape and Rassenchande during the Holocaust,” Modern Judaism- A Journal of Jewish Ideas and Experience 32, no. 3 (2012): 293-322. 84 Frister was raped by a privileged prisoner in Auschwitz; Roman Frister, The Cap, Or, The Price of a Life, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999; Leipciger, The Weight of Freedom; Gutter, Memories in Focus. 85 David Finkelhor, “Early and long-term effects of child sexual abuse: An update.” Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 21, (1990), 325-330. 86 Paul Valent, “Documented childhood trauma (Holocaust): Its sequel and applications to other traumas.” Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 2, (1995), 81-89. 87 Rachel Lev-Wiesel and Marianne Amir, “Holocaust child survivors and child sexual abuse,” Journal of Child Sexual Abuse 14, no. 2 (2005): 69-83. 26
Thus, by reversing the “gender lens” approach used by feminist scholars to highlight uniquely female aspects of the Holocaust, this thesis undertakes a thorough investigation of a specific subset of male-on-male sexual violence to amend the master narrative. It examines the dynamics of sexual violence perpetraqted against male child, adolescent and/or teenage, and young adult male sex slaves, or Piepel, by Kapos, who were among the prisoner functionaries in Auschwitz. Through the perceptions of the victims of the sexual violence and of witnesses to this violence, it investigates the experiences of the victims and their responses to the violence; the selection of the Piepel by the Kapos and the initiation and evolution of the violence; and the witnesses’ opinions of and attitudes towards the Piepel.
27
Theoretical Framework My assessment of Kapo-Piepel sexual violence draws from a theoretical framework that comprises a combination of: i) feminist theory to account for the assertion of power, dominance, subordination and control involved in sexual violence; ii) gender and masculinity theory to account for the dynamics of male-male sexual violence and perceptions surrounding it; iii) opportunistic theory of sexual violence to supplement i), to account for the physical particularities of Auschwitz; iv) social identity theory to supplement ii), to account for the differential social hierarchical status of the Piepel from the witnesses in the camps; and v) Wolfgang Sofsky’s theory of absolute power to account for the unique concentration camp universe of Auschwitz.
Feminist Theory Feminist criminologists Daly and Chesney-Lind list five tenets common to feminist theory.88 First: gender is not solely derived from sex but influenced by past and present socio-cultural and historical contexts. Second: relations between members of gender groups are shaped by social spheres and institutions. Third: contemporary gender roles are asymmetrical, and therefore the valuation of work is heavily skewed towards men, who also reap more rewards than women. Fourth: men who conventionally possess dominant status in society control the way knowledge is systematised and accessed. Fifth: women should not be placed on the fringes of the realm of knowledge production but must be robustly engaged in it. The concept implied monolithically in feminist theory is that of patriarchy, under the assumption of which this thesis will operate. Sociologist Liz Kelly states that patriarchy is a “social and political system in which men control, and have power over, women”.89 It is thereby a system in which men hold more privileges than women,
88 Kathleen Daly and Meda Chesney-Lind, “Common Characteristics of Feminist Theories,” in Deviance and Social Control 3rd ed. by Linda B. Deutschmann. Scarborough, ON: Nelson Thompson Learning, 2002, pp. 357. 89 Liz Kelly, Surviving Sexual Violence, (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. 1988), p. 20. 28
expressed through the assertion of power using violence, among other methods.90 Hence, certain males attempt to assert control and power over whom they perceive as inferior males. In addition to these five principles, this thesis will also assume the theoretical notion of sexual violence as being an assertion of power, mainly by male perpetrators over female victims, child victims and victims who are males but perceived as lesser or unmanly. Hence, the very act of rape is one defined by domination, control and power.91 Rape is an application of violence and terror and all but guarantees that a victim is compliant and the perpetrator powerful.92 Any masculinity that is thusly subordinated undergoes feminisation, occupying a lower rung within hierarchies of gender.93 Hence, it is used to portray certain men as women, diminishing their social status and currency, and is how hierarchies within masculinities are formed and maintained. In fact, masculinity promotes the privileging of specific males in society, discriminating against others who are feminised.94 Further, masculinity, according to social scientist Raewyn Connell, is defined not merely by the attributes that society assumes they possess simply by their sex, but also by what society envisions a man is supposed to be: the stoic, strong male who is always in control.95 A further use of feminist theory towards an examination of sexual violence is in its engagement with notions of rape myths. Assumptions and notions about what men are entitled to provide support and encouragement for the justification of sexual violence inflicted by males.96 Female rape myths assume facets of female life, such as sexual history, manner of dress and flirtation with the opposite sex, whereas male rape
90 Elizabeth Comack, Vanessa Chopyk and Linda Wood, “Aren't Women Violent, Too?”: The Gendered Nature of Violence.” Pp. 235-251 in Marginality and Condemnation: An Introduction to Critical Criminology, eds Carolyn Brooks and Bernard Schissel. Halifax, NS: Fernwood Publishing, 2002. 91 Brownmiller, Against Our Will, p. 5. 92 Lisa S. Price, “Feminist frameworks: building theory on violence against women,” Blackwood, Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing, 2005 in Mary Ellen Snodgrass, "Feminist frameworks: building theory on violence against women," Counterpoise 10, no. 1/2 (2006): 53. 93 Laura Sjoberg, “Agency, militarized femininity and enemy others: Observations from the war in Iraq,” International Feminist Journal of Politics 9, no. 1 (2007): 82-101; see also Robert W. Connell, Masculinities, Berkeley." (1995). 94 Charlotte Hooper, “Manly states: Masculinity, international relations, and gender politics,” (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2001), p. 71. 95 Robert W. Connell, "Studying men and masculinity," Resources for Feminist Research (2001): 43- 57. 96 Kofi E. Boakye, “Attitudes Toward Rape and Victims of Rape: A Test of the Feminist Theory in Ghana,” Journal of Interpersonal Violence 24(10) 2009:1633-1651. 29
myths assume facets of male life, including their emotions, sexual needs and bodies. For instance, a common male rape myth is that sexually active males are always willing to engage in sexual activity. These assumptions contribute to the phenomenon of the denial of the negative impact and damage caused to victims. Aspects of a victim’s life following a sexual assault are also addressed by feminist theory, including feelings of fear, and of being controlled and intimidated.97 It speaks to messaging, in that when a single individual suffers an infliction of sexual violence, it spreads fear and guarantees obedience and compliance from the wider group.98 The focus of feminist theory of sexual violence on the significance of the assertion and abuse of power differs from psychoanalytical theories of sexual violence, whereby the perpetrators’ sexual crime is posited to be due to a pathology in behaviour. Gender studies scholar Inger Skjelsbæk argues that this renders the rape a product of aberrant behaviour in that the perpetrator is identified as unhealthy or ill.99 In addition, a feminist analysis of sexual violence contrasts with interactionist theories of rape proposed by Amir, Klemmack and Klemmack and Nelson and Amir, who posit that rape is the consequence of poorly understood signals between a male and a female due to gender stereotypes.100 Hence, psychoanalytical theory and interactionist theory fail to conceive of sexual violence as an act that is premeditated and systematic. The use of these theories for the victim-perpetrator cross section of this thesis would have to assume a disproportionate degree of mental illness in the concentration camps.101 Further, these theories are more suitable for male-female sexual assault, not including within its scope male-male sexual violence. This thesis will instead additionally operate under the assumptions of criminologist Brooke Miller Gialopsos’ model of opportunistic theory of sexual violence, whereby the degree of exposure and forced proximity of the victims to perpetrators are factors in the occurrence of sexual violence, both of which were in
97 Brownmiller, Against Our Will, p. 105.; Marshall B. Clinard and Robert F. Meier, “Sociology of deviant behaviour”, Nelson Education, 2015. 98 Ibid 99 Inger Skjelsbaek, “Sexual violence and war: Mapping out a complex relationship,” European Journal of International Relations 7, no. 2 (2001): 211-237. 100 Ron Hinch, “Sexual violence and social control,” in Social Control in Canada, B. Schissel and L. Mahood (eds.). Toronto: Oxford Univ. Pr (1996). 101 Skjelsbaek, “Sexual violence and war,” pp. 211-237. 30
effect in the camp system of Auschwitz.102 As per this theory, the attractiveness of the victim is a major determinant of their suitability in the eyes of the perpetrator. Further, the likelihood of sexual violence being inflicted upon the victim increases if able guardians are scarce.103 Opportunistic theory also includes the factor of target congruence, whereby the chance that a victim might be identified by a perpetrator depends on three attributes of the former; namely their gratifiability, antagonism and vulnerability.104 These attributes of the victim increase their risk of sexual assault, because they correspond to the motivations, reactions and needs of the perpetrators.105 It should be stated in no uncertain terms that the use of this theory does not imply culpability on the part of the Piepel and is merely an analytical tool.
Gender and Masculinity Theory The property of being a male or masculine is viewed by society as being more valuable than femininity or being female. Heterosexual young males have greater value and possess greater power than homosexuals or bisexuals.106 This is in accord with Raewyn Connell’s model of a hegemonic masculinity, which is a framework for how masculine dominance impacts all cultural, economic, political, social and global systems. The model distinguishes between hegemonic masculinities and subordinate masculinities, in that the former feminise the latter.107 Criminologist and masculinity theorist Collier argues that what is necessary for the comprehension of violence – and more so sexual violence – is the very concept of masculinity. He argues that an investigation of masculinity is essential, because the concept of masculinity by itself is wide-ranging,
102 Brooke Miller Gialopsos, “Sexual violence in academia: policy, theory, and prevention considerations,” Journal of School Violence, (2017): 141-147. 103 L. E. Cohen and M. Felson, “Social change and crime rate trends: A routine activity approach,” American Sociological Review, 44(4) 1979: 588–608.; M. R. Gottfredson, “On the etiology of criminal victimization,” The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 72(2), 1981: 714–726.; M. J. Hindelang, M. J., Gottfredson, M. R., and J. Garofalo, “Victims of personal crime: An empirical foundation for a theory of personal victimization,” Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, (1978); T. D. Miethe and R. F. Meier, “Crime and its social context: Toward an integrated theory of offenders, victims, and situations,” Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1994. 104 David Finkelhor and Nancy L. Asdigian, “Risk factors for youth victimization: Beyond a lifestyles/routine activities theory approach.” Violence and Victims, 11(1), 1996: 3–20. Retrieved from http://www.unh.edu/ccrc/pdf/CV13.pdf 105 Ibid. 106 Kristen Day, Cheryl Stump and Daisy Carreon. 2003. “Confrontation and Loss of Control: Masculinity and Men's Fear in Public Space.” Journal of Environmental Psychology 23(3):311-322. 107 Connell, Masculinities. 31
while not accounting for the different ways in which males conceive of various masculinities.108 Indeed, masculinity is accomplished, conceived of and performed by males relative to females and males who are perceived as inferior.109 Violence committed by males has been a method of conflict resolution since antiquity,110 since the accomplishment of masculinity by males occurs through their bodily form and practice, such as in sport, sexuality and combat. In contrast, females accomplish femininity by actions and practices performed on their bodily form, such as the use of jewellery, hair-dos and cosmetics. Hence, sexual violence is the only conduit for males to assert dominance and power over the rest of society, and through which they develop personal notions of their own masculinity.111 At first glance, it appears to be a contradiction that male-male sexual violence would occur as a demonstration of masculinity. However, in the case of male-male rape, the biological sex of the target is irrelevant. The victim is simply an object; female and “lesser-male” rape achieve the same ends: a channel for the demonstration of masculinity by the rapist to others. International relations scholar Sandesh Sivakumaran posits that the resultant “taint” of homosexuality and the effective feminisation of the victim is what is intended. The perpetrator does not view himself as having engaged in a homosexual activity. Contrarily, he has full possession of his manhood despite the act, since by being powerful, forceful and in control, he has complied with societal expectations of masculinity. Indeed, by the act itself, he has effectively denigrated a male member of society for not having conformed to the same expectations of masculinity. The victim therefore embodies femininity, and hence the properties of an inferior group, generally disapproved of by the perpetrator: homosexuals, other subordinated masculinities and females.112 Gender and masculinity theories hence also provide a framework from which to analyse the reactions and attitudes of witnesses to the Kapo-Piepel sexual abuse. Male- male sexual violence is routinely trivialised in society, due to a lack of sympathy for victims for not adhering to masculine stereotypes, in that sexually assailed males
108 Richard Collier, Masculinities, crime and criminology. (Sage, 1998). 109 Michael S. Kimmel, The History of Men: Essays on the History of American and British Masculinities (New York: SUNY Press, 2005), 30. 110 Michael Kaufman, The construction of Masculinity and the Triad of Mens Violence, (1987): 1-29 111 Ibid 112 Sivakumaran, “Male/Male Rape and the ‘Taint’ of Homosexuality,” p. 1289. 32
“should have” asserted physical power and warded off the assault.113 Male rape myths are driven by these notions and stereotypes of masculinity. Often, such an instance of sexual violence might simply be considered a consequence of gay homosexuality.114 These attitudes are a breeding ground for misbegotten notions that males cannot be raped, or rather that they thrill from the sexual assault themselves.115 In confined environments concentration camps and prisons, these sexual activities are considered part and parcel of life, in that the involved parties are simply deprived of heterosexual sexual activity.116 Further, another stereotype that plays into these perceptions is that the victims themselves were closeted homosexuals who on an subconscious level desired the rape to occur.117 Hence, the sexual assault itself is not regarded as traumatic.118 Indeed, sexual orientation is key to comprehending attitudes around male rape in general.119
Wolfgang Sofsky - Theory of Absolute Power Sofsky’s concept of “absolute power” - the organization of power in a single direction within a given environment - helps explain the social structure and dynamics of the camps, their social behaviour, interpersonal relations, survival, self-preservation and erosion of civic and social norms120. Sofsky argues that the concentration camp society did not resemble conventional society and that therefore traditional social norms no
113 Kathy Doherty and Irina Anderson, “Making sense of male rape: Constructions of gender, sexuality and experience of rape victims,” Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology 14, no. 2 (2004): 85-103, p. 95 114 Denise A. Donnelly and Stacy Kenyon, “’Honey, We Don't Do Men’ Gender Stereotypes and the Provision of Services to Sexually Assaulted Males,” Journal of Interpersonal Violence 11, no. 3 (1996): 441-448, p. 446 115 Barbara Krahé, Eva Waizenhöfer, and Ingrid Möller, “Women's sexual aggression against men: Prevalence and predictors." Sex Roles 49, no. 5-6 (2003): 219-232, p. 3; Peel, Michael, “Rape as a Method of Torture,” Medical Foundation for the care of victims of torture, 2004. 116 Gordon James Knowles, “Male prison rape: A search for causation and prevention,” The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice 38, no. 3 (1999): 267-282. 117 Jennie, Leskela, Michael Dieperink and Cynthia J. Kok, “Group Treatment with Sexually Assaulted Male Veterans: A Year in Review,” Behavioural Science 25(4) 2002, pp.303-319. 118 This is in accord with Doherty and Anderson, “Making Sense of Male Rape,” 2004. 119 Sue Lees, “Ruling Passions: Sexual Violence, Reputation and the Law,” Buckingham: Open University Press, (1997).; although for anecdotal evidence that this occurs see Ronald Smith, Charles Pine and Mark Hawley, “Social cognitions about adult male victims of female sexual assault,” The Journal of Sex Research 24, (1988):101-112. 120 Wolfgang Sofsky, The Order of Terror: The Concentration Camp, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013). 33
longer applied. He contends that “absolute power” thrust the camp prisoners into a very specific condition: a “Hobbesian social state of theft and bribery, mistrust and animosity, the struggle of all against all”.121 In the camps, Sofsky argues that the “laws of the jungle” prevailed towards the ultimate goal of survival.122 The individual that was more ruthless, strong and devious prevailed over his/her fellow individuals. This fostered an environment in which any and all methods of survival were implemented at the expense of other prisoners, resulting in an extreme zero-sum state of arduous, constant inter-individual struggle.123 In order to survive, prisoners had to forego any past values, notions, experiential lessons and convictions, since self-preservation required incessant unscrupulousness, action and caution. Mutual assistance, acts of compassion and solidarity, and inter-individual personal contact were no longer components of the prisoners lives due to serial isolation.124 In this environment, a “community of suffering”, in which individuals come together to support the downtrodden in their hour of need was no longer a possibility.125 Instead, individual self-preservation predominantly drove social interaction, behaviour and cooperation. Sofsky also contends that “misery does not weld people together”, but that it instead creates an environment of constant reciprocity.126 This, he argues, leads to an environment of constant bartering, stealing, or the selling of one’s services and body to other stronger or more prominent prisoners, in an attempt to benefit individually while a community at large did not exist.127 Indeed, the fact that the camp population was essentially a mass of prisoners rendered the individual prisoners powerless, therein creating an environment of inter-individual repulsion and indifference. Despite prisoners being in constant contact, this environment of necessary reciprocity was tinged with negativity, envy, distrust, enmity and egoism.128
121 Sofsky, The Order of Terror, p. 37. 122 Ibid, p. 162. 123 Ibid. 124 Ibid, p. 162f. 125 Müller, p. 156ff, as quoted in Sofsky, The Order of Terror, p. 162. 126 Sofsky, The Order of Terror, p. 24. 127 Ibid. 128 Ibid, p. 156. 34
Severe hunger and deprivation of resources destroyed social relations and created a situation in which power made right, causing individuals to resort to stealing and betraying those who might be considered their own.129 Starvation lead to physical exhaustion and illness, resulting in more brutal punishments by the SS or Kapos, thereby further reducing one’s chances of survival.130 Auschwitz survivor and psychologist Bruno Bettelheim posits that camp prisoners hence realised that their only chance of survival lay in the acquisition of power in some form, either by the aforementioned acts of reciprocity or by aligning themselves to the larger power structure.131 Indeed, once such a position of power was attained, being lenient to fellow prisoners was to risk one’s position within this hierarchy, and by extension one’s very survival.132 This environment of constantly imminent annihilation made prisoner functionaries accomplices, for whom self-preservation, due to their status, was achieved through terror.133 These functionary prisoners had to become representatives of the SS, were in that function then unable to help the prisoners who would have needed it, instead having to, by and large, implement brutal and violent methods of discipline upon them. They only cared to serve their masters, while being able to display their personal prestiges, namely not having to engage in the same heavy, physical labour as the other prisoners in the camp, and being in a better position due to the food and protection bestowed upon them.134 Sofsky refers to individuals who kiss up to higher-status indiudials as “slaves of the aristocracy”, and by extrapolation, the same could be said about the Kapos and the SS.135
Social Identity Theory Within the context of Kapo-Piepel sexual violence, the camp was divided into distinct groups socially: (i) the Piepel and Kapos, the former who received preferential treatment by virtue of their sexual slavery, and the latter who sanctioned their
129 Sofsky, The Order of Terror, p. 163. 130 Ibid, p. 38. 131 Bruno Bettelheim, The informed heart: Autonomy in a mass age, (1960), p. 169ff. 132 Sofsky, The Order of Terror, p. 20. 133 Ibid, p. 18ff. 134 Ibid, p. 137. 135 Ibid, p. 151. 35
preferential treatment in exchange for forced sexual activity; and (ii) the camp prisoners who did not receive preferential treatment and were unable to alter their quality of life.136 The formation of such social groups within the camps allows for the perceptions of the witnesses and victims to be analysed using group dynamics, which is the study of human behaviour in groups, their interactions and processes, group cohesion, and the influence on the individual within the group of these processes. Human beings fundamentally need to be part of groups,137 since they afford identity, belonging and interaction.138 Social isolation can result in unhappiness, helplessness and dissatisfaction,139 or even ostracism, resulting in aggression, depression and stress.140 This thesis therefore includes the social identity theory of group dynamics in its theoretical framework to analyse the perceptions of witnesses and victims to Kapo- Piepel sexual abuse. Social psychologists Tajfel & Turner (1979) formulated social identity theory to examine behaviours and roles of individuals within groups and intergroup dynamics, arguing that an individual’s self-concept was never static, but instead constantly redefined relative to other groups.141 The key concepts of social identity theory are those of social identity and social categorisation. Social identity comprises that portion of the self–concept of an individual that derives from their knowledge of his membership to a social group, in combination with the emotional significance attached to this membership. Since all groups interact with other groups within a social construct, the positive characteristics of the social identity are meaningful for an individual only in relation/comparison to other groups. Social comparison is important because individuals often feel the need to compare their
136 It is worth noting that of course, there were inmates who had good jobs, as doctors, plumbers, carpenters and other skilled professionals, who were able to improve their quality of life or at the very least maintain it; however it is safe to assume they were unlikely to have been affected by the dynamics of Kapo-Piepel sexual violence, which is the context within which these groups are being described here. 137 Roy F. Baumeister and Mark R. Leary, “The need to belong: desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation.” Psychological Bulletin 117, no. 3 (1995): p. 497. 138 See Harry Bakwin, “Loneliness in Infants,” American Journal of Diseases of Children 63, no. 1 (1942): 30-40. 139 Vanessa M. Buote et al., “The importance of friends: Friendship and adjustment among 1st-year university students.” Journal of Adolescent Research 22, no. 6 (2007): 665-689. 140 Kipling D. Williams, “Social ostracism.” In Aversive interpersonal Behaviors, Springer, Boston, MA, 1997, pp. 133-170. 141 Henri Tajfel and John Turner, “An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. The social psychology of intergroup relations,” 1979, 33(47), 74. 36
abilities and opinions with those of others, especially when more objective means are not available.142 Social categorisation, another concept within social identity theory, comprises a system of orientation that defines an individual’s place in society along social categories; namely, those groups of people that are important to that individual.143 Hence, the characteristics of a group as a whole are significant only in relation to perceived differences from other groups.144 A specific group therefore needs to maintain its positive value distinctiveness from other groups in order to retain its members.145 The thesis will also operate under the assumption that individuals make “us vs them” distinctions between people who belong to their own group and people who belong to a different group, the consequences and motivations of which were studied by psychologists Gordon Allport and Marilyn Brewer.146 According to Tajfel and Turner’s (1970) minimal group paradigm, what is required for one group of people to discriminate against another is their membership in a different group.147 As per this assumption, under specific conditions, individuals prefer members of their own in- group over those of the out-group with respect to several parameters, including resource allocation and inter-individual evaluation. This is known as in-group favouritism.148 On the flip side of the same coin, the in-group perceives an out-group as being threatening to its own members. This is known as out-group derogation.149 These two phenomena
142Michael A. Hogg, "Social identity and social comparison," in Handbook of Social Comparison, pp. 401-421. Springer, Boston, MA, 2000. 143 Henri Tajfel et al., "Social categorization and intergroup behaviour," European Journal of Social Psychology 1, no. 2 (1971): 149-178. 144 For an overview of relative deprivation theory, see Iain Walker and Thomas F. Pettigrew, “Relative deprivation theory: An overview and conceptual critique.” British Journal of Social Psychology 23, no. 4 (1984): 301-310. 145 Marilynn B. Brewer, “The role of distinctiveness in social identity and group behaviour” in M. A. Hogg & D. Abrams (Eds.), Group motivation: Social Psychological Perspectives (pp. 1-16), 1993. 146 Gordon W. Allport, “The nature of Prejudice.” (1954).; Marilynn B. Brewer, “Social identity, distinctiveness, and in-group homogeneity.” Social Cognition 11, no. 1 (1993): 150-164. 147 For a discussion on the possible psychological origins of this discrimination, see Lowell Gaertner and Chester A. Insko, “Intergroup discrimination in the minimal group paradigm: Categorization, reciprocation, or fear?.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79, no. 1 (2000): 77. 148 John C. Turner, Rupert J. Brown, and Henri Tajfel, “Social comparison and group interest in ingroup favouritism.” European Journal of Social Psychology 9, no. 2 (1979): 187-204. 149 Marilynn B. Brewer, “In-group bias in the minimal intergroup situation: A cognitive-motivational analysis.” Psychological Bulletin 86, no. 2 (1979): 3P7. 37
are usually motivated by preferential treatment by the in-group to its own members, rather than antagonistic feelings towards members in the out-group. Brewer and Kramer argue that specific conditions or situations in which those factors determine the maintenance of group integrity and loyalty play a part in the projection of hostile behaviour towards the out-group.150 Brewer’s position is based on Allport’s work on the psychology of prejudice, which posits that the animosity between groups is due to, among other factors, real or imagined prejudices held by members of one group against members of the other group.151 Other factors for intergroup animosity include the need to justify the values of the in-group as being superior morally to those of the out-group, fear of threat, social comparisons, and politics of power. Further, where certain social constructs are composed of distinctly segmented and organised hierarchies, this specific intergroup dynamic is particularly powerful.152
Research Questions The overarching research question I wish to answer is: What were the dynamics of the sexual violence perpetrated by the Kapos against the Piepel? Within this question I wish to answer the following subsidiary questions: (1) How did the Piepel experience this violence, and what were their responses to it? In particular: a. To what degree were they coerced into these sexual relationships, and to what degree was it voluntary? b. Why, as per the few accounts available, did they treat other prisoners cruelly? (2) What was the selection process that the Kapos employed to target Piepel, how did they initiate the violence, and how did it evolve?
150 Marilynn B. Brewer and Roderick M. Kramer, “Choice behavior in social dilemmas: Effects of social identity, group size, and decision framing,” Journal of personality and social psychology 50, no. 3 (1986): 543. 151 Gordon W. Allport and Bernard M. Kramer, “Some roots of prejudice,” The Journal of Psychology 22, no. 1 (1946): 9-39.; for an overview of theories on prejudice see John H. Duckitt, "Psychology and prejudice: A historical analysis and integrative framework," American Psychologist 47, no. 10 (1992): 1182.; for a more detailed discussion of ingroups see Rupert Brown and Hanna Zagefka, “Ingroup affiliations and prejudice.” On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years after Allport (2005): 54-70. 152 Roger V. Gould, “Collision of Wills: How ambiguity about social rank breeds conflict,” University of Chicago Press, 2003; for a discussion of intra-group status conflict see Corinne Bendersky and Nicholas A. Hays, "Status conflict in groups," Organization Science 23, no. 2 (2012): 323-340. 38
(3) What were the witnesses’ perceptions of the Piepel, and why did they have such perceptions?
39
Methodology
Primary Sources and Relevance to the Research Questions Posed In order to answer my research questions, I have collected and used the following ego- documents as primary sources: (i) Oral testimonies from victims of Kapo-Piepel sexual violence, and those who Kapos attempted to “enroll” as Piepel in Auschwitz, using the University of Southern California (USC) Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive® (VHA) archive database; (ii) Oral testimonies from witnesses who directly witnessed and/or were aware of Kapo-Piepel sexual violence in Auschwitz, using the USC VHA® database; (iii) Written accounts (memoirs) of witnesses who directly witnessed and/or were of aware of Kapo-Piepel sexual violence in Auschwitz. A “victim” as per my metholodological approach included those who were male children, adolescents or young male adults at the time of their abuse by a Kapo. I set the upper age limit for the victims at 21 years (at the time of their abuse). This was done to explore the dynamics of the targeting of specifically younger males by Kapos, which is how Kapo-Piepel sexual violence is generally understood. A “witness”, as per my methodological approach, derives its definition from the understanding of the German word “Zeitzeuge”. Translated literally to English, it means “time-witness”. Historian Steffi De Jong interprets it dually to mean both “witness of the past” and “witness to history”.153 As per this conception, witnesses are those who provide testimony on historically important occurrences based on what they have seen, heard or experienced. Hence, my sample of witnesses to Kapo-Piepel sexual violence comprises those survivors who had direct, indirect, or contextual exposure to Kapo-Piepel sexual violence targeting their family, friends, and neighbors/colleagues in Auschwitz’s confined spaces and were willing to give public testimony about it – in whatever format/form or venue - during the postwar era. Further, adopting this specific conception avoids the judicial implications of the word “witness”, restricting it to the confines of historical testimony. Unfortunately, I was unable to find written accounts of victims who were Piepel in Auschwitz. I chose not to include the fictional autobiography by Yehiel Dinur,
153 Steffi De Jong, The Witness as Object: Video Testimony in Memorial Museums, Vol. 10. Berghahn Books, 2018. 40
Piepel. Dinur’s account should not be disregarded, having provided the first detailed knowledge of the existence of Piepel. However, there is debate, not only as to the veracity of his account, but how its tonal qualities might affect an interpretation of what truly occurred.154 Finally, only by hearing personally from the Piepel would it be possible to establish to what degree sexual violence traumatized them, how they dealt with the trauma, and what motivated them to come forward. While this is important, such an investigation is beyond the scope of this thesis, and would require one-on-one interviews with the investigator, alongside psychological expertise to clinically assess symptomatology. I examined the violence that took place solely in the Auschwitz concentration camp for two reasons. Firstly, Auschwitz was the largest Nazi concentration camp and, thus, was representative of a large section of the victims of the atrocities within the Nazi camp system. Hence, I was more likely to access testimonies pertaining to more marginalised issues like sexual violence. Secondly, much more is known about Auschwitz in terms of its structure, daily life, and history than most other concentration camps, given it is the symbol of Nazi atrocities, where the greatest number of Jews were killed. The greater amount of available information on Auschwitz would allow for easier contextualization of my findings.
Oral Testimonies I used the USC-VHA database to collect oral testimonies. This is the USC Shoah Foundation’s collection of audiovisual interviews, containing more than 54,000 testimonies from witnesses and survivors of the Holocaust and other genocides. The VHA can be accessed in three different ways: (i) The full collection can be accessed by subscription at USC and on location at 67 higher education institutions worldwide; (ii) Partial access to a limited collection of testimonies in the VHA is granted at 220 institutions in 36 countries; (iii) It is possible to access the VHA online after registering
154 Galia Glasner-Heled, “Reader, Writer, and Holocaust Literature: The Case of Ka-Tzetnik,” Israel Studies 12, no. 3 (2007).; Or Rogovin, "Ka-Tzetnik's Moral Viewpoint." Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas 14, no. 2 (2016): 275-298.; Annette F. Timm, ed. Holocaust History and the Readings of Ka-tzetnik. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018.; Guido Vitiello, “The Eroticization of Witnessing: The Twofold Legacy of Ka-Tzetnik,” Holocaust History and the Readings of Ka-Tzetnik (2018): 139; see also Jeffrey Wallen, “Testimony and Taboo: The Perverse Writings of Ka-Tzetnik 135633” (2014), Dapim: Studies on the Holocaust, 28:1, 1-16.
41
with the USC at vhaonline.usc.edu. However, the online portal only permits viewing of videos and access of transcripts of 1,800 select testimonies. The Central European University (CEU) in Budapest, Hungary, holds a full subscription to the USC. The VHA can be accessed from onsite location at the CEU. In order to be able to access the VHA, I extended my Erasmus stay at the CEU as part of field work towards this thesis, maximizing my primary source documents. Every testimony is digitized and searchable to the minute, via indexing. By using the “Search in Testimony” tool, one can access the exact point within a testimony that matches a search term, either in full or partially. For example, searching for the term “sexual” provides results for any indexing items containing the search term, such as “sexual assault”, “camp sexual activity” or “homosexual Kapo”. This is possible due to over 64,000 indexing terms being assigned to digital time codes, leading directly to specific points of interest. The indexing terms refer to specific topics and tag on to the digital time codes at which the topic was discussed, and they cover aspects relating to geography, experiences, biographical information about each interviewee, including their place of birth, religious identity pre- and post-war, places of incarceration and hiding, flight or resistance details, as well as nearly 1.8 million names of people either mentioned in the VHA’s testimony collection or recorded in pre-interview questionnaires. I employed three search terms to narrow down the results, namely “sexual”, “Auschwitz”, “Kapo”. The word “Piepel” was not available as an indexed search term. If the word “rape” was inserted into the search bar, it did not come up as an indexing term. Instead, various forms and contexts of the term “sexual assault” were flagged. Therefore, the search term “sexual” was sufficient, encompassing 33 indexing terms, listed in Appendix A (i). “Sex” as a search term delivered the same 33 results plus four more, however, these additional results did not refer to sexual activities or violence.155 “Auschwitz” was chosen because it encompassed 49 indexing terms, listed in Appendix A (ii). “Kapo” was chosen as a search term because it encompassed 51 indexing terms, which are listed in Appendix A (iii). Twelve geographical matches and matches
155 These were “gender discrimination”, “shamas”, “Szekszárd (Hungary)”, “Aix-en-Provence (France)”. 42
pertaining to deportations from or to a location were excluded.156 The remaining 39 matches for “Kapo” that included Kapos from different countries and nationalities as well as matches analogous to “Kapo” like “Lagerälteste”, and indexing terms pertaining to prisoners’ “attitudes toward prisoner functionaries” were also included. The VHA permits a narrowing of results by applying various filters. I only included collections about the Holocaust in my search, a list of which can be found in Appendix B, (i). I first entered my search terms in the search bar and this produced 463 results. I then applied two more filters, limiting my search to “male” and the experience group to “Jewish Survivors”. I excluded the experience groups of “Sinti and Roma Survivors” and “Political Prisoners”. I restricted my search to male survivors because the camps were segregated by gender, and the likelihood that a female survivor would have witnessed Kapo-Piepel sexual abuse was therefore very small. The other two experience groups were not pertinent to my search. The first, “Sinti and Roma survivors” were usually kept in separate camps.157 The second, “Political Prisoners”, would generally have been adults and therefore not have been of the age at which they would targeted as Piepel by the Kapo. Further, political prisoners were often appointed as prisoner functionaries, who were usually the perpetrators in this cross-section of male-male sexual violence. This reduced the number of results to 140. I then set the language filter. Of the 12 languages, namely Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian/Ukrainian and Spanish, I excluded the Czech (2), Russian/Ukrainian (1), Polish (1) and Hebrew (30) language testimonies, because I do not understand these languages. I organised the testimonies in accordance with my pre- defined criteria into three groups: (i) victim testimonies of those who clearly had been involved in a continuing trend of Kapo-Piepel sexual violence; (ii) victim testimonies of those who had been victims of sexual abuse or attempted sexual abuse by Kapos towards their unsuccessful selection as Piepel; and (iii) testimonies of witnesses who
156 The excluded terms were Glafira (Greece), Kápolnásnyék (Hungary), Copalnic Manastur (Romania), Kaposkeresztúr (Hungary), Kaposvár (Hungary), Újpest (Hungary : Ghetto), Kápolna (Heves, Hungary), deportation from Kaposvár (Hungary), Kaposvár (Hungary : Ghetto), deportation from Kápolna (Heves, Hungary), deportation from Kaposvár (Hungary: Ghetto), Veľké Kapušany (Slovakia, Czechoslovakia). 157 Guenter Lewy, “Gypsies and Jews under the Nazis,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 13, no. 3 (1999): 383-404. 43
were either aware of or who had directly witnessed Kapo-Piepel sexual violence. Within the constraints of my criteria and language limitations, I was able to gather a total of 25 testimonies: four for group (i), three for group (ii) and 18 for group (iii). The survivors in each group are listed in Appendix D. Of the 25 testimonies of Holocaust survivors who were imprisoned in the Auschwitz concentration camp for a period of time between 1942 until the liberation of the camp by the Soviet troops (see Appendix C), 10 survivors were incarcerated either in Auschwitz I or in Auschwitz III-Monowitz;158 seven were imprisoned solely in Auschwitz II-Birkenau;159 six spent time both in Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II- Birkenau;160 and two were imprisoned in Auschwitz II-Birkenau as well as in Auschwitz III-Monowitz.161 Of the 25 survivors, 18 spent time in work camps, where the work was so difficult that having less work or being able to procure more food to avoid starvation and death by exhaustion would have been sought-after commodities, making sexual exploitation likely.162 Of the 25 interviewees, only three were sent to Auschwitz in 1942. Of those who arrived in 1942, their mean age was 21.6 ± 6.4 (all values are Mean ± Standard Deviation henceforth), and they were 17 years or older.163 Nine survivors arrived in Auschwitz in 1943. Of these survivors, the mean age was 18.6 ± 3.1 years, and they were 14 years and older.164 Lastly, 13 of the survivors arrived in 1944, for whom the
158 Harry Aftel. Interview 11817; Jacob Wollberg. Interview 27307; Jack I. Salzberg. Interview 3956; Isaaco Bayona. Interview 43627; Herbert Kolischer. Interview 20003; Teo Ducci. Interview 38354; Norman Jaffé. Interview 6026; Henri Sonnenbluck. Interview 49157; Joseph Springs. Interview 22675. 159 Reinhard Frank. Interview 28165; Gilbert Metz. Interview 45926; George (Gedali) Kliger. Interview 13799; Lou Dunst. Interview 41450; Mayer Hersh. Interview 30624; Melvin Gelblat. Interview 16678; Moszek Garbarz. Interview 2969. 160 Sam Steinberg. Interview 1568; Leon Cyterman. Interview 13196; David. Katz. Interview 28673; Frank Burstin. Interview 37151; Stephen Abrahams. Interview 2540; John Steiner. Interview 53029. 161 Jacob Breitstein. Interview 40862; Lovász, Ferenc. Interview 50427. 162 Aftel. Interview 11817; Wollberg. Interview 27307; Salzberg. Interview 3956; Bayona. Interview 43627; Kolischer. Interview 20003; Ducci. Interview 38354; Jaffé. Interview 6026. Sonnenbluck. Interview 49157; Springs. Interview 22675. Steinberg. Interview 1568. Cyterman. Interview 13196. Katz. Interview 28673. Burstin. Interview 37151. Abrahams. Interview 2540. Steiner. Interview 53029. Breitstein. Interview 40862. Lovász. Interview 50427. Lubat. Interview 47407. 163 Jaffé. Interview 6026; Cyterman. Interview 13196; Garbarz. Interview 2969. 164 Steinberg. Interview 1568; Breitstein. Interview 40862; Lubat. Interview 47407; Salzberg. Interview 3956; Kolischer. Interview 20003; Metz. Interview 45926; Burstin. Interview 37151; Hersh. Interview 30624. 44
mean age was 17.8 ± 4.5 years, and who were 13 years and older.165 What is notable is that with each passing year, both the average age of the survivors and the lowest age decreased. This is because earlier in the war, the Nazis’ policy was to not admit individuals younger than 15 years old to the camps, which was relaxed in 1944. It is important to note that the average age of the survivors overall in this sample, which was 18.6 ± 4.3 years, would be even lower were it not for two survivors who were statistical outliers in that they were 11-13 years older than the mean age of this group, which is also nearly three times the standard deviation from the mean. These two survivors were 29 and 31 years of age respectively.166 Without these two outliers, the age range of the survivors when they first arrived in Auschwitz was 13 years to 24 years. Hence, at the time of their interviews in the mid-1990s, the inter-individual variation in perceptions were likely not too wide. The narrow age range increased the likelihood that the patterns and themes drawn from their testimonies would not be the result of pure chance. This, unfortunately, did not allow me to compare perceptions generationally. In terms of nationalities, ten survivors were Polish, four were from Czechoslovakia, four were German, two were French. Of the remaining six survivors, the nationalities were Austro-Hungarian, Romanian, Greek, Belgian, and Hungarian. Hence, the majority were Eastern European. All these former inmates had a Jewish background during their internment.
Written Accounts I used ten written accounts that serve as primary sources of witnesses who were aware of or directly witnessed Kapo-Piepel sexual violence in Auschwitz. These included nine memoirs and one written account in an essay by German Jewish survivor Walter Stras.167 It is difficult to figure out from the written accounts exactly which
165 Aftel. Interview 11817; Frank. Interview 28165; Kliger. Interview 13799; Katz. Interview 28673; Dunst. Interview 41450; Abrahams. Interview 2540; Steiner. Interview 53029; Sonnenbluck. Interview 49157; Gelblat. Interview 16678; Ducci. Interview 38354; Bayona. Interview 43627; Lovász. Interview 50427; Springs, Joseph. Interview 22675. 166 Garbarz. Interview 2969; Ducci. Interview 38354. 167Elie Wiesel, Night, Vol. 55. Macmillan, 2006. [Original version published as Wiesel, Elie, Night (S. Rodway, Trans.), New York: Hill & Wang. 1960; Earlier versions were published in Yiddish as Un di velt hot geshvign in 1956 and in French as Nuit in 1958]; Primo Levi, If This Is A Man/The Truce, Abacus 40th Anniversary, 2003, Abacus Little, Brown Book Group. London: United Kingdom. [The original was published as La tregua in 1963 by Giulio Einaudi editore S.p.A. and translated by The Bodley Head in 1965.]; Filip Müller, and Helmut Freitag, Auschwitz Inferno: The Testimony of a Sonderkommando, 45
camps in Auschwitz these writers were sent to, though most spent some time in work camps. Eli Wiesel spent time at an Auschwitz work camp, which might have been Buna-Monowitz. Shlomo Venezia worked in Birkenau as a Sonderkommando. Marian Pankowski was sent to a work camp in Auschwitz, but again, it cannot be determined exactly which camp. Primo Levi worked as a chemist in Buna-Monowitz. Wieslaw Kielar worked primarily in Auschwitz I and Birkenau. Walter Stras was sent to Buna- Monowitz. Filip Müller worked as a Sonderkommando at the crematoriums in Birkenau and spent six weeks in Buna-Monowitz in 1942. Frank Stiffel was in Auschwitz I and then in Kobier, a sub-camp of Auschwitz. After Kobier he worked as a doctor in the hospital in Auschwitz I. Thomas Geve worked at the Birkenau camp in Auschwitz, and Langbein worked in the hospital at Auschwitz I.168 The ages of the authors of the written accounts at their arrival in Auschwitz were 13, 16, 18, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 27 and 30.169 The average age of the writers on arrival at Auschwitz was 21.6 ± 5.1 years old, which is only slightly older than the average age of the interviewees. Geve was the youngest at 13 years, and Langbein the oldest at 30. Kielar was the earliest arrival, and among the first prisoners at Auschwitz, arriving in June 1940.170 Memorialists Filip Müller and Frank Stiffel were sent to
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979; Wieszlaw Kielar, Anus Mundi: 1,500 Days in Auschwitz/Birkenau, 1980; Thomas Geve, Guns and Barbed Wire: A Child Survives the Holocaust, Chicago Review Press, 1987 (original version published in 1958 as “Youth in Chains”, Jerusalem: Rubin Mass); Frank Stiffel, The Tale of the Ring: A Kaddish: A Personal Memoir of the Holocaust, Toronto; New York: Bantam Books, 1984; Walter Stras, Strangers in the Heartland, in Essay format by Donald M. Douglas (Jan. 1989). USHMM Permanent Collection. Accession Number: 1994.A.0206 | RG Number: RG-02.142. Received as a scanned microfiche copy by courtesy of the USHMM after requesting access to view the document; Marian Pankowski, D‘Auschwitz à Bergen-Belsen [From Auschwitz to Belsen], Editions l'Age d'Homme, 2000; Hermann Langbein, People in Auschwitz, University of North Carolina Press, 2005 [Original version published as Menschen in Auschwitz, Europa Verlag GmbH München. 1995]; Shlomo Venezia, and Béatrice Prasquier, Inside the Gas Chambers: Eight Months in the Sonderkommando of Auschwitz, Polity, 2009. 168 Stras, Strangers in the Heartland, p. 87; Wiesel, Night; Venezia, Inside the Gas Chambers; Pankowski, D‘Auschwitz à Bergen-Belsen; Kielar, Anus Mundi; Testimony of Witness Filip Müller. Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials. Trial proceedings against Mulka et al. 4 Ks 2/63. 97th trial day, May 5, 1964; 98th trial day, October 8, 1964 [“Vernehmung des Zeugen Filip Müller”. Frankfurter Auschwitz- Prozess. "Strafsache gegen Mulka u.a." 4 Ks 2/63. 97. Verhandlungstag, 5 May 1964; 98. Verhandlungstag, 8 October 1964]; Stiffel, Frank, “The Tale of the Ring,” pp. 170, 188, 237; Geve, Guns and Barbed Wire; Langbein, People in Auschwitz, p. xiii. 169 Geve, Guns and Barbed Wire; Wiesel, Night; Stras, Strangers in the Heartland; Müller, Auschwitz Inferno; Venezia, Inside the Gas Chambers; Kielar, Anus Mundi; Pankowski, D‘Auschwitz à Bergen- Belsen; Levi, If This Is A Man/The Truce; Stiffel, The Tale of the Ring; Langbein, People in Auschwitz. 170 Kielar, Anus Mundi, p. 5. 46
Auschwitz in 1942;171 Stras, Geve and Pankowski arrived in 1943;172 Levi and Venezia were sent in 1944.173 Most of these written accounts were published from the 1950s to the 1980s, apart from memoirs by Pankowski and Venezia, which were published in the 2000s, Langbein’s work, which appeared in 1995, and the essay by Stras, published in 1989.174 The earlier published works might reflect the thought processes and biases of the time period, as opposed to the accounts of survivors from the VHA testimonials which were conducted from 1995-1999. The perceptions of the latter are likely to draw from a more liberal outlook on topics such as sexual violence, since by this time the world had witnessed the civil rights movements and gay liberation movements. The year 1995 marked the 50th anniversary of the Holocaust, and many events of remembrance were held at Holocaust museums around the world, contributing to open discussions on various aspects of the Holocaust.175 In terms of nationalities, two of the authors of the written accounts are German, three are Polish, and the remainder include one Romanian, one Greek, one Italian, one Slovakian and one Austrian. Seven of the authors were Jewish and three were Gentile. The first two Gentile authors are Kielar and Pankowski, who were sent to Auschwitz for their involvement in the anti-Nazi Polish resistance.176 The third is Langbein, who was a political prisoner transferred from the Reich to Auschwitz due to a shortage of doctors.177
Rationale for the Use of these Ego Documents In order to study history on marginalised issues and groups of people, it is crucial to examine a broad range of primary sources. Historians tend to rely on official documentation, ignoring the fact that officials often disregard information related to
171 Müller, Auschwitz Inferno; Stiffel, The Tale of the Ring. 172 Stras, Strangers in the Heartland; Geve, Guns and Barbed Wire; Pankowski, D‘Auschwitz à Bergen- Belsen. 173 Levi, If This Is A Man/The Truce; Venezia, Inside the Gas Chambers. 174 Pankowski, D‘Auschwitz à Bergen-Belsen; Venezia, Inside the Gas Chambers; Langbein, People in Auschwitz, p. xiii; Stras, Strangers in the Heartland. 175 Judith T. Baumel, “’In everlasting memory’: Individual and communal Holocaust commemoration in Israel;” Israel Affairs 1, no. 3 (1995): 146-170; Alvin H. Rosenfeld, “The Americanization of the Holocaust,” Commentary 99, no. 6 (1995): 35. 176 Kielar, Anus Mundi; Pankowski, D‘Auschwitz à Bergen-Belsen. 177 Langbein, People in Auschwitz, p. xiii. 47
topics that do not interest them or contradict their worldviews.178 Such sources can be exaggerated, ignored, falsified, or faulty, reflecting the misperceptions of their official authors. Given these deficiencies, they require the same meticulous examination and conservative interpretation as a memoir, autobiography, diary entry or interview testimony. Historian Omer Bartov has argued that “[o]fficial documentation is no more reliable or any less misleading than photographs; both are biased sources that must be carefully examined.”179 This is similarly true for the written (and oral) accounts from survivors that I have used. Given so many Nazi documents were destroyed, these sources become crucial to an examination of topics that are marginalised. They are often criticised for dramatization or titillation, given the nature of the topic, yet I believe that this is an onus that is on the reader and interpreter. Further, a witness to sexual violence is more likely to reveal specific details and the context of the sexual violence in written format. Survivors’ oral testimonies comprise a very important part of my primary sources. Regarding oral testimony, Suzanne Kaplan states that, “[l]ife histories recounted by persons who were present at the time of the historical event when the original trauma took place provide access to an important source”.180 Ringelheim argues that insight into Holocaust history is provided by oral life histories in a way that is not managed through official written accounts or documents.181 Hence, testimonies are important because they help provide an intimately personal view of events. Video testimony, which is the predominant form of oral testimony collected for this thesis, conveys an immediacy that the written word might not achieve. Indeed, in “History, Memory, and the Genre of Testimony,” historian Aleida Assmann argued that:
The autobiography is a written document that, more often than not, starts from an internal impulse and is composed in a formally coherent and monologic form. The
178 Official documents in some studies have been found to be unreliable such as the Watergate scandal in the U.S. or the Gulf of Tonkin resolution; see also Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier, From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001). 179 Omer Bartov, "The Wehrmacht Exhibition Controversy: The Politics of Evidence," in Crimes of War: Guilt and Denial in the Twentieth Century, ed. Omer Bartov, Atina Grossman, and Mary Nolan (New York: The New Press, 2002), 58. 180 Suzanne Kaplan, "Children in the Holocaust: dealing with affects and memory images in trauma and generational linking." PhD dissertation, Dept. of Education, Stockholm University, 2002, p. 21 181 Joan Ringelheim et al. (1998), Oral interview Guidelines. Washington D.C: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 48
video testimony […] has a less elaborated form that also leaves room for open-ended passages, such as pauses, periods of silence, uncompleted sentences, innuendo. It is dialogic rather than monologic; it depends on the continuous guidance of another person, who asks questions and supplies some response […]The video testimony also relies on a pact between the narrator and listener […] who must be willing to share the testimony and become a co-witness or secondary witness of the memory that he or she helps to extend in space and time.182
While this clearly works in favour of video-recordings, it does not invalidate the importance of written testimonies. Each format has its advantages and disadvantages, and it is important not to elevate one over the other, and instead to strive to answer the research questions with a clear understanding of these merits and demerits. It is a common notion that the testimony or interview format is not ideal for accounts of sexual violence, especially for those victims who were young. However, one of the only psychological studies on the topic of sexual abuse of children in the Holocaust – albeit not in the camps - found that contrarily, their interviewees were able to describe the events of their abuse coherently in terms of chronology, their age, and context.183 There is the question of how many testimonials in various formats would comprise an adequate sample for an understanding of sexual violence committed by the Kapos against the Piepel in Auschwitz. Tony Kushner, in his essay Holocaust Testimony, Ethics, and the Problem of Representation suggests, “if a ‘reliably’ large sample of testimonies was assembled, then it would be possible to ‘recover’ the experience of those who had previously been silent in this historical record”.184 Kushner uses Eva Reichmann’s comments to support his theory: “If I had ten records that is good; but if I have a hundred, then the evidence is conclusive”.185 I did not unearth a hundred testimonies that relayed experiences of sexual assault. But I believe that these ego documents, in conjunction with contextual historical research, have provided enough data to explore explanations to the research questions posed. Assman also states:
182 Aleida Assmann, “History, memory, and the genre of testimony,” p. 265. 183 Lev-Wiesel and Amir, “Posttraumatic growth among Holocaust child survivors.” 184 Tony Kushner, “Holocaust testimony, ethics, and the problem of representation,” Poetics Today 27, no. 2 (2006): 275-295, p. 281. 185 Ibid, p. 281f 49
The survivors as witnesses do not, as a rule, add to our knowledge of factual history; their testimonies, in fact, have often proved inaccurate. This, however, does not invalidate them as a unique contribution to our knowledge of the past. Their point is less to tell us what happened than what it felt like to be in the center of those events; they provide personal views from within. With the acknowledgement of personal voices and their inclusion in historiography […] the clear-cut borderlines between ‘factual history’ and ‘remembered past’ become to some extent permeable.186
It is this permeability of memory and factual history that is crucial to the analysis of this thesis’ research question. Assman’s assertion that testimonies “often proved inaccurate” is true, since individual memory is fallible.187 Criticism is often directed at the fact that oral interviews might be unreliable in terms of accuracy or recollection. It is true that some accounts may contain a few details that are inaccurate or poorly recollected. However, the identification of similarities and patterns among many accounts helps to limit them. In the case of my study, criteria were wide enough for any similarities or patterns that emerged to be historically accurate representations of the issue at hand. Based on these sources I use a historical approach employing a qualitative analysis of the above-mentioned primary sources in order to identify the main themes emerging from survivors’ narratives, which I contextualize with some official Nazi documents and scholarly studies of Auschwitz and the Nazi camp system. In my empirical analysis, the interpretation of the primary sources is structured in three parts. Part I addresses the experiences and responses of the Piepel, answering research questions pertaining to their coercion or voluntariness, and their reported cruelty to other camp inmates, analysing them using Sofsky’s theory of absolute power, social identity theory and identity control theory. Having examined the victims’ experiences and responses, Part II focuses on the selection and initiation processes of Kapo-Piepel sexual violence, and its consequent evolution. To address this research question, I analyse these processes employing contemporary scholarly understandings of child molestation, and gender and masculinity theory as it relates to prison systems. Lastly,
186 Assmann, “History, memory, and the genre of testimony,” p. 263. 187 Ibid. 50
in Part III, I address how the Piepel were perceived by witnesses to Kapo-Piepel sexual violence in the ego-documents, and how these perceptions reflect the outlook and thought processes of the times in which they were written or elicited.
51
EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS
Historical Context
The Establishment of Auschwitz The first Nazi concentration camps - Dachau and Oranienburg - were established immediately after Hitler assumed the position of Chancellor of the Reich and seized power in Germany in 1933.188 The establishment of the wider concentration camp system began in 1939 and the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, supervised the running of the camps.189 Initially, concentration camps were used strategically to remove political dissenters and asocial elements from German society (homosexuals, alcoholics, homeless, prostitutes, gypsies), and to terrorise Jews into emigrating from Germany.190 When war broke out in Europe in 1939 and the Nazis arrested increasingly more people, the camps on German soil were overfilled with different groups of prisoners; mostly political suspects and “asocials”, but also some Jews.191 Since part of the Polish territory came under German control in the fall of 1939, new camps were erected in Poland.192 One of these was Auschwitz (Oświęcim), near Kraków, which began
188 Jane Caplan and Nikolaus Wachsmann, eds., Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany: The New Histories, Routledge, 2009; p. 2. 189 Nikolaus Wachsmann, “The dynamics of destruction: the development of the concentration camps, 1933–1945” in Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany, pp. 29-55. Routledge, 2009; p. 21. 190 Nikolaus Wachsmann, "The dynamics of destruction”, p. 23f; See Harry Stein, “Juden in Buchenwald 1937-1942”. Gedenkstätte Buchenwald, 1992, p. 70; The Nazis declared goal in 1938 was not to imprison or kill the German Jews, but to get them to emigrate. Jews interned in concentration camps were generally interned only for a short amount of time, and the majority of them left Germany after this experience. Apart from Buchenwald, where Jewish inmates constituted twenty-five percent of the inmate population by April 1939, Jews were in the minority in the concentration camps early on. 191 Hermann Kaienburg, “Vernichtung”, pp. 152–6; Caplan and Wachsman, Concentration Camps, 2009, p. 27; Kosmala, Polnische Häftlinge im Konzentrationslager Dachau 1939–1945, Dachauer Hefte 21, 2005, pp. 94 –113; for figures for March to December 1940 see p. 96. Estimate figures, based on Caplan and Wachsmann, Concentration Camps, 2009, p. 27; S. Zámečník, “Das war Dachau,” Luxemburg: Comité International de Dachau, 2002; Hermann Kaienburg, “Sachsenhausen“, pp. 28–9; Gedenkstätte Buchenwald (ed.), Buchenwald, p. 699; Skriebeleit, “Flossenbürg”, p. 29; H. Maršálek, “Die Geschichte des Konzentrationslagers Mauthausen,“ Vienna: Lagergemeinschaft Mauthausen, 1995, 3rd. edn, p. 125; B. Strebel, “Das KZ Ravensbrück. Geschichte eines Lagerkomplexes,” Paderborn: Schöningh, 2003, p. 180; F. Piper, “Die Zahl der Opfer von Auschwitz,” Oświęcim: Staatliches Museum, 1993, p. 45; Hermann Kaienburg, “Vernichtung durch Arbeit. Der Fall Neuengamme,” Bonn: Dietz, 1990, p. 155. 192 The other camp was Groß-Rosen in Lower Silesia in 1941; see I. Sprenger, “Groß-Rosen. Ein Konzentrationslager in Schlesien,” Cologne: Böhlau, 1996, pp. 88–9. 52
operations in June 1940. Officially designed as a concentration camp, the proposed function of Auschwitz in its first two years was the internment of Polish resistance members and those who expressed discontent with the Nazis.193 After invading the USSR on June 22nd, 1941, the Nazi dream of creating new Lebensraum or living space for the German Volk in the East appeared within reach. To prepare the conquered territories for the arrival of German settlers the local populations were deported to the concentration camps, especially Auschwitz and the Auschwitz sub-camp II- Birkenau.194 For most of the early war years, most Jews lived ghettoized in and around cities under the Third Reich sphere of influence. In September 1942, when the Nazi leadership and the SS designed a model which supplied camp inmates as forced labour to the armament and war production industry, the number of inmates in the camps increased unprecedentedly.195 Extermination replaced emigration as the solution to the Jewish Question, and the SS’s policy shifted from natural death through labour to mass murder.196 Face to face shooting of the prisoners, lined up facing a hole or ditch, had been the preferred method of killing until 1941.197 However, in early 1942, there were still eleven million Jews in Europe. Inspired by the Euthanasia T4 programme, the Nazis conducted the Aktionen “14f13” and “14f14” gassing programmes. Hence, gassing became the SS’s method of choice for killing thousands of people in short periods of time.198 The camp most significantly changed by this policy was Auschwitz, since it
193 Sybille Steinbacher, “Auschwitz. Geschichte und Nachgeschichte,” Munich: Beck, 2004, pp. 25–6. 194 See R. Keller and R. Otto, “Sowjetische Kriegsgefangene in Konzentrationslagern der SS,” in Johannes. Ibel (ed.), Einvernehmliche Zusammenarbeit? Wehrmacht, Gestapo, SS und sowjetische Kriegsgefangene, Berlin: Metropol, 2008, pp. 15–44. 195 Wachsmann, “The Dynamics of Destruction”, p. 30. 196 See M. Kárný, “’Vernichtung durch Arbeit’. Sterblichkeit in den NS-Konzentrationslagern,” in G. Aly and S. Heim (eds), Sozialpolitik und Judenvernichtung. Beiträge zur nationalsozialistischen Gesundheits- und Sozialpolitik, Berlin: Rotbuch, 1987, pp. 133–58; This transition from concentration camp to extermination camp system took place between the summer of 1941 and the summer of 1942. At the Wannsee Conference of January 20, 1942, sixteen senior top Nazi government officials discussed the Final Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe. The Madagascar Plan and emigration as possible solutions for dealing with the Jews were discarded, and the systematic extermination of European Jews became German state policy; see C. R. Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution, London: Heinemann, 2004. 197 Wachsmann, “The Dynamics of Destruction”, p. 30. 198 Caplan and Wachsmann, Concentration Camps, p. 10; Following the spring of 1942, the death rates in the camps increased dramatically, due to the implementation of systematic mass murder techniques, codenamed 14f13 and 14f14. The former was an extension of the Nazis T4 euthanasia programme, as such targeting mostly sick or frail prisoners of war or camp inmates, among whom were a considerable 53
afforded the space for such an enormous undertaking, as well as the location. Being just north of the German border in Poland, it could be classified as the “East”.199 This allowed it to adhere to a different, less stringent, set of laws, and turned it into the site of murder of over 500,000 Jews.200
Structure and Population of Auschwitz Camp The Konzentrationslager Auschwitz (Auschwitz concentration camp) consisted of Auschwitz I, the main camp, one large concentration and extermination camp in Brzezinka, called Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the forced labour camp Auschwitz III– Monowitz, also known as Buna-Monowitz, which supplied inmates for the IG Farben factory, and multiple dozens of subcamps that were scattered around the larger perimeter of Auschwitz I.201 Auschwitz I was constructed over four square km from May 1940 to March 1941, surrounded by barbed wire, fences and watchtowers.202 Commonly referred to as the Stammlager, Auschwitz I first served as a prisoner internment camp for German and Polish prisoners from Sachsenhausen and Tarnów, but shifted to accommodating mainly Jewish inmates from the beginning of 1942. The layout of the campgrounds, with barracks and latrines surrounding an Appellplatz or roll-call square maximized space and efficiency. It comprised 20 brick buildings or blocks.203 While a block had capacity for 700, up to 1,200 inmates generally shared one. In Block 10, SS doctors carried out inhumane medical experiments. While it contained a gas chamber and crematorium, these were experimental, and many prisoners were therefore shot at the “Death Wall”.204 Auschwitz I held large numbers of prisoners throughout its existence,
number of Jews; the latter was the precursor to the Nazi mass extermination programme using the gas Zyklon B. The victims in the14f14 gassing programme were Soviet prisoners of war. 199 Wachsmann, “The Dynamics of Destruction”, p. 31 200 See W. Długoborski and P. Piper (eds), “Auschwitz, 1940–1945”, vol. 3, pp. 230–1. 201 Subcamps were outlying detention centres (Haftstätten) which were subordinated to the main camp and administrated by the SS; of note is that living /hygiene conditions in the subcamps were often very poor and that the prisoners had less chances of survival than the ones in the main camps; see VHA Indexing Term Directory, entry for “sub-camp.” 202 Sybille Steinbacher, “Auschwitz: A History,” Munich: Verlag C. H. Beck. (2005) [2004]. 203 Yisrael Gutman, “Auschwitz—An Overview,” (1998) [1994], in Yisrael Gutman and Michael Berenbaum (eds.), Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. 204 Shootings being impractical and costly, the Nazis devised better functioning and larger capacity gas chambers and crematoria ovens, which were constructed and put to use in Auschwitz II-Birkenau. 54
after 1943 generally exceeding 30,000, but when liberated by the Soviets on January 27, 1945, only 1,200 prisoners were still alive.205 The first sections of Auschwitz II-Birkenau were constructed from 1941 to 1942, however, expansion continued throughout its existence.206 It was built as an extension to Auschwitz I to alleviate overcrowding.207 It first interned Soviet Prisoners of War (POW), but was eventually fitted with four massive gas chambers and crematoria facilities in March-June 1943 with which the Nazis committed the unprecedented genocide of European Jews, political prisoners, Communists or Soviet POWs, Poles, Slavs and the Sinti/Roma or "Gypsies”, the last of whom were all “liquidated” in 1943 in one large “Aktion”.208 Estimates place the numbers of murdered in Auschwitz at 1.1-1.6 million; most occurred in Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Around 6,000 prisoners were liberated alive by the Soviet Army.209 Auschwitz III-Monowitz, often referred to as Buna or Buna-Monowitz, was built in 1941-1942 close to the town Monowice. It was the third and last of the Auschwitz camps, and had more than forty sub-camps of its own. It was used as a slave labour camp for the IG Farben Buna Werke.210 The prisoner population peaked at 10,000.211 Living conditions in the camp were abysmal, work was heavy with little to no nourishment provided. Most prisoners did not live longer than three to four months, bringing the death toll to over 30,000. When the Nazis evacuated Auschwitz, the Buna- Monowitz inmates were sent to the Gleiwitz camp.212 Only 600 prisoners remained on January 27, 1945, when Soviet forces liberated Auschwitz.213 While most concentration camp inmates before the war were Germans interned in the camps for various crimes
205 R. J. van Pelt, “The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from the Irving Trial”, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2002, p. 158 206 The expansion of the Auschwitz concentration camp was ordered by Reichsführer-SS and Head of the German Police, Heinrich Himmler, on March 1st, 1941 during his visit to Auschwitz I. 207 This overcrowding was caused by the arrival of Soviet prisoners of war. 208 The Gypsy Family Camp was liquidated on August 2nd, 1944. 2,897 men, women, and children were killed in the gas chambers. These were the last remaining people of a total of approx. 23,000 Roma that were imprisoned in Auschwitz II-Birkenau. The majority died from diseases or starvation before the Nazis exterminated them. 209 van Pelt, “The Case for Auschwitz”, p. 158. 210 IG Farben manufactured chemicals and synthetic-rubber. 211 This number does not include the prisoners who died in the sub-camps of Buna-Monowitz. 212 The four Gleiwitz camps – Gleiwitz I, II, III, IV – were subsidiary camps of Auschwitz, located in the Prussian province of Upper Silesia. 213 van Pelt, “The Case for Auschwitz”, p. 158 55
like political dissent, adhering to communist ideology, asocial behaviour or homosexuality, the camp make-up shifted significantly after war broke out.214 By the end of the war in 1945, Germans formed only a small fraction of the camp population while Eastern European prisoners were the majority. By March 1941, 10,900 people were imprisoned in Auschwitz I, most of them Poles.215 When the first mass deportations of Jews began in March 1942, the numbers of concentration camp inmates exploded. In 1942 alone, 200,000 prisoners were deported to Auschwitz, of whom 180,000 were killed.216 In September 1942, there were 110,000 registered prisoners in the entire concentration camp system, and more than one-third – 39,000 – were registered in Auschwitz. A year later, in August 1943, the number of prisoners in the whole camp system had doubled to 224,000 registered prisoners. While more concentration camps had been added to the system, the prisoners in Auschwitz still constituted one-third – 74,000 – of the inmate population. Over 470,000 Jews were deported to Auschwitz between May to July 1944; more than 10,000 people were passing through the selection process per day.217 Auschwitz was the deadliest of all the Nazi concentration camps by 1943.218 One year later, in 1944, operating at peak efficiency, Auschwitz reached its greatest destructive potential, coinciding with the Nazis’ shift in priorities from forced labour to gassing when defeat seemed imminent.219
Auschwitz Administrative Procedure, Inmate Composition and Gender Segregation Most Jews that were deported to Auschwitz never entered the actual camp. The majority were, upon arrival, selected (Selektion) and sent to the gas chambers. Those registered
214 Wachsmann, “The Dynamics of Destruction”, p. 29. 215 Yisrael Gutman, “Auschwitz—An Overview”. 216 Between late March and October 1942, around 17,000 of 56,000 Slovak Jews were deported to Auschwitz. Also in 1942, the Germans sent 1,100 French Jews from Compiègne to set an example to the French resistance. A group of 35,000 Polish Jews from Katowice arrived between March and August 1942. 14 Jews constituted the majority of registered prisoners in 1942; they also constituted the group with the highest death rate; see S. Steinbacher, “’Musterstadt’ Auschwitz. Germanisierung und Judenmord in Ostoberschlesien,” Munich: Saur, 2000, pp. 277 ff. and Dieter Pohl, “The Holocaust and the Concentration Camps,” in Caplan and Wachsmann, Concentration Camps, p. 152, referencing also Majdanek 1942. Księga zmarłych więźniów, Lublin: Państwowe Muzeum na Majdanku, 2004. 217 The number of arrivals from predominantly Hungary in 1944 equaled the number of arrivals from 1942 and 1943 combined. In 1944, after Germany invaded Hungary, transports with Hungarian Jews started arriving in Auschwitz. The number of transports from Hungary exceeded all previous ones. 218 Wachsmann, “The Dynamics of Destruction”, p. 31. 219 Ibid, p. 35 56
were often subjected to forced labour, ranging from work in stone quarries or cutting down trees to working for one of the factories around Auschwitz that made use of the prisoners there, like IG Farben. The Nazis aimed for extermination through labour. While being selected as labour Kommando temporarily delayed one’s death, most work camp inmates perished or were killed.220 Frequent Selektionen took place, during which sick, frail or older prisoners who were deemed incapable to work were separated and sent to their deaths in the gas chambers. Even more died daily from malnutrition, over- exhaustion, disease or from being killed by SS guards or Kapos. The different prisoner groups were distinguished from each other using an elaborate coloured fabric patches system. Political prisoners like communists wore red triangles, common criminals wore green triangles, homosexuals wore pink triangles, Jehovah's Witnesses wore purple triangles, Gypsies and “asocials” wore black triangles and finally, the yellow triangles were for the Jews.221 The inmate composition in Auschwitz included Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, ‘asocials’ and gypsies; and groups without political or bio-political definitions: namely women, children and adolescents. The Nazis separated incoming prisoners according to gender. Before 1940, men and women were often kept in the same camps, albeit in different barracks. Although there existed some camps especially for women, like Ravensbrück, gender separation in all concentration camps was implemented later in the war. Homosexuals were officially kept segregated from other prisoners from 1938 onwards; however, mixing occurred.222
Daily Life in Auschwitz Life in Auschwitz was rigid. At 4:00-4.30am, prisoners had to rise, make their beds, get dressed and appear on the Appelplatz for roll-call. This took place twice daily: in the mornings before work, and in the evenings after work. Prisoners were required to stand still for hours and were exposed to the elements. Failing to meet standards in exterior appearance could lead to serious punishment or death. This was followed by
220 Caplan and Wachsmann, Concentration Camps, p. 13. 221 Sofsky, The Order of Terror, p. 117. 222 Carl Burckhardt; visited Esterwegen, Dachau and Lichtenburg in October 1935; see Paul Stauffer, Zwischen Hofmannsthal und Hitler: Carl J. Burckhardt: Facetten einer aussergewöhnlichen Existenz, Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 1991. 57
some form of soup, bread and Ersatzkaffee (substitute coffee) for breakfast. Malnourishment was a widespread cause of death. Sanitary conditions were poor, with too few latrines and bathhouses to serve all the inmates. Latrines were often used for socialising.223 Regular prisoners did not have any privacy, sharing one bed with two, three or more others. Despite the rigid daily schedule and exhausting work, there was still a relatively vibrant social and religious life.224
The Kapos and Camp Hierarchy Concentration camps were set up so that the SS guards could implement the “divide and rule” strategy the Nazis had successfully employed with majority-minority groups in territories they conquered. Using a system of Häftlingsselbstverwaltung or “prisoner self-administration”, the SS established a social hierarchy in which certain privileged prisoners wielded almost unlimited power over fellow inmates.225 It mirrored Nazi Germany, where Aryan Germans lay atop the hierarchy with Jews at the very bottom, and other groups in between. Set up to minimize resistance and economise on personnel, the Häftlingsselbstverwaltung relied on the Kameradschaftspolizei or Kapos/prisoner functionaries to implement order.226 Other important positions in the Häftlingsselbstverwaltung appointed by the SS were that of the Lagerältester or camp elder, and Blockältester or block elder.227 The position of Lagerältester wielded the greatest power, but given their supervisory function within one specific barrack, the power of the Blockältester was more directly experienced by the prisoners. Selected from within the concentration camp population, the Kapos were elevated in status from ordinary prisoner to prisoner functionary. Subordinated to the SS Kommando leaders, the Kapos were awarded certain privileges including food, alcohol and cigarettes.228 They had better clothes and shoes, and along with the Blockälteste had their own room inside the barracks. The Kapos were mainly non-Jews.
223 Sofsky, The Order of Terror, p. 70. 224 Caplan and Wachsmann, Concentration Camps, pp. 69, 72. 225 Sofsky, The Order of Terror, p. 117. 226 In the English translation sometimes spelled “capo”. 227 These positions were called Lagerälteste (camp elder) and Blockälteste (block elder) in the women camps. 228 René Wolf, “Judgement in the grey zone: The third Auschwitz (Kapo) trial in Frankfurt 1968.” Journal of Genocide Research 9, no. 4 (2007): 617-635. 58
Instances of Jewish Kapos have been reported, especially at the end of the war when the SS were less discriminatory about the selection process due to the overfilling of the camps, and the difficulty of managing them with solely non-Jewish personnel. There were several ranks of Kapo. The Lager-Kapo or camp/chief Kapo oversaw the Kommando-Kapos, who were in charge of the work squads or Kommandos. The Kommando-Kapos were divided into head-Kapos and sub-Kapos. After the introduction of Schutzhaft or “protective custody” for prisoners who had served their sentence but were considered Berufsverbrecher - “professional criminals”, namely those with a high likelihood of reoffending - the role of Kapo was usually assigned to criminal prisoners with green triangles. This was due to the Nazis’ view that the criminal prisoners were more reliable and trustworthy than the political prisoners, like communists or dissenters, who had hitherto been appointed to Kapo.229 The Kapos’ daytime role was to supervise the Arbeitskommandso or “prisoner work squads”. For larger-size Kommandos, it was common that there was a head-Kapo with several sub-Kapos who were in charge of the prisoners. Kapos themselves did not have to participate in back-breaking work. Their main task was to supervise the prisoners and make them work harder. They were also responsible for making sure that no prisoners escaped during daily forced labour or were missing from their Kommando at roll-call.230 Largely independent from the camp administration, the Kapos were free to inflict terror on prisoners.231 Another duty of the Kapos was food distribution. According to Polish survivor Tadeusz Borowski: “Kapo enjoys this moment every day; it is his sacred right to exercise this power over other men. And he has paid for it with the ten long years he’s spent in the camp”.232 While Borowski points out the joy the Kapos derived from being in power, he also mentions their relative fairness.233
229 Sofsky, The Order of Terror, pp. 131, 134; There were some differences between the concentration camps. Sofsky reports that most of the Kapos in Flossenbürg, Mauthausen, Groß-Rosen, Auschwitz and Majdanek were “green triangle” criminals, while the Kapos in Dachau, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen were political prisoners with red triangles. 230 Langbein, People of Auschwitz, p. 11; Sofsky, The Order of Terror, p. 284. 231 Primo Levi, The Grey Zone, in The Drowned and the Saved (London: Abacus, 1989), pp. 30 – 31. 232 Tadeusz Borowski, Auschwitz Phrases (2010) in We Were in Auschwitz, Siedlecki, Janusz Nel, Krystyn Olszewski and Tadeusz Borowski. Welcome Rain Publishers, (2000). 233 For the duality of the Kapos nature, see Eugen Kogon, who mentions that some Kapos presented a “sharp contrast to the horde of brutes” and were “shining examples of integrity, humanity and personal courage.”; Kogon, The Theory and Practice of Hell, p 63.; René Wolf also mentions that “There are many witness statements and publications […] which support the portrayal of Kapos as brutal sadists, 59
Sometimes they would give more food to “prisoners who are better workers, the stronger men, the healthier guys” because they knew that “not a single drop must be wasted […] on people who are going to the chimney anyhow”.234 Some Kapos participated in the Abfertigung or killing of Jewish prisoners, Selektionen and killed prisoners with injected phenol.235 Kapo enforcement of the military-style discipline the SS expected from the concentration camp inmates was “ruthless”, as was their participation in the liquidation of inmates.236 They mistreated prisoners of war, abused female camp inmates who were sometimes forcibly prostituted in camp brothels, and perpetrated sexual violence against men.237 Due to their corruption and intoxication with power, Italian Jewish survivor Primo Levi, called them “potential collaborators, common criminals, ‘broken’ political prisoners, the morally debilitated”.238 His condemnation of the Kapos is evidence that the non-privileged, Jewish inmates believed that there was no moral excuse for the behavior the Kapos displayed towards their fellow prisoners.239 Dr. Tadeusz Paczula, a former inmate of Auschwitz, sympathises to some degree with the Kapos, stating that it was important “to distinguish here that the SS man was in a situation which you would call voluntary—the prisoner, even when a professional criminal, was in a predicament [because he] was locked up. He was, after all, a prisoner.”240
Young Inmates in Auschwitz Only 11% of Jewish children from across Nazi-occupied Europe survived the Nazi era of Jewish persecutions and the Holocaust.241 The fragments of documentation on and just as many […] which praise their courage and humanity in the face of adversity and danger.”, Wolf, "Judgement in the grey zone”, p. 1. 234 Tadeusz Borowski quoted in Hermann Langbein, People of Auschwitz, p. 72. 235 Lutz Niethammer, Der gesäuberte Antifaschismus, p. 271–282. 236 Flaschka, "Only Pretty Women were Raped”, pp. 77-93; Stras, Strangers in the Heartland. 237 Geoffrey J. Giles, “Das KZ-Bordell: Sexuelle Zwangsarbeit in nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslagern.” German Studies Review 35, no. 1 (2012): 206-207.; Shallcross, “The Pink Triangle and Gay Camp Identity in Marian Pankowskiʼs Writings.” 238 Levi, The Grey Zone, pp. 31 – 32. 239 This is unlike the members of the Sonderkommando, whose status was also privileged but for whom Levi has pity and discourages harsh judgment. 240 Radio programme: Das Lager. Gespräche mit Überlebenden des Konzentrationslagers Auschwitz, Ton-und Wortdokumentation, Deutsche Welle, Cologne, Archive No DW 4025830, first broadcast November 20, 1968, 3’54–4’38. 241 Deborah Dwork, Children with a star: Jewish youth in Nazi Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), p. 3. 60
children during the Holocaust indicates the Nazis considered them “appendages of their mothers” and not individuals unto themselves until the age of 15.242 In fact, earlier in the war, the Nazis’ policy was to not admit individuals younger than 15 years old to the camps. If children were not selected to go to the gas chambers upon arrival - by convincing the SS that they were 15 years or older – they joined the adult population.243 No special teenager barracks existed in Auschwitz. Children were drafted into work Kommandos, had to endure roll-call and were subjected to medical experiments by the Nazi doctors, especially when they proved of special interest to Dr. Mengele. By May 1944, this age policy was relaxed due to the progression of the war to including children 13 years and over, as the Nazis relied more heavily on slave labour for the war industry. The term “Piepel” is derived from German vernacular and is used in certain dialects, for example in Berlin, to refer to a little boy, and in reference to the male penis. In the concentration camps, a Piepel was a young prisoner, usually Jewish. The Piepel were sometimes referred to as “Puppenjunge” (dolly-boy; see Heinz Heger).244 This term comes from the German usage of the word “puppe” (doll) to describe a particularly pretty boy with doll-like features. In its extended usage, the term puppenjunge referred to a young, male prostitute.245 Other designations for the Piepel are: pipel, pupil, piempel, pipö (Hungarian), bumboy, bedboy and putzer (cleaner). As per accounts in memoirs and secondary literature, a Piepel was generally a good looking, 10-16-year- old boy with feminine traits. They enjoyed special status in the camp because they were under the protection of a Kapo or another prisoner functionary, for example a Stubenältester, Blockältester or Lagerältester.246 Because camp life was especially hard on them, many young boys appear to have agreed to enter into a sexual relationship
242 Suzanne Kaplan, Children in the Holocaust, p. 17. 243 See Gerald L. Posner and John Ware, Mengele: The Complete Story, Cooper Square Press, 2000. 244 Heinz Heger refers to young males who are used for sexual acts in the concentration camps as “dolly- boys”, including himself.; see Heger, The Men with the Pink Triangle. 245 Puppenjunge is a colloquial and dated synonym for a young male prostitute who offers same-sex sexual services; A novel by the name “Der Puppenjunge: Die Geschichte einer namenlosen Liebe aus der Friedrichstrasse” (Dollyboy: The Story of a nameless Love from Friedrich Street), written by John Henry Mackay, a homosexual German author, was published in 1926. The book discusses Berlin’s gay scene of the “golden 1920s” as a sub-culture of the interwar years. The plot of the book revolves around the fifteen-year-old boy Günter, who is exceptionally good-looking but not particularly skilled in terms of actual work. Günter decides to “put himself on the market” and enters into a relationship with the mid- twenty-year-old Hermann, an employee. 246 There is also a case reported of a young boy enjoying the protection of a Schreiber (scribe working in the camp administrative offices), but no sexual relations were mentioned in this instance (Lovász. Interview 50427). 61
with a Kapo, who could provide them with food, clothes, a better place to sleep and exempt them from work in one of the forced labour Kommandos. In exchange for the privileges they received, the Piepel appear to have been required to serve the Kapos in two ways. Firstly, they were assigned cleaning and housekeeping duties such as doing laundry, folding the Kapos’ clothes or preparing the table for mealtimes. Secondly, they had to satisfy the sexual desires of the Kapo, either by manual or oral stimulation or through sexual intercourse.247 In the next chapter I provide a detailed analysis of the status of Piepel in Auschwitz and their (sexual) interactions with the Kapos.
247 Langbein, People in Auschwitz, p. 405. 62
Interpretation of Primary Sources To interpret the testimonies and the written accounts towards an exploration of my specific research questions, I have directly quoted the survivors as much as possible. Where necessary, I have paraphrased and summarised the survivors’ comments for the sake of brevity, and to avoid being unnecessarily descriptive. I have assessed the research questions using my theoretical framework as a foundation from which to draw inferences and conclusions.
Part I: Victim Experiences The Question of Coercion One of my research questions is: How did the Piepel experience being part of these sexually violent relationships at the time of the abuse, and what were their responses to this abuse? Firstly, could it be determined from the available primary sources as to what degree they had agency, or to what degree they were coerced, and why? I use oral testimonies from victims, both those who were Piepel, and those who Kapos attempted to have as Piepel, as primary sources to understand to what degree the Piepel in Auschwitz were coerced/forced into their sexual abuse, and to understand their experiences with and responses to the abuse. In order to augment the analysis of this question, I use witness oral testimony and written accounts from memoirs from those who witnessed and/or were aware of Kapo-Piepel sexual violence in Auschwitz, given victims might feel shame/stigma related to their abuse, and be less forthcoming about specific details. Survivor Leon Cyterman, in his testimony, described how he was initially asked to “suck off” (sucer; colloq., to perform fellatio) a Kapo in exchange for soup when he was 16 or 17 years old, and that the relationship continued for some time thereafter.248 He commences his revelation with the phrase “we will see if I have the courage to say it”, effectively seeking permission from the interviewer in order to communicate what he anticipated as being shocking, disturbing or socially taboo.249 He argued that what
248 Cyterman. Interview 13196: “Pourquoi moi je me rappelle ce Kapo, on était dans le noir, je me suis trouvé avec lui un soir, il m’a proposé que je lui suce, […]” 249 Ibid: “On verra si moi j’ai le courage de le dire.” 63
occurred was a “perversion” or a vile/disgusting act that was actually scandalous.250 Cyterman then stated that he considered himself “lucky” to have been the Kapo’s “boyfriend” and used the detail of it being winter, and that he was hungry, to provide a justification for his initial acceptance of the Kapo’s overture.251 Cyterman demonstrated insight into the fact that he was sexually abused, but hastily used rationalisation as a defence mechanism to justify the despicable behaviour of his Kapo by expressing it logically. He did this so as to render the account tolerable for both him and his interviewer. In fact, this aspect of Cyterman’s testimony conforms well to the DSM-IV’s definition of rationalisation, which is said to occur "when the individual deals with emotional conflict or internal or external stressors by concealing the true motivations for his or her own thoughts, actions, or feelings through the elaboration of reassuring or self-serving but incorrect explanations.”252 Survivor Sam Steinberg, who was at least 16 years old at the time of the initial sexual act, was “made to masturbate” his German Kapo “by hand” frequently so that he “never lacked food”.253 Sam stated that he was “kind of his pupil”. While the Kapo “never forced himself into [him]” he once asked him to “do a fellatio”, but Steinberg claimed that he rejected this offer. He continued to engage in the same sexual activity with the Kapo because he gave him food.254 Steinberg hesitated before talking about his sexual abuse by the Kapo and was emotional and tearful. He made it a point to mention that his Kapo never mistreated him.255 However, the fact that he was emotional during this part of the testimony indicates that he was attempting to alleviate the stress
250 Cyterman. Interview 13196: “[…] quelque chose qui est très osée, très osée? Qui est dégeulasse?” and “Mais c’était la perversion.“ 251 Ibid: “Effectivement c’était en hiver, quand je suis allé lui voir il avait des gamelles de soupe et la soupe était gelée […] and “Moi j’ai eu de la chance. C’est ce que je peux dire.” 252 Association published by the American Psychiatric (2000). DSM-IV-TR: diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4TH ED. ed.). United States: AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC PRESS INC (DC). p. 812. 253 Steinberg. Interview 1568: “I never lacked food, so I physically was building up a resistance of food.” 254 Ibid: “So my life in Birkenau was, for food, […]”. 255 Ibid: “For some reason or other [this Kapo] took a liking to me. I was kind of his pupil. […] He [PAUSES FOR 3 SECONDS] never mistreated me. He [SIGHS] gave me food. [PAUSES FOR 3 SECONDS] Yes, it's a difficult question to say, but I'm gonna talk about it anyway. He definitely tried take advantages of me, sexual, but never forced himself into me. He made me masturbate him by hand. He tried once I should do a fellatio on him, but I refused, and he never forced me into it. [PAUSES FOR 4 SECONDS] Otherwise, he-- he definitely never mistreated in any way, or hurt me or-- or-- in any way possible. 64
of recalling the traumatic event,256 which he clearly perceived as sexual abuse despite attempting to justify the Kapo’s behaviour.257 By crying, he transmitted that he felt helplessness, loss, and shame, and was overwhelmed by the emotionality and gravity of the moment in a negative way.258 Crying served its intra-individual functions of stress-reduction, mood enhancement and the attainment of relief for Steinberg.259 As per psychological stress theory, this sort of self-soothing adaptive behaviour served as an emotion-focused coping mechanism for Steinberg to deal with the trauma of having been sexually abused by his Kapo.260 Survivor Norman Jaffé was at least 17 years old during his time as a Piepel for his “Blockova” [Kapo].261 Jaffé did not go into detail about the specific sexual acts that he had to engage in, perhaps because, unlike Sam and Leon, it implicitly involved frequent penetrative sexual intercourse. He relayed how at the outset his Kapo offered him “all the power”, that he could have his “bread” and that he would not have to “work”.262 Unlike Cyterman and Steinberg however, at some point Jaffé refused to sexually satisfy his Kapo. This infuriated the Kapo who beat Jaffé before assigning him to the “hardest labour in the camp”.263 During this revelation, Jaffé used humour, joking with his wife - who accompanied him during the interview - that he would likely not have been alive or married to her had it not been for this relationship. Humour is an adaptive mechanism used as a response to crisis, whereby the individual solves the problem of an uncomfortable or difficult situation by using it as a coping mechanism. Fittingly called gallows humour by Sigmund Freud, it is a potent method of
256 Johann Breuer and Sigmund Freud, Studies on Hysteria, trans. J. Strachey, 1955 Edn. London: Hogarth Press. (1895/1955); W. H. Frey, Crying: The Mystery of Tears. Minneapolis, MN: Winston Press. (1985). 257 Steinberg. Interview 1568. 258 A. J. J. M. Vingerhoets, “Why Only Humans Weep: Unraveling the Mysteries of Tears.” Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2013. 259 Breuer and Freud, Studies on Hysteria; Frey, “Crying: The Mystery of Tears.” 260 R. S. Lazarus, “Coping theory and research: past, present and future.” Psychosom. Med. 55, 234– 247. 1993. 261 Jaffé. Interview 6026: “You know I think I like your looks, you will be my servant and satisfy me sexually […]”. 262 Ibid: “[…] you can have all the power and you’ll have my bread and you don't have to work.” 263 Ibid: “So I did this for a while and once I didn’t want to anymore he got so angry and beat the heck out of me and sent me to the hardest labour in the camp.” 65
psychological and social self-protection.264 The use of humour in stressful social situations might garner social support, especially if one jokes about oneself or one’s misfortune.265 Behavioural psychologist George Vaillant identifies self-deprecating humour as the ability to focus on the awful truth of a situation and still be able to smile; and as a mature coping mechanism that serves to protect the individual from the perils of the social realm, namely negative feedback, unfavourable evaluations and frustration.266 It is clear from his use of coping humour that Jaffé was grateful that he was able to survive the camps, in at least some part, due to this relationship with the Kapo. Survivor Jacob Breitstein awkwardly described how he engaged in “homosexual stuff” with a Kapo because he gave him food. He explained how at the time of abuse he was weak and “couldn’t do nothing” in response to the Kapo, transmitting that he was forced into this sexual relationship, and had to submit by virtue of his being smaller. Breitstein also stated that he got “strong again” and “well again” from the food he received as a result of this abuse. 267 Based on his awkward and cautious testimony, it is evident that Breitstein engaged in the relationship with the Kapo out of a combination of coercion and survival instinct. Breitstein employed the defence mechanism of reaction formation whereby sentiments or recollections that normally produce anxiety or that are difficult and traumatic to process are overcome by expressing emotions that are contrary to the character of the original sentiment.268 In this particular case, Breitstein, who clearly felt weakened and diminished by the sexual abuse, attempted to transmit that by the end of his stint at Auschwitz he was strong enough physically, having received enough food and nourishment from the Kapo, for it not to have affected him. In addition to this, the justification indicates that, similar to Cyterman, he felt a need to rationalise the Kapo’s horrific actions.269
264 Sigmund Freud, Wit and its Relation to the Unconscious, (1905; 1916, Trans.) Moffat Yard, New York. 265 Arthur M. Nezu and Christine M. Nezu, "Psychological distress, problem solving, and coping reactions: Sex role differences." Sex Roles 16, no. 3-4 (1987): 205-214. 266 George E. Vaillant, “Adaptation to life,” Harvard University Press, 1977. 267 Breitstein. Interview 40862. 268 Charles Rycroft, “A Critical Dictionary of Psychoanalysis” (London, 2nd Edn, 1995). 269 See Association published by the American Psychiatric (2000). DSM-IV-TR: diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4TH ED. ed.). United States: AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC PRESS INC (DC). p. 812. 66
While all the victims appeared to be in different emotional states during their testimonies, other than Jaffé, each displayed significant reticence in divulging the nature of the relationship. In fact, all the victims were aware that their relationship with a Kapo was not normal, through their employment of a variety of defence and coping mechanisms. Only one of the victims, Jaffé, appeared to have rebelled against his Kapo, perhaps due to a different philosophical worldview, which was amply evident even during his testimony in his generally cordial, and even playful countenance. While it is not entirely clear from these victim testimonies whether the Piepel willingly stayed in these relationships, or whether they were too afraid not to continue servicing their Kapos sexually, the tone of their testimonies indicated a level of discomfort implying they had little choice in the matter. Indeed, referring to one’s abuser as non- aggressive to rationalise sexual assault, employed by two of the victims, is in fact a common pattern in victims of long-term sexual abuse.270 The testimony of survivor Harry Aftel, a victim of sexual abuse by a Kapo who, eventually, was not recruited as a Piepel, perhaps sheds some light on whether coercion was a significant component of Kapo-Piepel sexual abuse in Auschwitz, given his contrary response.271 At around 16 years of age, Aftel was asked by a Kapo to see him, and received from him a plate of soup that he “…ate […] even though he wasn’t so hungry […]”. The Kapo then took him to his bed where Aftel relieved him “manually”. He mentioned, however, that he stayed away from the Kapo after that encounter, since he had a “kruschi job in the gardens”, which implied he was not yet starving for food.272 Aftel later noticed that the same Kapo picked “another kid” to be his Piepel, whom he envied because the Piepel had “[…] everything he wanted, food and clothes […]”. He mentioned that he did not have the same good job in the gardens for long, which furthered his frustration at this loss of an opportunity, something that even his own brother told him he should have accepted it. Aftel therefore indicated that this was a lost prospect, which might lead one to assume that the Piepel had some degree of autonomy in their sexual arrangements with the Kapos. This would be an incorrect
270 Karen G. Weiss, ““Boys will be boys” and other gendered accounts: An exploration of victims' excuses and justifications for unwanted sexual contact and coercion.” Violence Against Women 15, no. 7 (2009): 810-834. 271 Aftel. Interview 11817. 272 Ibid: Aftel had a job in a garden with fruit trees, where he and other prisoner workers could eat the fruit while the guard looked away and pretended not to know what the prisoners were doing. 67
assumption. Aftel did not undergo a similar and extended pattern of sexual abuse as Cyterman, Steinberg, Breitstein and Jaffé due to his conscious avoidance of his abuser after the initial encounter. While this solitary instance of sexual abuse cannot be disregarded in terms of its induction of trauma or seriousness, the employment of bravado by Aftel in his ruing a missed opportunity for further material gain in the harsh and unforgiving environment of Auschwitz, and the lack of employment of any sort of similar defence or coping mechanism during his testimony, informs us in fact that it was the indentured nature of the Piepel’s sexual abuse that elicited these mechanisms in their testimonies. It is important to state that certain witness testimonies suggested Piepel responded similarly to Aftel, in that they were eager or willing to exchange sexual favours for food, rendering their actions voluntary. Survivor Sam Lubat, in response to the interviewer’s questions as to whether the boys were forced into these sexual relationships, flatly responded, “Actually, they were selling themselves for a piece of bread, whatever it was.”273 Survivor Jacob Wollberg recounted how he was friends with an Austrian Piepel who offered him a similar position to “better” his status in the camp, despite knowing full well what being a Piepel entailed.274 The fact that the testimonies of survivors of mass atrocities, including sexual violence, are sometimes affected by oblivion, distortion, shame, and the politics of memory, because of the trauma they struggled with during the post-war era should come as no surprise, and has been noted by various Holocaust scholars.275 What comes across starkly in most other witness accounts, however, was the extreme nature of bondage of the Piepel, who, while clearly receiving benefits, were likely responding in servitude as opposed to eager willingness. For example, survivor Jack. I. Salzberg recalled that “[the Kapos] abused the hell out of them”, even if they
273 Lubat. Interview 47407. 274 Wollberg. Interview 27307. 275 See Dori Laub and Shoshana Felman, Testimony: The Crisis of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History (London: Routledge, 1991); Annettee Wieviorka, The Era of the Witness (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006); Alessandro Portelli, Battle of Valle Giulia: Oral History and the Art of Dialogue (University of Winsconsin Press, 1997); For the case of a group of female survivors returning to their homeland after liberation from the Nazi camps and who were attacke – one of them was raped by Red Army soldiers – and decided not to remember the incident during their periodic post- war meetings, see Terez Mozes, Staying Human Through the Holocaust (University of Calgary Press, 2005). 68
otherwise lived as relative “royalty” in the camps.276 Another survivor, Herbert Kolischer stated that the boys “got food, clothes, [a] warmer and separate place to sleep,”, but that “they were in serfdom […]”.277 Survivor David Katz recalled in his interview how Kapos “got the youngsters to do their will and they were abused and maybe got a little food for it […]”.278 Survivor Lou Dunst remembered in his testimony how the Kapos would be mercilessly cruel to the Piepel and “[…] and yet some of them saved their lives because of that […]”, indicating that the Piepel were living these lives of servitude in order not to be killed as quickly as other prisoners.279 Frank Burstin talked of how “only weaklings went for food”, that is: only the boys who had no food to the point of frailty or starvation perhaps assented to their role of Piepel out of some degree of choice.280 Survivor Teo Ducci mentioned how the Piepel were often held for many days at a time, and that a Kapo might have more than one Piepel at a time to satiate him. He stated that the boys often were given very hard work and if they wanted to get easier work, they could do sexual favours for the Kapo to be assigned to easier work commandos, indicating that the severity of their plight was perhaps directly related to the extent of their sexual servitude.281 In his memoir, entitled Inside the Gas Chambers: Eight Months in the Sonderkommando of Auschwitz (2011), Shlomo Venezia remembered how a Piepel of twelve years of age was trapped in a choiceless situation in which if he did not attend to his Kapo’s “unwholesome desires when the Kapo demanded it”, it would have resulted in certain death.282 Venezia thus emphasised that it was the Piepel’s survival instinct that drove his continuing servitude to his Kapo. Survivor Mayer Hersch provided perhaps the most complex and balanced insight on the matter, on being asked by his interviewer about whether the “pupils” were willingly in their positions:
I couldn't. I-- my guess is-- my guess is that he was picked. Whether willingly or not, he was picked. And-- and of course, the temptation that he would get a bit extra food
276 Salzberg. Interview 3956. 277 Kolischer. Interview 20003. 278 Katz. Interview 28672. 279 Dunst. Interview 41450. 280 Burstin. Interview 37151. 281 Ducci. Interview 38354. 282 Venezia, Inside the Gas Chambers, p. 48. 69
was very great. Of course, a-- a person like that wouldn't think what-- what ultimately is going to happen to him or how he's going to end up or whatever. But in the meantime, he got-- he got his extra food. And he had to pay for it.283
Hence, apart from the rare instance, survivor accounts overwhelmingly indicate that the Piepel were likely in a dire situation in which their well-being, and often, their survival, depended on this relationship. Within such a pattern of abuse, to attempt to determine whether these young boys were willing, or unwilling is an attempt at probing for a distinction without a difference. It is easy to forget when examining historical injustices that psychological responses to them are not diminished by decades of distance. Contemporary historical experts on childhood sexual abuse during the Holocaust, Lev- Wiesel and Weinger argued that:
Any sexual act with a child is always sexual abuse. There is no such thing as consensual sex with a child, because a child is too young developmentally and/or too dependent on the perpetrator to give true consent. The child may not be physically mature enough for sex, and surely not emotionally.284
In the next section, I attempt to provide a theoretical understanding grounded in concepts of self-preservation and survival in Auschwitz as a lens through which to understand the plight and decision-making of the Piepel in relation to their status as the Kapos’ sexual slaves.
A Matter of Survival The testimonies show the lengths to which inmates, including children, were willing to go to survive Auschwitz. Deprivation, starvation and death through slave labour and neglect were so frequent that they recognised an opportunity, even if it meant being in bondage to other prisoners sexually. Sofsky describes how self-preservation demanded that inmates be ceaselessly active, extremely careful and necessarily immoral in some cases to survive.285 Indeed, in a situation in which any action, including being a sexual
283 Hersh. Interview 30624. 284 Lev-Wiesel and Weinger, Hell within Hell. 285 Sofsky, The Order of Terror, p. 24. 70
slave, might ensure survival and additional food, the very phenomenon of survival itself evolved into privilege. Survivor Burstin states:
…if you are hungry people do anything; hunger is more persuasive than the will, nobody can imagine and I wish nobody to go through what it means to be starved for years, the only thing that you may never think of is food, humans can eat anything; I have seen humans eating human flesh, grass, bark from trees, stealing food from SS dogs, people [ate] fish from polluted water and then [they] died, they had no control over themselves.286
Hence, while the SS routinely executed prisoners, perhaps what the Piepel were most cognizant of is what Sofsky describes as “repeated ‘indirect’ mass annihilation” by starvation.287 The extended periods of hunger meant prisoners could not work effectively, and that they were increasingly susceptible to disease. This further worsened their work performance and resulted in even more brutal treatment, greatly reducing chances of survival. The younger inmates were - due to a relative lack of physical strength and resilience - particularly affected by this. In such a situation, Sofsky argues that, “[t]he world of the average prisoner was determined by the compulsions and constraints of individual self-preservation.”288 Essentially, this was a new universe for the Piepel. Any advantages that could be attained were crucial. Their alliance with the Kapos meant they knew they were aligning themselves with the more powerful members of the camps, who had a greater chance of survival, were better fed, and would provide them protection against death, the threat of which was always round the corner.289 Sofsky has argued that preserving one’s life thus required an “immediate and fundamental re-formation of mental and spiritual activities.”290 Hence, the most vulnerable prisoners, namely, children, “sold themselves” to “prominent” camp inmates, knowing that as long as they fulfilled every wish of the Kapos, they might benefit by association from their privileges.291 Indeed, Sofsky has noted that, “[in]
286 Burstin. Interview 37151. 287 Sofsky, The Order of Terror, p. 38. 288 Ibid, p. 162. 289 Wolf, “Judgement in the grey zone.” 290 Sofsky, The Order of Terror, p. 86. 291 Ibid, p. 24 71
extreme distress, almost everything can be used somehow.”292 In the young minds of the Piepel, if what could be used was their bodies, so be it. Violence and terror lurked endemically, and presence of mind was vital. Indeed, there appeared to be a rule of thumb among the prisoners, as observed by Sofsky:
…whoever survived the first three days had a chance to make it to the end of a month; whoever remained alive for the first three weeks had a chance to survive a year. And whoever could survive three months would survive the next three years. Thus, the first precondition for survival was immediately to cast aside any earlier experiences, pretenses, and convictions that stood in its way.293
Hence the would-be Piepel rapidly understood the gravity of their situation. Their appreciation of the subtleties of survival can be noted in how they were acutely aware of the significance of clothing, footwear and cleanliness in the harsh conditions of the camp. Survivor Aftel remembered how he was enamoured of how the boy that his Kapo picked had “shoes [made of] leather, no wooden shoes.”294 Survivor Kolischer recalled how the Piepel had “soap pieces”, allowing them “better hygiene”.295 Sofsky used the concept of “Protekcja” to describe how while the Kapos were saved from death in the camp through their work for the SS, they were utterly dependent on them, and caught in a constant state of fear that the authority the SS wielded could be turned against them should their loyalty be questioned.296 Protekcja also describes the dual nature of the service relationship between a Kapo and a Piepel. On the one hand, a Piepel benefited greatly from being in the service of the Kapo. While he incurred great personal cost, including the surrender of free will and his bodily autonomy, the protection and privileges that the Piepel gained from being closer to a “centre of power” outweighed the costs. Once the benefits outweighed the costs, their behaviour was sustained.297 The alternative to remaining in the Kapo’s service was a
292 Sofsky, The Order of Terror, p. 24. 293 Ibid, p. 86. 294 Aftel. Interview 11817. 295 Kolischer. Interview 20003. 296 Sofsky, The Order of Terror, p. 285: Protekcja, a hybrid Yiddish- Polish term, was used in Auschwitz and other camps to indicate special protected privileges or “connections”. 297 See G. A. Klein, et al. (Eds.), “Decision making in action: Models and methods,” Westport, CT, US: ⁄, 1993; for more in-depth discussion at the neural level see also Ulrike Basten et al., “How the brain 72
return to the under-privileged, utterly powerless status of a normal prisoner who had to fear for his life every day. Hence, while the Piepel acquired several advantages by being sexually involved with the Kapos, their actions and behaviours were largely driven by survival. It appears that the degree of cruelty that was inflicted upon them varied depending on how cruel their Kapo wished to be, and their giving up of their bodies prolonged the duration of their survival. In many cases, likely due to the protection provided by some of the Kapos, they appear to have avoided being summarily executed by the SS. While it is apparent that they lived in better conditions and had better clothing, this does not obscure the fact that the camp did not function as a normal society did, and that survival itself was a privilege within this universe.
The Cruelty of the Piepel One of the most curious aspects of the Piepel’s responses to suffering sexual abuse from their Kapos was what appears to be, based on witnesses’ ego documents, their cruelty towards camp prisoners. I will therefore attempt to explore this aspect of the Piepel’s response to their sexual abuse as a subsidiary component of the larger research question of the victims’ experiences. Notably, the Piepel in my sample do not confess to using force against other inmates, and this is likely for two reasons: (i) my sample of Piepel is small, and hence it is possible that I was unable to capture testimonies from Piepel who inflicted such cruelty, and (ii) if they did engage in such cruelty, they were possibly ashamed of their acts and did not wish to disclose these details of their behaviour. In future studies, a larger sample of victim testimonies might shed more light on this topic. However, witness accounts mention them frequently. Survivor Frank Stiffel’s memoir included several mentions of the Piepel’s cruelty to the other prisoners. During work in a forest Kommando, Stiffel recalled how he and the other prisoners were assailed constantly by the Piepel and the more senior prison guards:
And so, while we were sawing, cutting, barking, and being beaten by a foreman or a Pipel, the morning passed like a dream […] The foreman and the Pipels rushed from integrates costs and benefits during decision making,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107, no. 50 (2010): 21767-21772. 73
team to team, yelling and hitting. The prisoners carry wooden logs to the road. […] The Postens, Rudi, the foremen, and the Pipels stood along the path, flogging the workers.298
Survivor George Kliger described in his interview how Piepel abused their powers and doled out beatings “with truncheons”.299 He even states that the Piepel themselves would decide who would get beatings in the camps because they had “power through the Kapo”. Survivor Dunst, who was otherwise sympathetic to the Piepel, recalls how one of the boys became sadistic and even beat up his own father. He stated that he believed the Piepel did this “because he could do it because he had a stick and so he could beat his father because why not, everybody else did it”, suggesting a loss of innocence.300 The most famous account of Piepel cruelty is found in Elie Wiesel’s Night:
In Buna […] they often displayed greater cruelty than their elders. I once saw one of them, a boy of thirteen, beat his father for not making his bed properly. As the old man quietly wept, the boy was yelling: "If you don't stop crying instantly, I will no longer bring you bread. Understood?301
Hermann Langbein’s memoir People in Auschwitz acts a secondary source for an instance of Piepel-inflicted cruelty. He cites a passage by H.G. Adler, sociologist and Holocaust scholar from a paper presented by him at a conference at the 18th International Sociologist Congress in Nuremberg (November 10th-17th, 1958).302 Adler describes the cruelty of a Piepel in Birkenau:
With the barracks assistant comes the runner of the block elder, his fourteen-year-old darling. He is fat and has rosy cheeks. He does not even come up to the shoulders of most inmates but is a strong lout who can do whatever he likes, an aggressive, cantankerous creature. His slaps in the face are well aimed; he is permitted to flog the
298 Stiffel, The Tale of the Ring, p. 198. 299 Kliger. Interview 13799. 300 Dunst. Interview 41450. 301 Wiesel, Night, p. 75. 302 Langbein, People in Auschwitz, p. 405. 74
strongest men, and they cannot defend themselves because the young rascal is under the protection of the block elder, who might kill anyone his darling complains about.303
The behaviour of the Piepel as “Kapo impersonators” can be accounted for by Burke’s Identity Control Theory (ICT), which in concert with fellow social psychologist Stryker’s Social Identity Theory explains the actions of an individual’s ‘self’ in social contexts.304 ICT explains the interaction between the nature of individuals’ identities: that is, who they are or their identity standards; the relationship between their identities and their behaviour; and the social structure in which their identities are rooted.305 When individuals’ conceptions of who they are, and their behaviour, are in sync with their social context, then there is no discrepancy between their identity and their social environment. The individual therefore does not experience cognitive discomfort. However, when the individuals’ social environment and their identity standard are in discord, he/she experiences cognitive discomfort, and is motivated to reduce the identity-social context discrepancy to restore the identity standard by altering his/her social environment.306 However, in the case of a “closed” social structure which cannot be modified by the individual, such as Auschwitz, the individual undergoes identity change to align his/her identity standard with the social context itself to alleviate cognitive discomfort, gradually incorporating the new meanings of the social structure. When the discrepancy between an individual’s identity standard and their new situation persists for a long period of time, the changing identity status eventually aligns with their new situation.307 The Piepel in Auschwitz were powerless to alter their situational meaning because of its rigid social structure. Hence, their identity standards underwent realignment.
303 Hans-Günter Adler, “Gedanken zu einer Soziologie des Konzentrationslagers,” Meisenheim am Glan: Verlag Anton Hain, n.d. 304 Peter J. Burke, “Identity Control Theory,” The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology (2007); Stryker, Sheldon, and Richard T. Serpe. “Identity salience and psychological centrality: Equivalent, overlapping, or complementary concepts?” Social Psychology Quarterly (1994): 16-35.; see also Stryker, Sheldon, and Peter J. Burke. “The past, present, and future of an identity theory.” Social Psychology Quarterly (2000): 284-297. 305Jan E. Stets and Peter J. Burke. “Identity theory and social identity theory.” Social Psychology Quarterly (2000): 224-237. 306 Burke, “Identity Control Theory.” 307 Ibid. 75
Sociologists Alicia Cast, Jan Stets, and Peter Burke demonstrated that less powerful people or those of lower social status were readier and more willing to adopt the situational meanings of more powerful individuals inhabiting a shared social structure. Contrastingly, the more powerful people did not adopt the situational meanings and perspective of the less powerful individuals.308 Similar to children who have almost no power compared to their parents who set the children’s identity standards for them as they are raised, the Piepel’s new identity standards were set for them by the Kapos. While this identity change allowed them to better cope with the hardships of camp life, it also led them to replace formerly held values like kindness with violence and brutality, to reject empathy, and instead embrace the Kapos’ egotism and indifference for others’ plights as their core principles. Furthermore, in the absence of another powerful figure with whom the Piepel interacted, and who had a certain degree of authority over the Piepel, the Kapo assumed the figure of a social role model that the Piepel could aspire to become. This is in line with psychologist Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory (SLT), which posits that children and adolescents learn behaviours by observing others.309 Bandura’s original study found that children learned aggressive behaviours from watching an adult display violent behaviour. Bandura’s work has since then been extended to include adolescents and, to a certain extent, adults.310 SLT emphasises the social context and the positive reinforcement garnered from exhibiting a learned behaviour. In the case of the Piepel, they would have observed the Kapos, with whom they were physically intimate. They learned that violence and aggression towards inmates was normal behaviour and well- received by the most powerful, namely the SS and the prisoner functionaries. They had internalised the pattern of violence against inmates. Sofsky suggests that there were three strategic approaches to adaptation and rapprochement to powerful individuals in the concentration camps, namely mimetic
308 Alicia D. Cast, Jan E. Stets, and Peter J. Burke, “Does the self conform to the views of others?”. Social Psychology Quarterly (1999): 68-82. 309 Albert Bandura. “Aggression: A social learning analysis.” Prentice-hall, 1973; and see Albert Bandura and Robert W. Jeffrey, "Role of symbolic coding and rehearsal processes in observational learning." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 26, no. 1 (1973): 122. 310Ronald L. Akers, Marvin D. Krohn, Lonn Lanza-Kaduce, and Marcia Radosevich. “Social learning and deviant behavior: A specific test of a general theory.” In Contemporary Masters in Criminology, pp. 187-214. Springer, Boston, MA, 1995. 76
servility, total obedience, and economic common interest.311 Of these three strategies, mimetic servility best applies to the dynamics of the Kapo-Piepel relationship. Sofsky describes mimetic servility as “a special mode of social exchange”, where the less powerful individual “curries the personal favour” of more powerful or higher status individuals to get noticed.312 In Auschwitz, excessive brutality perpetrated by German prisoners against the Jewish inmates was a relatively sure means of coming to the attention of the SS officers. Once elevated to the rank of prisoner functionary, the Kapos had to prove that they were worth their position. They did this by mistreating their fellow prisoners or the workers in their Kommando, often outdoing the SS in how cruelly they behaved towards the “normal” prisoners.313 The Piepel, having recognised that displaying similar behaviour to the Kapo could assimilate them to their social group, would have begun to perform similar behaviours.314 Sofsky posits that the less powerful “imitated the master[s] because the latter would never punish an imitation of what the master did”.315 Instead, the latter regarded the Piepel actions favourably.316 Neither the Kapos nor the Piepel were punished for their cruel behaviour, but were instead rewarded with stability in their positions. In short, the Piepel’s cruelty was a combined product of identity change and learned behaviour,317 expressed as mimetic servility.318 In the words of Sofsky, “they did like their master in order to remain where they were – privileged prisoners. They [did this] in order to survive”.319
311 Sofsky, The Order of Terror, p. 136. 312 Ibid. 313 As an example, see Sofsky, The Order of Terror, p. 138: “The Kapos shouted louder than the guards, and were quicker to swing their clubs and strut around like petty potentates, reading on their masters’ lips their every wish.” 314 Sofsky, The Order of Terror, p. 137. 315 Ibid, p. 138 316 Ibid. 317 Burke, “Identity control theory.”; Bandura, “Aggression: A social learning analysis.”; and see Bandura and Jeffrey, "Role of symbolic coding and rehearsal processes in observational learning." 318 Sofsky, The Order of Terror, p. 137. 319 Ibid, p. 138 77
PART II: Kapo-Piepel Sexual Violence – Selection, Initiation, and Evolution In this chapter, I first explore the selection process of the Piepel by the Kapos, and the consequent initiation and evolution of Kapo-Piepel sexual violence. For this, I use oral testimonies from the victims, both from those who were Piepel and those who Kapos attempted to have as Piepel as primary sources. In order to augment the analysis of this question, I use oral testimony and written accounts from those who directly witnessed and/or were aware of Kapo-Piepel sexual violence in Auschwitz. Using theories of gender and masculinity, I then examine the perceptions of the witnesses of the sexual orientation of the Kapos to further explain these processes, and to posit as to why the Kapos picked these young males as their victims in Auschwitz.
Selection and Initiation The average age of the young males targeted by the Kapos for selection as Piepel is difficult to estimate with certainty from my sample. Overall, there appears to be a discrepancy in the age of the Piepel as estimated in witness accounts, versus the estimated age of the survivors in the VHA testimonies at the time of their abuse.320 Of the four victims, survivor Steinberg states that he was “[…] 16, 17 years [old]”. Victims Jaffé and Cyterman were 16-18 years old. Breitstein however, was 19 years old when he was a Piepel. Those survivors who were targeted without success – Harry Aftel, Reinhard Frank and Jacob Wollberg - were 15, 15 and 20 years of age respectively.321 Hence, the victims’ ages ranged from 15-20 years, skewing towards the lower end of that interval. It is more difficult to determine from witness accounts, however, the ages of the Piepel, since they are perceived as being from 15-16 years old to much younger. They are routinely referred to as being young: usually as “young boys” or “young kids” or “youngsters”, or in one or two cases, as “young people” or “young men”.322 Wiesel, in his memoir, Night, speaks of a 13 year old boy who served the Oberkapo of his Block
320 The age at abuse is estimated by calculating their age at arrival in Auschwitz, that is, by subtracting their year of birth from their year of arrival in Auschwitz. 321 Steinberg. Interview 1568; Jaffé. Interview 6026; Cyterman. Interview 13196; Breitstein. Interview 40862; Aftel. Interview 11817; Frank. Interview 28165; Wollberg. Interview 27307. 322 Jaffé. Interview 6026; Salzberg. Interview 3956; Frank. Interview 28165; Dunst. Interview 41450; Lovász. Interview 50427; Sonnenbluck. Interview 49157; Gelblat. Interview 16678; Abrahams. Interview 2540; Lubat. Interview 47407; Burstin. Interview 37151; Dunst. Interview 41450; Spring. Interview 22675; Katz. Interview 28673. 78
as Piepel.323 In Venezia’s memoir, the Piepel was placed at around 12 years.324 Literary and popular conceptions, such as those by Ka-Tzetnik in Piepel, place them at much younger ages as well.325 It is likely, however, that the dual shock of firstly, these being male-male sexual relations, and secondly, involving young individuals including children, rendered the age of these children younger in witnesses’ estimations.326 Male-male sexual violence was a taboo topic, even to the victims.327 Further, policy in Auschwitz until mid-1944 was not to admit children younger than 15 years of age into the actual camp.328 It is therefore likely that the youngest boys in Auschwitz were predominantly of the age that the former Piepel in the sample were: between 15-20 years old, skewing towards the lower end of that range. Child molesters are defined as “older persons whose conscious sexual desires or responses are directed, at least in part, towards dependent, developmentally immature children and adolescents who do not fully comprehend these actions and are not able to give informed consent”, a description that fits the profile of the Kapos.329 The age of the victims in my sample conforms to findings of contemporary research on child molesters, who tend to target male children, in that the preferred age of the male victim for this cohort is 13 years and older.330
323 Wiesel, Night, p. 63f. 324 Venezia, Inside the gas chambers, p. 48 325 Ka-tzetnik 135633, Piepel, p. 1 (translated from Hebrew): “Franzl's fingers held the upper arms of the boy in such a tight grip that he had to pull his little shoulders up to his ears.” and “thin little creature standing there between Franzl's hands.” 326Michelle B. Neiss, Lindsey A. Leigland, Nichole E. Carlson, and Jeri S. Janowsky, "Age differences in perception and awareness of emotion." Neurobiology of Aging 30, no. 8 (2009): 1305-1313. 327 Cyterman. Interview 13196. 328 See, for instance, the recollections of survivor Stras: “They would not take people which were let’s say twelve or thirteen or fourteen — maybe below fifteen or looked like fifteen years old, they would not take those.” in: Stras, Strangers in the Heartland, p. 87. 329 A. Kenneth Fuller, "Child molestation and pedophilia," Treatment of Offenders and Families 261, no. 4 (2013): 146. 330 Of course, my sample is too small to be truly representative, but this is the first study that has attempted to estimate the age range of the Piepel through victim testimonies, and hence these findings are novel and the first such empirical attempt. It is also possible that my sample did not capture Piepel of a younger estimated age because, being as young as they were, they were unlikely to have survived the harsh conditions in the camps, despite being Piepel; see for a discussion of child molesters’ preferences and grooming techniques W.L. Marshall, H.E. Barbaree and Jennifer Butt, “Sexual offenders against male children: Sexual preferences,” Behaviour Research and Therapy, Volume 26, Issue 5, 1988, 383-391. 79
One of the notable trends in the selection of Piepel was the physical attributes that the Kapos tended to favour. In general, the profile of the victim was that of a young, good-looking, male with a somewhat effeminate appearance. Survivor and victim Cyterman stated: “I was a handsome boy.”14 Two of the witnesses, survivors Salzberg and Burstin, mentioned how the Piepel were “good-looking”.331 Perhaps the most elaborate description is found in Frank Stiffel’s memoirs The Tale of the Ring: A Kaddish. The Piepel are described as very feminine looking, “plump […] with a tiny nose”, with “doe’s eyes and [seductive] plump red lips that begged to be kissed”, and that they were “little”.332 Once identified as possessing these physical attributes, the way Kapos attempted to initiate sexual abuse with potential or eventual Piepel seems to have conformed to a specific pattern. Kapos would tempt their potential victims with promises of food, protection, and/or power before making a sexual overture. These overtures tended to be non-aggressive. For example, survivor Steinberg remembered how the Kapo “[…] gave [me] food […]” and asked him accompany him to “[…] go pick up clothes in the women’s barracks […]”. Steinberg states that this was “[…] his excuse […]”, after which the Kapo carefully tried to escalate the level of sexual activity from manual stimulation to fellatio, which Steinberg refused.333 The victim in this case unequivocally stated that, “Otherwise, he-- he definitely never mistreated in any way or hurt me or-- or-- in any way possible.”334 Cyterman’s initial interaction with his Kapo was similar. He was offered food in exchange for oral sex, which he states the Kapo, “[…] asked [...] very nicely […]”.335 The case of survivor Breitstein differs however, in that while he first was given food by his Kapo, the latter went to bed with him right away.336 Of the Piepel testimonies, Breitstein appears to have experienced the most direct approach by a Kapo. Yet, it shares the act of the initial exchange of food with the other victim accounts. That the Kapos were initially cautious and not necessarily persistent is also evident from testimonies of victims that they were unable to secure as
14 Cyterman. Interview 13196. 331 Salzberg. Interview 3956; Burstin. Interview 37151. 332 Stiffel, The Tale of the Ring, pp. 196, 214. 333 Steinberg. Interview 1568. 334 Ibid. 335 Cyterman. Interview 13196. 336 Breitstein. Interview 40862. 80
Piepel. Survivor Harry Aftel, after receiving soup from a Kapo, manually gratified him. He decided to avoid the Kapo after and appears to have been able to do so without retribution.337 Similarly, survivor Jacob Wollberg was the victim of an attempted rape by a Kapo in “a corner of the barrack […]” that he managed to avoid, once again without suffering physical harm.338 This somewhat docile initiation process is interesting, appearing to be more of a testing of the waters, likely because the Kapos were hoping to sustain the exchange beyond the initial overture. The tactic employed here is the foot-in-the-door technique, the aim of which is to get an individual to acquiesce to a large request by presenting them with a more modest option first. The principle of this technique lies in the bond created between the two parties.339 Further, most of these approaches took place in discrete locations.340 The barracks in the concentration camps contained rows upon rows of bunk beds, outhouses with latrines and isolated shower facilities, providing an ideal environment to corner victims.341 Because there was no route of escape for the inmates who, by SS order, had to be in their barracks during the night for fear of being shot, victims could not evade their assailants.342 Such a step-ladder initiation likely increased the chances that a Kapo would find a subservient Piepel. Survivor Wieslaw Kielar wrote in his memoir casually of a Kapo notorious for his cruelty and “who had a predilection for young men” watching him take a shower. A friend told him that the Kapo “[came] here quite often, looking at whoever is taking a shower,” and that, “He’s looking for someone new because somebody has enticed away his last boy.”343 It is key here to appreciate that Kielar claims that he was not forced upon by the Kapo, but simply spied on, which, as his companion notes, was his modus operandi. The necessity for Kapos to be discrete was
337 Aftel. Interview 11817. 338 Wollberg. Interview 27307. 339 J. L. Freedman and S. C. Fraser, "Compliance without pressure: The foot-in-the-door technique," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 4 (2):1966, 195–202; J. M. Burger, “The Foot-in-the-Door Compliance Procedure: A Multiple-Process Analysis and Review,” Personality and Social Psychology Review, 1999; J. P. Dillard, "Self-Inference and the Foot-in-the-Door Technique Quantity of Behavior and Attitudinal Mediation," Human Communication Research. 16 (3): 1990, 422– 447. 340 see for example Cyterman. Interview 13196: “He asked me to come see him in the back”. 341 see for example Langbein, People of Auschwitz, p. 89f. 342 Sofsky, The Order of Terror, p. 80. 343 Kielar, Anus Mundi, p. 79. 81
likely twofold: (i) despite the fact that this sort of sexual activity was widespread, it was best to keep sexual relations with other male prisoners a secret; 344 and (ii) if the potential Piepel was to reject the Kapo in a more public setting, it would likely necessitate a severe physical punishment for the Piepel, or even his murder, in order to allow the Kapo to reassert his powerful status to the other inmates. 345 Both were outcomes that the Kapos were likely eager to avoid. Indeed, the Kapos´ initial discrete behavior suggests that it was best not to be ostentatious. Survivor Melvin Gelblat stated it was “hush hush”, and that the Kapos “could be killed” for it,346 indicating that the Rassenschande laws were a danger that the camp was still accounting for to some degree. Survivor Geve wrote in his memoir that ‘‘[…] homosexuality was an open secret despite all efforts to eradicate it”.347 Survivor Langbein in his memoir asserted that even if a Kapo was able to bribe someone who might know about their homosexual activity, in some cases, they were dealt with severely and the SS could imprison both the Kapo and his Piepel in the bunker, before exacting severe punishments, including castration for the Kapo.348 The Kapos’ initial approach fits well with contemporary understandings of child molestation. Indeed, the initiation of the sexual activity with the Piepel bears all the hallmarks of what constitutes “grooming”, which refers to the employment of specific behaviours by a child sexual offender in preparation for the commission of childhood sexual abuse.349 The first feature is the use of charm and manipulation by the Kapos to coerce the Piepel insidiously into a sexual relationship.350 The second is the central
344 Sofsky, The Order of Terror, p. 314: “Although it was strictly forbidden, a number of German criminal prisoner-functionaries used their positions to engage in homosexual relations with young Poles or prisoners with pink triangles.” Sofsky here mentions the relationship as one where the Piepel is powerless and the Kapo powerful. 345 Ibid, p. 139f: “The Kapos […] were known and feared everywhere. Yet as soon as the SS removed the truncheons from their hands, their hours were numbered. The threat of being lynched by the prisoners drove the prisoner-functionaries ever deeper into the clutches of the SS. This was one reason for the sheer unboundedness of cruelty and violence. In order to protect their own backs, the prisoner-functionaries had to prove they were faithful minions. In order not to be killed themselves, they had to stay in power at any price and intensify the level of terror meted out to those below.” 346 Gelblat. Interview 16678. 347 Geve, Guns and barbed wire, p. 74. 348 Langbein, People in Auschwitz, p. 405 349 Anne-Marie McAlinden, “‘Setting ‘em up’: Personal, Familial and Institutional Grooming in the Sexual Abuse of Children,” Social & Legal Studies 15(3): 2006, 339–362. 350 Scott Sasse, “‘Motivation’ and Routine Activities Theory.” Deviant Behavior, 2005, 26(6):547– 570.; Peter B. Wood, James A. Wilson, and Daric P. Thorne, “Offending Patterns, Control Balance, and Affective Rewards among Convicted Sex Offenders,” Deviant Behavior, 2015, 36(5):368–387. 82
feature of the grooming process, which is the establishment of trust, which in this case was achieved by offering the potential Piepel food and protection.351 The final stage of the grooming process is also noted in the escalation of the degree of physical or sexual contact, a process that is meant to desensitise the victim, preparing him for the next encounter.352 Hence, the sexually predatory behaviour of the Kapos, including the target´s age and the process of initiation indicates typical behaviour for child molesters as defined by contemporary research. However, the camp environment in Auschwitz meant that the evolution of the abuse would take a significantly brutal turn.
The Evolution of Kapo-Piepel Sexual Violence Less can be determined from the sample of survivor accounts as to the continuation of the violence, though a few inferences can be drawn. Once the abuse commenced, it does not appear that the Kapos felt much need to continue to be non-aggressive to their victims, especially if the abuse had been successfully escalated to penetrative sexual intercourse.353 According to their testimonies, two of the Piepel in my sample, survivors Cyterman and Steinberg, never engaged in penetrative intercourse with their Kapos, who ultimately settled for manual or oral gratification.354 Perhaps in the hope that the nature of the sexual act would escalate, in these two cases the Kapos appear to have continued to be “kind”. However, the Kapos of the other two victims, Jacob Breitstein and Norman Jaffé, used their size and might to overpower their victims.355 Indeed, it appears that degree of severity of the Kapos’ cruelty towards their Piepel seems closely related to the latters’ degree of sexual servitude, which indicates brutal mistreatment. Witnesses confirm that while the Kapos provided significantly
351 Carla van Dam, “Identifying Child Molesters: Preventing Child Sexual Abuse by Recognizing the Patterns of Offenders.” 2001, Binghamton, NY: The Haworth Press; Anna C. Salter, Transforming Trauma: A Guide to Understanding and Treating Adult Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse, Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. 1995. 352 Lucy Berliner and Jon R. Conte, “The Process of Victimization: The Victims’ Perspective,” Child Abuse & Neglect 1990, 14(1):29–40; John R. Christiansen and Reed H. Blake, “The Grooming Process in Father-Daughter Incest,” 1990, p. 88–98 in The Incest Perpetrator: A Family Member No One Wants to Treat, edited by Anne L. Horton, Barry L. Johnson, Lynn M. Roundy, and Doran Williams. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.; Benoit Leclerc, Jean Proulx, and Eric Beauregard, “Examining the Modus Operandi of Sexual Offenders Against Children and Its Practical Implications,” Aggression and and Violent Behavior 14(1):5–12. 353 McAlinden, “‘Setting ‘em up.’” 354 Cyterman. Interview 13196; Steinberg. Interview 1568. 355 Breitstein. Interview 40862; Jaffé. Interview 6026. 83
better food and clothing, protection, and better living quarters for the Piepel, they were incredibly cruel sexual abusers. Survivor Gilbert Metz recalled how a Kapo beat a young boy to the point of unconsciousness before raping him repeatedly.356 One of the most tragic accounts is that of the witness Joseph Spring who remembered that: “…it didn’t make a difference to them as long as they had sex you see, one very distressing episode was when a German criminal [Kapo] assaulted a boy and the boy [was] way more dead than alive and he finishes in the Krankenbau (hospital)”.357 Therefore, the Kapos appear to have treated the Piepel with much the same cruelty as they did most camp prisoners. Survivor Dunst states:
[…] a lot of them [Kapos] had been in prison before and had life sentences and they were hardened criminals and hardened sexual abusers whichever way […] whatever they did with them […] at times when one of these Piepel would be in those Blockälteste quarters we would hear noises, screaming, crying, whatever […]358
Sociologist Sofsky describes the power structure in the camps as a one-way street, where the Germans had “absolute power” over the concentration camp inmates.359 Indeed, without too much hope to make it out alive, Sofsky suggests that prisoners shed their sense of self, their values and their morality in order to be able to function in the concentration camp universe. He argues that the power hierarchy in the camps was absolute and rigid, and that absoluteness of power “realizes its freedom in the complete and total annihilation of the human being”.360 The “total annihilation” Sofsky speaks of is not merely physical, but also the annihilation of community-oriented mental, socio- cognitive functions such as empathy and compassion.361 There was hence no instinct towards tender or romantic attachment to the Piepel, most evident from a tragic account in survivor Stiffel’s memoir. Stiffel named four boys, the fourteen-year-old Max, fifteen-year-old Adolf, sixteen-year-old Raoul and Asta (age not revealed) who served
356 Metz. Interview 45936. 357 Spring. Interview 22675. 358 Dunst. Interview 41450. 359 Sofsky, The Order of Terror, p. 132: “The power of the “guys with the armbands” (Bindenträger, Kapos) was incalculably immense.” 360 Ibid, p. 281 361 Ibid, p. 162: “[…] the pressure of annihilation ravaged social relations, inciting individuals, to ruthless self-interest, pitting them one against the other.” 84
as Piepel.362 The Kapo of Max, Adolf and Raoul was Rudi.363 Stiffel writes about an incident between Rudi and Max:
[Rudi was engulfed in a fit of rage and] yelling at his own Pipel, Max: ‘You stinking bastard. Hiding here, while all the others are sweating their balls off! March to the logs!’ And he struck the boy with a stick, something I had never seen him do before. The little Pipel, terror in his eyes, rushed to the pile of logs and tried to hoist one on his shoulder. ‘You dog!’ Rudi was at him again. ‘Looking for light work? Grab this log here!’ He pointed to an enormous piece of wood. The boy shook and tried, and couldn’t. And Rudi beat him again and again.364
The nature of the sexual and physical abuse was reported by witnesses as being traumatic for the Piepel. Survivor Stephen Abrahams recalled hearing their screams at night while they dreamt. Those who screamed were sent “to the gas”.365 It is unclear, however, as to what fate exactly befell most of the Piepel. It cannot be concluded that being a Piepel guaranteed or significantly improved the chances of a young male’s survival, given their brutal treatment at the hands of the Kapos, and the fact that there are so few actual testimonies by Piepel themselves suggests that most likely perished despite their temporary privileges. However, the reason for the lack of testimonies is also possibly due to the unwillingness of victims to talk about this aspect of their camp life, given the shame and stigma involved in being a victim of male-male sexual violence. Hence, what we do know about the nature of Kapo-Piepel sexual abuse once it advanced past the initiation stage is that Kapos were exceedingly cruel, physically and sexually, with their Piepel. What is less clear thus far is why the Kapos tended to select young males as their victims, and specifically, young males with the particular physical characteristics outlined earlier. The perception of the sexual orientation of the Kapos that is drawn by the victims and witnesses provides a clearer understanding and will be examined in the next section.
362 Stiffel, The Tale of the Ring, p. 196, p. 437. 363 Ibid, p. 291f and p. 300; Asta is described as “a hunchbacked Pipel of one of the Blockältesters”. 364 Ibid, p. 215f 365 Abrahams. Interview 2540. 85
Sexual Orientation of Kapos and the Dynamics of Kapo-Piepel Sexual Abuse The little literature that is available on male-male sexual violence perpetrated by the Kapos, such as Flaschka’s study, indicates that witnesses tended to view them as homosexual.366 Indeed, this was the case for a few of the testimonies in my sample. One of the Kapos´ victims, survivor Breitstein, referred to his perpetrator as a “[…] homosexual German Kapo […]”.367 Survivor Abrahams stated that, “Nearly every Kapo was a homosexual […]”.368 Also survivor Herbert Kolischer recounted that there were German Kapos who were “homosexual” and that “for their entertainment they had some boys with them”.369 Survivor Salzberg estimated, “[…] 90% of Kapos were homosexual […]”.370 Yet, what is overwhelmingly evident with my larger sample, and an excellent example of the fact that not all is yet known about the phenomenon, is that for the most part, contrary to Flaschka’s conclusion, after the war the Kapos were not perceived by the other former inmates as homosexual, but rather as compelled to engage in homosexual acts in the closed camp system of Auschwitz.371 Flaschka in fact highlights the phenomenon to suggest that the fact that the Kapos were perceived as homosexual indicates that a core tenet of gender and masculinity theory of male rape was faulty.372 Gender and masculinity theories hold that one of the core purposes of male-male rape is the assertion of masculinity by the homosexualisation of the victim - which renders him a “lesser” male in the hierarchy of hegemonic masculinity - in the eyes of other males. Since the witnesses in her sample perceived the Kapos as homosexual, she argues that the theory is faulty. The testimonies examined in my sample, from survivors who seem remarkably insightful on the matter, suggest that while Flaschka’s ultimate theoretical conclusion may or may not hold water, the volume of evidence upon which she rests this criticism
366 See Flaschka, “Only Pretty Women were Raped”, pp. 77-93; see also Sivakumaran, “Male/Male Rape and the ‘Taint’ of Homosexuality.” 367 Jaffé. Interview 6026. 368 Abrahams. Interview 2540. 369 Kolischer. Interview 20003. 370 Salzberg. Interview 3956. 371 Flaschka, “Only Pretty Women were Raped”. 372 Ibid, p. 88: “[…], it is noteworthy that the assault of men is explained away as the fault of the perpetrator’s sexual orientation […]” 86
is weak. The most forthcoming of the victims, Jaffé, stated with the utmost clarity, “Kapos had no women, they were not homosexuals so out of necessity what is the closest thing to a woman, it's a young boy. And so, they used the young boys like myself to be sexual substitutes for the women.”373 His sentiments were shared by many of the witnesses that had an opinion on the sexual orientation of the Kapos. Survivor Lubat remembered that the male rape of Piepel mostly stopped when a brothel opened nearby.374 Survivor John Steiner stated that, “[…] because sexually the Kapos functioned, and if there are no women […] they used kids”,375 indicating that of the thousands of prisoners at the camps, the Kapos still had ample sex drive from being well-fed. Indeed, the Kapos, overseeing the other prisoners, not having to work themselves and being well-fed, had energy to spare on sexual activity that they might otherwise be engaging in with women; while other inmates, exhausted from backbreaking labour, could not do much other than eat and sleep. But, as survivor Mayer Hersch suggested, “[Kapos] had no access to women. So they'd pick out young boys. And they used them as what they called 'pupils.''”376 Survivor Kielar remembered in his memoir that when news of a rumour that women might be partitioned away at the same camp was received, jokes began being made in the barracks that the German criminals (Kapos) who thus far had Piepel would no longer need them, as this had happened before.377 Survivor Spring stated:
There were various attacks on juveniles, especially later when more youngsters arrived. The attacks was by homosexual, not official homosexual, but […] the local prisoners who were in the camps because they were criminals, this was their way of having sex you see outside of the [camp they] used women … men it didn’t make a difference to them as long as they had sex you see…378
Indeed, it appears that some of the witnesses used the term “homosexual” more to describe the actual act of sex with a male, rather than as an assignation of the Kapos’
373 Jaffé. Interview 6026. 374 Lubat. Interview 47407. 375 Steiner. Interview 53029. 376 Hersh. Interview 30624. 377 Kielar, Anus Mundi, p. 81. 378 Spring. Interview 22675. 87
sexual orientation. The idea they attempt to convey is that the Kapos were newly engaged in homosexual activity. Survivor Henri Sonnenbluck remembered that “A lot of these guys became homosexuals, and they had a little one [“un mignon”].”379 Of the witnesses, Ferenc Lovász, provided keen insight into the nature of the fluidity of sexual orientation in speaking of this specific aspect of abuse:
And these prisoners chose from the younger boys as lovers. They weren’t really homosexual, but it was like in prisons nowadays. Sooner or later the …the desire kicks in. There were some people there since ’33 […] There were some people who belonged to someone institutionally and it was called “pipő”. And it was a condemned thing […]380
Hence, most survivor testimonies suggest that the Kapos were employing these young boys as sexual substitutes for women. This is lent further support by the fact that according to some testimonies and accounts, the Piepel dressed like women and were made to engage in domestic activities and chores that would traditionally be performed by female members of society. Survivor Gelblat noted how the Piepel “[…] did [the Kapo’s] cleaning, washed his clothes […]”.381 Indeed, cleaning the Kapos’ quarters seems to have been one of the main jobs of the Piepel. In his memoir, survivor Venezia identified how the Kapo in his barrack assigned his Piepel jobs that included polishing his shoes, cleaning the barrack and making the Kapo’s bed.382 Another survivor, Frank Stiffel, included among the jobs of the Piepel, “[…] doing [the Kapos’] private laundry, cooking his meals, cleaning his shoes, and making his bed.”383 Further, certain written accounts emphasised how the Piepel tended to dress effeminately, which can be assumed to be an attempt to maintain favour with the Kapos sexually. In his memoirs, survivor Geve notes that some of the Piepel’s “underpants were laced in pink”.384 Kielar wrote of how a Kapo called on him to go and give his Piepel something to eat. On
379 Sonnenbluck. Interview 49157; see also Breitstein (Interview 40862) who remembered that his Kapo initially tried to do “homosexual stuff” to him. 380 Lovász. Interview 50427. 381 Gelblat. Interview 16678. 382 Venezia, Inside the gas chambers, p. 48. 383 Stiffel, The Tale of the Ring, p. 171. 384 Geve, Guns and barbed wire, p. 66. 88
bringing it to him, he found that the boy, Jurek, over his naked body “… had thrown [on] a multi-colored dressing gown, under which one could see slim, hairless legs and a pair of silk panties.”385 Hence it is likely that the Kapos used their positions in the camp to victimise young boys as substitutes for the sexual gratification a female partner might otherwise afford them. It is important to note at this juncture that the fact that the Kapos fit the definition of child molesters based on the way they initiated sexual abuse of their victims, does not preclude their being heterosexual and/or interested in adult women. Indeed, the most common characteristic of a child molester is simply that the perpetrator is usually male. Such an offender might be heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual and could possibly like adults or children, males or females, as sexual partners.386
The Prison System Parallel The camps were sealed-off, gender-segregated, single-sex societies that afforded little to no opportunity to engage in heterosexual sexual activities. Certain theoretical models of prison rape posit an aetiological basis in dynamics of power and dominance, which can be applied to the case of the Kapos’ infliction of sexual violence against Piepel, given the camps were essentially prison structures. Research on US prisons carried out since the 1970s has revealed categories and hierarchies within sex classes.387 It offers a distinction between inmates who are “passive” - usually homosexuals; labeled fags, pansies or fairies - and other men considered to be “active” and would usually be described as top men or wolves. The “active” men are those who violate and abuse the “passive” men.388
385 Kielar, Anus Mundi, p. 75. 386 Georgia M. Winters & Elizabeth L. Jeglic, “Stages of Sexual Grooming: Recognizing Potentially Predatory Behaviors of Child Molesters,” Deviant Behavior, 2017, 38:6, 724-733. 387 A.I. Ibrahim, “Deviant sexual behavior in men’s prisons”, Journal of Crime and Delinquency, (1974), 20, 38–44.; Anthony M. Scacco, “Rape in Prison”, Springfield, (1975), Ill: Charles C Thomas; Anthony M. Scacco, (Ed.) Male Rape: A Case Book of Sexual Aggressions, New York: AMS Press, (1982); see for an earlier study Joseph Fulling Fishman, “Furious futility in crime treatment.” The American Scholar 4, no. 3 (1935): 292-306. 388 S. P. Srivastava, “Sex life in an Indian male prison,” Indian Journal of Social Work, (1974), 35 (1), 21–33, p. 21 89
Positing that the perpetrators of rape assert their masculinity and supremacy within prison hierarchies by raping weaker inmates, sociologist Gresham Sykes’ (1958) work further supports these contentions. Sykes, and other scholars such as Stephen Donaldson (2001) and Joseph Fishman (1935) suggest that the profile of the rape victims conformed to this lower, “passive” class of male inmates.389 Within the prison system, homosexuals are traditionally accorded a feminized role, and thus, when homosexual rapes are carried out, they alter the gender status of a prisoner from male to effeminate male, and thus “almost” female.390 Indeed, a central feature of the prison system is the belief that a “real man” cannot be made to do anything without his express consent. Criminologists Wilbert Rideau and Ron Wikberg posit that men who are victimized and sexually exploited are viewed as being “unable to meet the stringent demands of that standard” and consequently considered weak and effeminate. Reduced to this powerless status, they are targets over whom other men can demonstrate their own dominance.391 Criminal theorist Alice Propper found that most accounts of homosexuality among male inmates involved desires for power, dominance, and masculine identification in prison.392 Incarceration criminology theorists Anthony Scacco (1975), Daniel Lockwood (1980), Lovett Bowker (1980), Wayne S. Wooden and Jay Parker (1982) all posit that male prisoners use sexuality to establish their place in the social prison hierarchy.393 Indeed, one of the defining characteristics of the concentration camps was the rigid hierarchical structure of the inmates, which was reflected in their relative degrees of perceived masculinity. The Kapos, being of strong build and ominous by virtue of their criminal backgrounds, corresponded to the peak of this hierarchy of physical power and dominance, and the Piepel, who were young, mostly Jewish boys, and
389 Gresham Sykes, “The pains of imprisonment. The society of captives: A study of a maximum- security prison,” (1958): 63-78.; Stephen Donaldson, "A million jockers, punks, and queens." Prison Masculinities (2001): 118-126.; Joseph Fulling Fishman, "Furious futility in crime treatment." 390 W. S. Wooden and J. Parker, Men behind bars. Sexual exploitation in prison, New York/London: Plenum (1982). 391 Wilbert Rideau and Ron Wikberg, Life sentences: Rage and survival behind bars, (1992), p. 84 392 Alice M. Propper, Prison homosexuality: Myth and reality, Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1981, p. 143 393 Scacco, “Rape in prison”; Daniel Lockwood, “Prison sexual violence”. New York: Elsevier, 1980.; 393 Lee H. Bowker, “Prison victimization”, New York: Elsevier, 1980.; for a synthesis of these theories, see Craig J. Forsyth, Rhonda D. Evans, and D. Burk Foster, “An analysis of inmate explanations for lesbian relationships in prison.” International Journal of Sociology of the Family (2002): 67-77. 90
among the least intimidating physically, lay at the bottom. The duties and responsibilities of the Kapos meant they repeatedly re-asserted their physical prowess and power through the terror they inflicted upon inmates.394 However, it would be short-sighted to conclude that these dynamics of power and dominance solely drove the sexual violence perpetrated against the Piepel by the Kapos, though they are no doubt relevant. What can be drawn more cogently, however, relates to the physical characteristics of the victims in the repeated observation in the testimonies that they tended to be “young”, “good-looking”, and effeminate.395 Prison Rape Elimination Act (2003) research, conducted in Californian prisons in the 2000s, indicates that men in prisons who possess feminine characteristics are much more likely to be at the receiving end of sexual violence.396 This suggests that sexual practices in incarceration between men are rooted in a lack of access to women, which results in their substitution with the closest physical approximation during incarceration. Criminologist Kupers suggests that effeminate males, regardless of their sexual orientation, are picked out by larger males in prisons for rape, arguing these relationships are “sexual outlet(s)” for the aggressor(s).397 Extrapolating, Kapos turned to young, feminine-looking boys to attain sexual gratification. Through the assignation of chores like cleaning and making beds, traditionally women’s tasks, the Kapos further feminized the boys. This is reflective of Donaldson’s “protective pairing” model of prison gender dynamics,398 as per which a senior male - also called “old man”, “pitcher”, or “daddy” among other terms - provides protection for new, younger inmate or “punk”- also called “boy”, “fuckboy”, “kid”, “sweet boy” - from physical and other sexual assault. The senior prisoner possesses all the power. Newer research comprising interviews with parolees finds that such a pair is often viewed as a couple, the aggressor
394 Sofsky, The Order of Terror, p. 132. 395 Salzberg. Interview 3956; Burstin. Interview 37151; see Footnote 4 for survivors’ mentions of “young” Piepel. 396 V. Jenness, C. L. Maxson, K. N. Matsuda and J. M. Sumner, “Violence in California correctional facilities: An empirical examination of sexual assault,” Report to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Sacramento. 2007. 397 T. A. Kupers, “Rape and the prison code,” (2001) In Prison Masculinities, D. Sabo, T. A. Kupers, & W. London (Eds.), Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, pp. 111-126. 398 Donaldson, “A million jockers, punks, and queens”; Stephen Donaldson, “Hooking up: Protective pairing for punks,” (2003), In Violence in war and peace: An anthology, N. Scheper-Hughes & P. Bourgois (Eds.), Williston, VT: Blackwell, pp. 348-353. 91
being the “husband” and the victim being the “wife”, the latter often wearing female attire and performing functions such as cleaning.399 Hence, the research suggests that the primary drive for sexual abuse of these young males by the Kapos was the achievement of sexual release using an approximation of a female partner, while dynamics of power, dominance and control acted more as facilitators towards the achievement of this release. Indeed, research has shown that for many convicts who have been socialized into this system, eroticism has come to be associated with aggression, suggesting that theories of power and dominance, in combination with theories related to a need for a simulation of heterosexual sexual release, are in effect.400 Such a confluence of theories is certainly applicable to accounts describing how Kapos would often treat their Piepel cruelly, while continuing to be sexually pleasured by them as and when they preferred.
399 See for a definition of these terms Wooden and Parker, Men behind bars, p. 18. 400 Ibid, p. 14: the degree to which a perpetrator can derive sexual satisfaction from the sexual act can often be dependent on the degree to which he employs forceful or violent means and humiliation tactics against the victim. 92
Part III: Witnesses’ Perceptions of Piepel This chapter will address the question of how the Piepel were viewed by witnesses who were aware of or directly witnessed Kapo-Piepel sexual violence. More specifically; what were the witnesses’ opinions and attitudes towards the Piepel, taking into account their knowledge that the latter were of elevated status and means in the camps by virtue of their provisions of sexual services to the Kapos? This section endeavours to broadly assess the opinion and attitudes of the witnesses towards the Piepel within the framework of the group dynamics in effect in Auschwitz, before focusing on the reasons for these perceptions within the framework of gender and masculinity theories. The earliest written accounts (memoirs), namely those published from the 1950s to the early to mid-1980s, tend to describe the Piepel with contempt or indifference, and have hence formed the basis of overall perceptions of the Piepel thus far. These include the memoirs of Filip Muller, Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, Thomas Geve, Frank Stiffel and Wieslaw Kielar. The authors wrote about their own perceptions, and those of other camp prisoners, highlighting frequently that the Piepel were not perceived affectionately at the time. In his memoir The Truce, survivor Primo Levi wrote of a Piepel with significant disdain, insulting the boy’s appearance, and his very presence in the camps. He indicates, without ever outright stating, that the boy was in his healthy and well-off position due to the sexual favours he extended to his Lager-Kapo:
[…] I saw with discomfort a well-known face appear: the pathetic and disagreeable shape of Kleine Kiepura, the mascot of Buna-Monowitz. […] he was the youngest of the prisoners, no more than twelve years old. Everything was irregular about him, beginning with his presence in Lager, which normally children did not enter alive. No one knew how or why he had been admitted, yet at the same time everybody knew only too well. […] Kleine Kiepura was the attendant and protégé of the Lager-Kapo, the Kapo of all the Kapos. Nobody loved him, except his protector. In the shadow of authority, well fed and dressed, exempt from work, he had led until the very end the ambiguous and frivolous existence of a favourite, amid a web of denunciations and twisted affections; his name, wrongly I hope, was always whispered in the most notorious anonymous denunciations to the Political Bureau and to the SS.401
401 Levi, If This Is A Man/The Truce, p. 390. 93
Survivor Müller’s memoir Auschwitz Inferno also referred to the Piepel in derogatory slang. “In the centre of our block […] slept Kapo Lajzer, his bumboy, and his 40-year old cousin whose hand was crippled.” An asterisk leads the reader from the phrase “bum-boy” to a glossary that states: “Bumboy (Piepel): A lad corrupted by camp life who served the pleasures of the Kapos and block seniors. Sometimes he was sexually abused.”402 For Müller, the fact that the child/teenager had been abused appears to be a mere footnote. Also, the memoir of survivor Geve, entitled Guns and Barbed Wire: A Child Survives the Holocaust, reveals the author’s hatred of the Piepel: “Spoiling the friendly ties between us and the ‘runner’ boys, however, were ever re-appearing accusations that their continued success in such envied positions was being bought by playing the whores.”403
Cleavage of Camp Society and Relative Deprivation To understand why these memorialists perceived the Piepel so unfavourably first requires an understanding of the allegiances formed as a result of the phenomenon of Kapo-Piepel sexual violence. The Auschwitz prison population had been split into two distinct groups by the implementation of the Nazis’ “divide and rule” policy and the establishment of the Häftlingsselbstverwaltung.404 The first group consisted of the general prisoner population, called “normal prisoners” by Sofsky.405 The second group comprised prisoner functionaries and/or the Kapos, who were selected by the ultimate authority in the camp, the SS, to act as stand-ins and perform administrative and disciplinary functions. Because the SS selected these functionaries from among the general prison population according to certain criteria, including their nationality and perceived loyalty, there was considerable animosity from the normal prisoners towards the functionaries, who are to this day spoken of with great hatred.406
402 Müller, Auschwitz Inferno, pp. 56, 178. 403 Geve, Guns and barbed wire, p. 66. 404 Sofsky, The Order of Terror, pp. 35, 120, 130. 405 Ibid, pp. 146, 153 406 See ibid, p. 135; see also Alan Elsner, “Let’s stop calling fellow Jews ‘Kapos’”. The Jerusalem Post. 03.04.2015: “The pejorative “Kapo” is regularly hurled at peace activists, proponents of a two-state solution of a diplomatic resolution of the Iran crisis, human rights advocates and in general members of the progressive Zionist camp.” Retrieved on May 16, 2019 from https://www.jpost.com/Blogs/For-the- Sake-of-Argument/Lets-Stop-Calling-Fellow-Jews-Kapos-392967 94
Hence, there had developed a significant degree of intergroup conflict between the inmates and the prisoner functionaries that was further complicated by the phenomenon of Kapo-Piepel sexual violence. According to Coser’s social conflict theory, facing a shared enemy - in this case, the prisoners versus Kapos - helps groups create bonds that can extend beyond group boundaries.407 However, by effectively aligning themselves with the Kapos, the Piepel had inadvertently - relative to the “normal prisoners” - joined the out-group of Kapos. Levi wrote with contempt of how, upon losing his position with the Lager-Kapo, the Piepel was fantasizing of being a Kapo:
He stayed silent for two days; he sat huddled in his bunk, staring into space with his fists tight against his chest. Then all of a sudden he began to speak – and we longed for his silence. Kleine Kiepura spoke as if in a dream: and his dream was of a success story, of becoming a Kapo. It was difficult to tell if it was madness or a puerile sinister game; endlessly, from the height of his bunk immediately below the ceiling, the boy sang and whistled the marches of Buna, the brutal rhythms that ruled our tired steps every morning and evening; he shouted imperious commands in German at a troop of non- existent slaves.408
The Kapos’ group attributes were thus transferred to the Piepel, who came to be regarded with hostility for the cruelty they represented vicariously. Although the normal prisoners and the Piepel ultimately faced the same adversity, the splitting of the Piepel from the normal prisoners created the foundation for this intergroup conflict. What was being experienced was out-group hate towards the Piepel, due to this social rearrangement in the camps.409 Thus, even without considering the behaviour of the Piepel towards the other inmates, the social environment was primed to stimulate prisoner dislike for the Piepel due to the group dynamics in effect. Being guilty by association in the camps, due to the fact that the social system in Auschwitz did not
407 Lewis A. Coser, "Social conflict and the theory of social change,” The British Journal of Sociology 8, no. 3 (1957): 197-207. 408 Levi, If This Is A Man/The Truce, p. 391f. 409 Brewer, “Social identities and social representations”; Ori Weisel and Robert Böhm. ““Ingroup love” and “outgroup hate” in intergroup conflict between natural groups." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 60 (2015): 110-120. 95
reflect normal society, was to be hated by association. Once formed, negative emotions attached to such associations were likely extremely difficult to undo. The camp prisoners had all but abandoned notions of empathy and compassion, and reciprocity was the primary mode of social function.410 Indeed, the deep-seated social mechanisms of group dynamics and intergroup hostility caused the normal prisoners to view the Piepel in the same way they did the Kapos, despite the Piepel being victims themselves of severe sexual violence. Additional elements heightened this tension, rendering the dynamics more complex and incendiary. Because their ascension to the position of Piepel involved considerable social mobility relative to the rest of the inmates, the latter’s animosity was tinged with sentiments of envy and jealousy over two key factors. Firstly, as was the case with the Kapos, the normal prisoners did not take kindly to being subordinated to “one of their own”. Hierarchically, the Piepel were in a superior position in the camps, despite being of the same background as the rest of the Jewish prisoners. Their reported cruelty indubitably worsened this intergroup conflict.411 By their association with the Kapos and their cruel behaviour, the Piepel, who were previously simply children and adolescents who enjoyed no authority, were seen, justifiably, as more authoritarian and unforgiving, both by association with the Kapos, and in practice through their cruel actions. Secondly, the prisoners were acutely cognizant, and hence envious of the fact that the Piepel had better material conditions in an environment where survival was not guaranteed even on an hourly basis. The unfavourable attitudes thus expressed indicate that the prisoners strongly experienced feelings of relative deprivation. Death by starvation was a reality that the inmates had to deal with constantly, yet the Piepel were in an out-group that had noticeably better nutritional resources and quality of life. Relative deprivation (RD) refers to the state of possessing insufficient resources within a social construct that would allow for a sustenance of lifestyle, diet and nutrition, amenities and activities that an individual or group is used to or that is broadly approved
410 Sofsky, The Order of Terror, p. 24. 411 See Wiesel, Night, p. 75; Venezia, Inside the Gas Chambers; Levi, The Truce, p. 390ff; Stiffel, The Tale of the Ring, p. 198; Kliger. Interview 13799; Dunst. Interview 41450; Sonnenbluck. Interview 49157; H. G. Adler, “Gedanken zu einer Soziologie des Konzentrationslagers” in: Langbein, People in Auschwitz, p. 405. 96
of or encouraged within that social construct.412 Egoistic RD or individual RD refers to the perception of an individual that he or she is personally deprived, whereas fraternal or group RD refers to the perception of an individual that his or her group is relatively deprived.413 It is likely that the authors of memoirs and their fellow camp members experienced the latter, since, according to social identity research, groups experience group RD in situations where the intergroup relationship - in this case, the relationship between the witnesses and the Piepel - is considered illegitimate (Mummendey et al, 1999).414 Since the Piepel had acquired their new and relatively ample resources by “untoward” means, namely by providing sexual favours, their improved conditions were likely viewed as attained unfairly.415 Yet, the fact that the inmates were relatively deprived compared to the Piepel cannot explain the reactions of these authors and their fellow prisoners fully. While the Piepel possessed many advantages, the authors also acknowledged that the Piepel were treated cruelly by their Kapos (see Interpretation of Primary Sources – Part II). The question that thus arises is the following: despite knowing of this mistreatment of these
412 The term relative deprivation (RD) was coined by Stouffer (1949) during an investigation into dissatisfaction among American soldiers in World War II over relative rates of promotion. See Peter Townsend, “Poverty in the United Kingdom: a survey of household resources and standards of living”, Univ of California Press, 1979; Iain Walker and Heather J. Smith, eds. “Relative deprivation: Specification, development, and integration.” Cambridge University Press, 2002; Kurt Bayertz, “Four uses of “solidarity”” In Solidarity, pp. 3-28. Springer, Dordrecht, 1999. See also Samuel A. Stouffer et al., “The American soldier: Adjustment during army life,” Studies in Social Psychology in World War II, vol. 1." (1949). 413 Walter Garrison Runciman, "Relative deprivation & social justice: Study attitudes social inequality in 20th century England," (1966). 414 Amelie Mummendey, et al., “Strategies to cope with negative social identity: Predictions by social identity theory and relative deprivation theory.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 76, no. 2 (1999): 229. 415 The only weakness in explaining the dislike of the inmates towards the Piepel on the basis of their relative deprivation is that the theory of group RD was originally used to explain the initiation and evolution of social justice movements. Hence, in its original form, relative deprivation was said to be experienced only if the intergroup imbalance was attempted to be addressed by the group suffering from group RD using forms of protest and collective action. However, in the case of the Kapo-Piepel sexual abuse, the witnesses were unable to do much other than accept the higher station of the Piepel in the camps. This hardly discounts the validity of the idea that the witnesses were experiencing relative deprivation. Auschwitz was an environment in which any form of protest would result in immediate death at the hands of the SS. The manifestation of anger and resentment suggests these emotions themselves to be a form of protest in their unfortunate and regrettable situation. Indeed, the initial conceptions of GRD have been criticised for requiring the criterion of collective action to be valid, given the multiple social situations in which a group experiencing relative deprivation inhabits an environment where the option is unavailable. See Diana Kendall, “Sociology in our Times”, Cengage Learning, 2012. p. 530. 97
young males, and the fact that they were being sexually abused, why were these witnesses not more forgiving of their actions and status?
From the Parochial to the Enlightened: An Evolution in Attitudes Toward Piepel The answer lies in pre-conceived notions of gender and masculinity, and how they apply to the earlier memorialists’ and their fellow inmates’ attitudes to the phenomenon of male-on-male sexual violence. What generally appears as a similar theme in the dislike of the Piepel, and the prisoners they speak for, is the notion that they had undergone “corruption” by providing sexual favours for the Kapos, and had received greater nourishment, protection and position in the camps as a result. In the quotes cited at the start of this chapter, the Piepel were said to have “play[ed] the whores” and were referred to derogatorily as “bumboy(s)”.416 While descriptions of the cruelty inflicted upon them are numerous, what is absent is an assessment of how the sexual nature of the abuse in particular was cruel. Indeed, the taboo that is attached to male sexual violence is powerful, and widely prevalent in patriarchal societies where males are assumed to be strong and dominant, and is a contemporary issue in genocidal conflict as well.417 Homosexuality in the camps was a crime due to Rassenschande laws as well as Paragraph 175.418 One can safely draw the conclusion that the very notion of homosexual relations was hence a taboo in Auschwitz. Given the extremely sensitive nature of the sexual abuse of the Piepel by the Kapos, notions of perceived masculinity were most certainly contributory. Furthermore, these memoirs were written from the 1950s to the early 1980s, prior to when advanced academic and clinical understandings of the effects of childhood sexual abuse had permeated public conscience. Hence, these male authors, by virtue of their gender and the time period in which these memoirs were penned, held more conservative male notions of the “strong and powerful” traditional masculine ideal. In the larger scheme of things, it did not matter that the Piepel were not in these sexual relationships by choice.
416 Müller, Auschwitz Inferno, pp. 56, 178. 417 Bassiouni, “The United Nations Commission of Experts Established Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 780 (1992).” 418 Sofsky, The Order of Terror, p. 314. 98
This is no long overdue criticism of the views of the memorialists, but simply an observation of how gender and masculinity is intricately associated and interwoven with accepted norms of propriety, taboos, and perceptions of victims of sexual violence; especially male-male sexual violence. According to psychologist David Lisak, even today there is a cultural blind spot regarding the sexual abuse of male victims. He posits that the ignorance surrounding the topic is linked to age and gender roles, stating that while “[w]e recognize that male children are being abused, […] when boys cross some kind of threshold somewhere in adolescence and become what we perceive to be men, we no longer want to think about [the abuse] in [a sexual way].”419 That several memorialist survivors of the Holocaust had embraced their Jewish identity in the face of the racist and fascist ideologies of the Nazis likely played a part as well. It is difficult to determine from the written works what religious denominations the writers belonged to during the war and prior, but it would by no means be incorrect to conclude that most of the Jewish authors were a product of their time and Jewish backgrounds. This is notable in how Wiesel and Levi, for example, hint at instances of rape or illicit sexual relations without being explicit. Wiesel grew up in the small town of Sighet in interwar Romania. His mother was the daughter of a Hasidic religious figure. Wiesel was particularly religious, having spent a significant amount of time during his childhood studying scripture during the day, and praying at the temple at night. His account is replete with instances of his devotion and Jewish study. Prior to Auschwitz, Levi was not particularly religious, but turned to his Jewish faith with great vigour in the face of fascism and Nazism, along with many of Turin’s Jewish intellectuals.420 Geve’s family were likely Zionists, and Geve himself attended Jewish schools throughout his childhood.421 European and especially Eastern European cultures held views on sexuality and sexual violence that rendered them taboo, not to be brought up in public or in private. Notions of honour and shame, rooted in religious ideals of modesty, perhaps were contributory. In Judaism, modesty or Tzniut is a core concept, encompassing ideals such as simplicity, reservation and privacy. Principally, tzniut is a rejection of all nudity, in
419 Lisak, “Men as victims.” 420 See Fernanda Eberstadt, "Reading Primo Levi." Commentary 80, no. 4 (1985): 41. 421 Geve, Guns and barbed wire. Introduction. 99
public and in private around family members.422 The Hebrew Bible prohibits the removal of all clothing,423 and requires all apparel to be modest, covering arms, shoulders and legs from below the knee. While attitudes to modesty vary between the different groups within Judaism and members of orthodox communities adhere more strictly to Tzniut than conservative or Reform Jews, it is important here to consider that the socio-religious and cultural context of the Nazi era was much less liberal in term of sexuality than in the 1990s and later. Within this worldview, it is easy to understand why Jewish prisoners were appalled by the phenomenon. Not only were these young males engaging in sex with other male Kapos, they were attired in women’s underwear to ingratiate themselves toward the Kapos, all the while being cruel to other inmates.424 That the rancour of the memorialists regarding the sexual nature of the Piepel servitude is related to the datedness of these memoirs is supported strongly by the fact that there is not much vitriol directed at all towards the sexual corruption of the Piepel among the more recent, post-2000 memoirs by Venezia and Pankowski, or the witness testimonies from the interviews in the VHA archives, which were conducted in the mid- 1990s and later. In the extremely rare instances that negative opinions were expressed by the interviewees, the sentiment elicited is usually that of material envy for the Piepel’s better quality of life. The Piepel, in these comments, are referred to in terms that highlight their “royal” status in the camps. Survivor Aftel, who had avoided a Kapo that attempted to recruit him as a Piepel after an initial sexual encounter, mentioned that the same Kapo later picked another boy who walked around “like a prince”, and who had better food, clothes and shoes than him. Survivor Moszek Garbarz spoke of how the Piepel were the “princes” of the camp.425 However, other witnesses tend to qualify these very same notions with the caveat that they knew this elevated position came at a severe cost. Survivor Salzberg stated, “[They] lived a life of royalty, [but] if the Kapo had the desire to be brutal for the kicks [of it], he could do it, just for the kicks.” Survivor Kolischer recalled that the Piepel had certain privileges in that they “[…] did not have to go to disinfection and
422 Genesis 9:21-27, for an account of how this scene may have been sexual, see Edwards, David Lawrence, “A Key to the Old Testament,” Collins, 1978. 423 Genesis 2:25; Deuteronomy 22:5 424 See Geve, Guns and barbed wire, p. 66 for an account of a Piepel wearing women’s underwear 425 Aftel. Interview 11817; Garbarz. Interview 2969. 100
the showers” but that they were essentially slaves who “[…] had no choice.” Indeed, the general opinion among the witness testimonies appears to be that while the Piepel were perhaps in the position to better their chances of survival, they generally believed them to be in bondage (see Interpretation of Primary Sources – Part I). This also bears out in the pity expressed towards the Piepel through their mentioning of the various acts of cruelty inflicted upon them by the Kapos (see Interpretation of Primary Sources – Part II).426 Indeed, one of the later memorialists, Pankowski, speaks of how the Piepel were among the disadvantaged prisoners. In his memoir, these boys are referred to as one of three marginalized prisoner categories among “die Schwulen” (the gay men) and the Muselmänner (the prisoners who have given up the fight and lost their will to live).427 Lastly, and perhaps most significantly, some of the witnesses appeared to be less shocked at the sexual behaviour of the Piepel, and more disturbed by the fact that no research had been published on the plight of these young males, reflecting more modern, liberal worldviews. Witness Steiner states: “[…] this is something, a chapter, that has not been written […] because it is not sexually acceptable, or it would introduce an element in the survivor situation that would not be morally or otherwise socially acceptable […]”. Witness Metz, whose interview was conducted in 1998, by which time research on sexual violence against female victims during the Holocaust was ramping up considerably, states:
[I don’t think] think there have been many stories or books, or research done on the amount of homosexuality and abuse of children in Auschwitz or the other camps. At least, I have not seen any, and there needs to be a study made, because it’s a big hidden secret, people don’t admit to it.428
These testimonials suggest a near-academic appreciation for the plight of the Piepel, indicating a rekindling of Enlightenment thought in individuals who likely watched awestruck and terrified as Hitler abandoned all notions of fraternity, equality and
426 Salzberg. Interview 3956; Kolischer. Interview 20003. 427 See mention on p. 515 in Shallcross, “The Pink Triangle and Gay Camp Identity in Marian Pankowskiʼs Writings”. 428 Steiner. Interview 53029; Metz. Interview 45926. 101
rationalism towards ideological ends. On examining this sample of 25 survivors’ biographical profiles, what is striking is the change in observed religions pre-war to the time of the testimonies in the mid-late 1990s. On a spectrum of religious denominations of Judaism ranging from the most orthodox, such as Hasidism,429 to least orthodox such as non-observant non-practicing Jewish, only two of the survivors observed a more orthodox religious denomination at the time of the testimony.430 Fifteen survivors either adopted a less orthodox denomination or did not provide a newer denomination, while six maintained their pre-war denomination. Sixteen of the survivors were Eastern European, and who pre-war belonged to more orthodox denominations of Judaism than the other survivors in general. Yet, by the time of their testimonials, six had adopted less orthodox denominations, and only four belonged to the same denomination that they followed pre-war; the remainder did not provide an answer to the question of religious denomination. These findings suggest a less religiously conservative worldview that was most likely due to a half-century of cultural and social change in the Western world that had in this time, witnessed the sexual revolution, gay liberation, civil rights and the feminist movements. Homosexuality was no longer as much of a taboo. Since the publication of the above memoirs, Heinz Heger’s The Pink Triangle had been published, and the works of Rector, Lautmann, Plant and Grau had revealed to the world the details of the Nazis’ persecution of homosexuals.431 Hence, the later ego-documents indicate that opinions and attitudes towards the Piepel have changed, and been far more sympathetic during the last three decades than during the first postwar decades. The focus is no longer the prostitution of the Piepel. Two reactions appear to dominate. The first is that the Piepel might have been advantaged, but suffered terribly, and not voluntarily. The second is a call to action. To conclude this chapter, I quote a more recent written account by Auschwitz survivor, Walter Stras, from 1989. The quote should serve both as remembrance, and to
429 Michael I. Harrison and Bernard Lazerwitz, “Do denominations matter?”. American Journal of Sociology 88, no. 2 (1982): 356-377; see also Abby N. Altman et al., “Exploration of Jewish ethnic identity.”, Journal of Counseling & Development 88, no. 2 (2010): 163-173, and Harriet Hartman and Moshe Hartman, “Jewish Identity, Denomination and Denominational Mobility,” Social Identities, 1999, 5:3, 279-311. 430 Steiner. Interview 53029; Lovász. Interview 50427. 431 Heger, The Men with the Pink Triangle; Rector, The Nazi Extermination of Homosexuals; Lautmann, The Pink Triangle. 102
academics, a throwing down of the gauntlet to address what has for far too long been egregiously neglected:
I know for a fact that quite a few younger prisoners had to commit homosexual acts even though they resented it, even though they were brought up in good homes and at no time had they any idea about homosexuality. And it will show through studies of former victims that after their liberation there was at no time any thought by those freed prisoners that they were homosexuals. Contrary, for them it meant how can someone do something like this. [....] I hope they will understand the situation in all countries all over the world. This is one of the things which maybe was not brought out very often in the open and it should be brought out because it happened to quite a few young prisoners.432
432 Stras, Strangers in the Heartland, p. 87. 103
CONCLUSION The overarching aim of this thesis was to explore the dynamics of Kapo-Piepel sexual violence in Auschwitz through the perceptions of victims and witnesses. In terms of the victims’ experiences, it was found that the Piepel’s participation in the sexual relationships was a matter of sheer survival, and they paid dearly for it, through physical and psychological trauma, and in many cases with their lives. That the Piepel were cruel to other inmates is explained by the fact that they were essentially the wards of the Kapos and underwent an alteration in their identity standards to adjust to their new status in the camps, effectively mimicking their new guardians. The selection and initiation process of Kapo-Piepel sexual abuse was reminiscent of child molesters as per contemporary understandings of the grooming process, and it was found that the Kapos tended to pick young, effeminate males to substitute their being deprived of women in the camps – and not as examples of convinced/consistent homosexuals, which is how they were depicted in early postwar ego documents - similar to modern day understandings of the gender dynamics involved in prison rape and protective pairing in US prisons. Lastly, the opinions and attitudes of the early memorialists in their writings is harsh, but due to the passage of time and social and cultural progress, more recent ego documents reveal a sympathetic understanding on the part of the survivors of the plight of the Piepel, and many of these interviewees urge greater attention be paid to this facet of male-male sexual violence during the Holocaust. Given the scope and possibilities of this thesis, there are certain limitations to my research and study that could – and should – be addressed in the future. There are three main ways in which a study of Kapo-Piepel sexual violence would benefit from being of greater scope. First; the groups from which testimonies are collected could be expanded to be more inclusive, especially for the witnesses, where extending the demographic criteria to include non-Jewish, political prisoners, and also to women might produce a more diverse set of opinions. Second; expanding the geographical range from Auschwitz to the other Nazi camps would in all likelihood produce a much larger quantity of written accounts and testimonies about Kapo-Piepel sexual violence. Due to the restriction of scope to Auschwitz, a few written accounts had to be
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omitted.433 Conducting a more large-scale, wide-ranging study was not feasible within the scope of my MA thesis but is certainly important to consider for future research. Third, I have limited my testimony collection to the USC VHA, as they were the only archives that were fully accessible to me from locations in Uppsala and Budapest. In the future, such research should be conducted drawing on material from more major and minor Holocaust audio-visual archives, such as those at the USHMM in Washington DC or the Yale Fortunoff Archives at Yale University. Having access to more archives and testimonies would certainly produce a greater pool of accounts and testimonies. Further, it would allow for an examination of the phenomenon through the eyes of different generations, especially earlier ones, who might have had different, and perhaps more accurate recollections of this phenomenon. Lastly, I was unable to explore the psychological impact of the sexual violence on the victims, given I could only address a certain number of research questions within the scope of this thesis. Indeed, the topic could serve as its own thesis. It is a vital area of research, as male victims of sexual violence are among the victims least heard from. That I was able to uncover testimonials related to Kapo-Piepel sexual violence in Auschwitz within the very limited time and means of my MA program indicates that these cases and recollections of male-male sexual violence represent merely the proverbial tip of the iceberg, and that much remains to be uncovered. Indeed, my findings suggest that male-male sexual violence perpetrated by prisoner functionaries against young Jewish children, adolescents or males was more widespread than the postwar ego documents suggest, likely due to the sensitive nature of the topic, homophobia and stigma. Due to endemic notions, even today, of ideals and expectations of “masculine” males, males consider the topic of sexual violence so discomfiting that they refuse to talk about it, irrespective of whether they themselves were victims or, like the memorialists in this study, simply witnessed acts of male sexual violence. Indeed, while the witness testimonies revealed an open and understanding worldview on the part of the interviewees, the testimony of the victims was cautious, often awkward, and filled with the employment of defence mechanisms to avoid being judged for what happened to them. This was the case despite the fact
433 Strigler, Majdanek; Leipciger, The Weight of Freedom; Gutter, Memories in Focus; Heger, The Men with the Pink Triangle; Naujoks, My Life in the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. 105
that by the time of their interviews, society had become more open to listening victims´ voices, and acknowledging one’s past victimization had begun to be identified as a way to strengthen personal identity and receive public recognition for one’s fortitude after the event.434 The forward thinking of the witnesses in the interviews is yet to be reflected in academic practice. Since their interviews were conducted in the mid-late 1990s, no significant research has been committed to this facet of male-male sexual violence during the Holocaust, or male-male sexual violence during the Holocaust as a whole. Scholars argue that male rape myths are still common in all spheres of society, including among individuals who hold highly respected occupations, such as lawyers, law enforcement officials and medical professionals.435 Men who are raped still face social stigmatization, ridicule for being "weak" and accusations of homosexuality.436 A significant degree of attention has been drawn to sexual violence against females during the Holocaust over the last three decades, spawning much of the excellent research available to us today on the topic. It is never too late for the same degree of attention to be paid to victims of male sexual violence during the Holocaust. The findings of this study indicate that the ways in which the Kapos approached their victims, and the ways in which the Piepel were coerced into their abuse, are contemporarily relevant, and would likely shed light on current instances of male-male sexual violence in a variety of contexts, related to genocide or otherwise. The findings of this study also indicate that more progressive societies are willing, and in fact urge the academic world to acknowledge male suffering. It is vital that this call to action is not ignored.
434 Wieviorka, The Era of the Witness. 435 Irina Anderson and Alison Quinn, “Gender differences in medical students' attitudes towards male and female rape victims,” Psychology, Health & Medicine 14, no. 1 (2009): 105-110.; Plant, The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War against Homosexuals; Grau, The Hidden Holocaust. 436 Sivakumaran, “Male/male rape and the ‘taint’ of homosexuality.” 106
APPENDICES
Appendix A: Search Terms Chosen and Corresponding Indexing Terms for the VHA Search
(i) “sexual”
1. sexual assaults 2. sexual development 3. sexual activities 4. sexual activity decisions 5. sexual assault fears 6. camp sexual activities 7. camp sexual assaults 8. coerced sexual activities 9. consensual sexual activities 10. deportation sexual activities 11. deportation sexual assaults 12. ghetto sexual activities 13. ghetto sexual assaults 14. hiding-related sexual activities 15. hiding-related sexual assaults 16. lesbian sexual activities 17. liberator sexual assaults 18. marital sexual activities 19. premarital sexual activities 20. prison sexual activities 21. prison sexual assaults 22. transfer sexual activities 23. transfer sexual assaults 24. aid giver sexual assaults 25. forced march sexual assaults 26. gay male sexual activities 27. refugee camp sexual activities 107
28. refugee camp sexual assaults 29. resistance group sexual activities 30. forced labor battalion sexual activities 31. forced labor battalion sexual assaults 32. sexually transmitted diseases 33. child abuse
(ii) “Auschwitz“
1. Auschwitz Protocols 2. Auschwitz Trials (West Germany) 3. Auschwitz Trial (Poland) 4. Auschwitz (Poland : Concentration Camp)(generic) 5. Auschwitz I (Poland : Concentration Camp) 6. Auschwitz II-Birkenau (Poland : Death Camp) 7. Auschwitz III-Monowitz (Poland : Concentration Camp) 8. Oświęcim (Poland) 9. Panstwowe Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau 10. Mengele, Josef 11. Kanada (Auschwitz II-Birkenau) 12. Lederfabrik (Auschwitz II-Birkenau) 13. Mauerschule (Auschwitz I) 14. Zigeunerlager (Auschwitz II-Birkenau) 15. Block 10 (Auschwitz I) 16. Block 11 (Auschwitz I) 17. Block 20 (Auschwitz I) 18. Block 21 (Auschwitz I) 19. Death Wall (Auschwitz I) 20. Familienlager Theresienstadt (Auschwitz II-Birkenau) 21. Blechhammer (Germany : Concentration Camp) 22. transfer to Plawy (Poland : Concentration Camp) 23. camp brothels 24. Lederer, Siegfried
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25. Mordowicz, Czeslaw 26. Rosin, Arnost 27. Vrba, Rudolf 28. Wetzler, Alfred 29. Block 12 (Auschwitz II-Birkenau) 30. Block 25 (Auschwitz II-Birkenau) 31. disinfection chamber (Auschwitz II-Birkenau) 32. (u)Auschwitz-Heidelager (Poland : Concentration Camp) 33. Block 29 and 31 (Auschwitz II-Birkenau) 34. Block 30 (Auschwitz II - Birkenau) 35. Laurahütte (Poland : Concentration Camp) 36. Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiments 37. deportation to Auschwitz (Poland : Concentration Camp)(generic) 38. transfer from Auschwitz (Poland : Concentration Camp)(generic) 39. transfer to Auschwitz (Poland : Concentration Camp)(generic) 40. deportation to Auschwitz I (Poland : Concentration Camp) 41. deportation to Auschwitz II-Birkenau (Poland : Death Camp) 42. deportation to Auschwitz III-Monowitz (Poland : Concentration Camp) 43. transfer from Auschwitz I (Poland : Concentration Camp) 44. transfer to Auschwitz I (Poland : Concentration Camp) 45. transfer to Auschwitz II-Birkenau (Poland : Death Camp) 46. transfer to Auschwitz III-Monowitz (Poland : Concentration Camp) 47. Sonderkommando Uprising (Auschwitz II-Birkenau, October 7, 1944) 48. transfer from Auschwitz II-Birkenau (Poland : Death Camp) 49. transfer from Auschwitz III-Monowitz (Poland : Concentration Camp)
(iii) “Kapo”
1. kapos 2. Lagerälteste 3. Austrian kapos 4. Belgian kapos 5. criminal kapos
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6. Croatian kapos 7. Czech kapos 8. Czechoslovak kapos 9. Dutch kapos 10. female kapos 11. French kapos 12. German kapos 13. Greek kapos 14. homosexual kapos 15. Hungarian kapos 16. Italian kapos 17. Jewish kapos 18. Latvian kapos 19. Lithuanian kapos 20. Luxembourg kapos 21. male kapos 22. Moroccan kapos 23. Polish kapos 24. Roma kapos 25. Romanian kapos 26. Russian kapos 27. Serbian kapos 28. Slovak kapos 29. Spanish kapos 30. Swedish kapos 31. Turkish kapos 32. Ukrainian kapos 33. Volksdeutsche kapos 34. Yugoslav kapos 35. famous kapos 36. non-Jewish kapos 37. Jehovah's Witness kapos 38. political prisoner kapos 110
39. attitudes toward prisoner functionaries
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Appendix B: Filters Applied to the Testimony Search
(i) Filters Applied to Collections
1. USC Shoah Foundation (51,478) 2. Blavatnik Archive Foundation (25) 3. Florida Holocaust Museum (25) 4. Holocaust Memorial Center Zekelman Family Campus (25) 5. Holocaust Museum Houston (277) 6. JFCS Holocaust Center (923) 7. Museum of Jewish Heritage (10) 8. The Azrieli Foundation (4) 9. Canadian Collections (1,257) a. Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives (64) b. Calgary Jewish Federation (10) c. Concordia University Centre for Oral History (30) d. Freeman Family Foundation (52) e. Jewish Archives of Edmonton & N Alberta (15) f. Living Testimonies, McGill University (104) g. Montreal Holocaust Museum (573) h. Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre (406) i. Ottawa Jewish Archives (3)
(ii) Filters Applied to Experience Group
1. Jewish Survivor
(iii) Filters Applied to Gender
1. Male
(iv) Filters Applied to Language
1. English 2. French 3. German 4. Spanish 5. Italian 6. Portuguese 112
7. Hungarian 8. Dutch
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Appendix C: Survivors’ Biographical Information
# Name DOB Interview Interview Nationality pre- Religion (pre/post Camp Date of Age at Age at Date Code WWII WWII) Arrival Arrival Interview 1 Norman December 9, November 6026 German Jewish /unaffiliated Auschwitz arrived in 19 71 Jaffé 1924 in 08, 1995 III- Auschwitz Dresden, Monowitz around Germany 1942/1943 — born December 1924
2 Sam September March 27, 1568 Polish Modern orthodox Auschwitz; deported 15 67 Steinberg 01, 1928 in 1995 Judaism/Judaism Auschwitz to Tomaszów II- Auschwitz Mazowiecki, Birkenau after April Poland 1943 — born September 1928 — 15 3 Leon November 13, April 09, 13196 French Traditional Judsism Auschwitz arrived in 17 71 Cyterman 1925 in Metz, 1996 /atheist I; Auschwitz France Auschwitz around II- March Birkenau 1942 — born November 1925 — 17
4 Jacob November 23, March 17, 40862 Polish Auschwitz arrived in 20 75 Breitstein 1923 in Łódź, 1998 II- Auschwitz Poland Birkenau; in the first Auschwitz third of Orthodox III- 1943 — Judaism/conservative Monowitz November Judaism 1923 5 Harry Aftel November 1, February 11817 Czechoslovakia Judaism/Judaism Auschwitz deported 16 68 1928 01, 1996 (historical) May or July 1944 to Auschwitz 6 Reinhard September April 24, 28165 German Judaism/Judaism Auschwitz deported 16 69 Frank 16, 1928 in 1997 II- around Leipzig, Birkenau July 1944 Germany 7to Auschwitz 7 Jacob Sep 18, 1922 February 27307 German Traditional Judaism / Auschwitz Arrived 21 75 Wollberg in 06, 1997 - around Völklingen, March- Germany April 1943 8 Sam Lubat Oct 26, 1919 September 47407 Polish Orthodox Judaism Auschwitz; arrived 24 79 in Piotrków 09, 1998 /orthodox Judaism Auschwitz around (Lódz, III- April 1943 Poland) Monowitz 9 Jack I. May 25, 1923 July 12, 3956 Polish Observant or Auschwitz arrived 20 72 Salzberg in Zloty 1995 practicing / - early 1943 Potok (Kielce) in Poland 10 Herbert May 10, 1924 September 20003 Polish Conservative Auschwitz also 19 72 Kolischer in Lwów, 19, 1996 Judaism / reform I arrived in Poland Judaism 1943 11 Gilbert Metz Jan 29, 1929 September 45926 French Conservative Auschwitz also 14 69 in 03, 1998 Judaism / reform II- arrived in Bischwiller, Judaism Birkenau 1943 France 12 George Feb 28, 1931 March 29, 13799 Polish Hasidism / not Auschwitz sometime 13 65 Kliger in Łódź, 1996 affiliated II- around the Poland Birkenau middle of 1944 13 David Katz Jan 11, 1928 April 30, 28672 Czechoslovakia Orthodox Judaism Auschwitz arrived in 16 69 in Mukacevo 1997 (historical) /orthodox Judaism I; Auschwitz (Podkarpatska Auschwitz around the Rus) Czech II- middle of Republic Birkenau 1944 14 Lou Dunst May 11, 1926 May 29, 41450 Czechoslovakia Orthodox Judaism / - Auschwitz arrived in 18 72 1998 (historical) II- 1944 Birkenau 15 Frank May 8, 1925 December 37151 Polish Aleksandrow Auschwitz transfer to 18 72 Burstin in 08, 1997 Hasidism / I; Auschwitz Lutomiersk, conservative Judaism Auschwitz around Poland II- April 1943 Birkenau 16 Stephen March 12, May 07, 2540 Romanian Orthodox Judaism Auschwitz arrived in 16 67 Abrahams 1928 1995 II- 1944 114
Birkenau, Auschwitz III- Monowitz 17 John August 3, November 53029 Czechoslovakia Non-observant or Auschwitz; arrived 19 71 Steiner* 1925 03, 1996 (historical) non-practicing Auschwitz between (Anthroposophy) / II- sept 1943 Roman Catholic Birkenau and March Church 1944 and July 1944 18 Henri February 20, October 49157 Belgian Traditional Judaism / Auschwitz arrived in 17 71 Sonnenbluck 1927 in 28, 1998 atheism III- Auschwitz Belgium Monowitz in the latter half of 1944 19 Mayer August 31, June 17, 30624 Polish Orthodox Judaism Auschwitz arrived in 17 71 Hersh 1926 1997 /orthodox Judaism II- 1943 Birkenau 20 Melvin September June 27, 16678 Polish Orthodox Judaism / Auschwitz arrived in 22 74 Gelblat 21, 1922 1996 conservative Judaism II- 1944 Birkenau 21 Teo Ducci August 12, February 38354 Austro- Judaism / Judaism Auschwitz arrived 31 85 1913 in 14, 1998 Hungarian I after Budapest (Historical) February 1944 22 Moszek December 28, June 02, 2969 Born in Traditional Judaism / Auschwitz arrived 29 82 Garbarz 1913, in 1995 Warsaw, at the - II- early 1942 Warsaw, time part of Birkenau Poland Russia/Soviet Russia 23 Isaaco January 27, April 09, 43627 Greek observant or arrived 18 72 Bayona 1926 in 1998 practicing / Judaism Auschwitz around Salonika, July 1944 Greece 24 Ferenc March 26, 50427 Hungarian Neology / Lubavitch Auschwitz arrived 15 70 Lovász 1929 November Hasidism II- towards 02, 1999 Birkenau; the end of Auschwitz 1944 III- Monowitz 25 Joseph January 18, November 22675 German Orthodox Judaism / Auschwitz arrived 15 67 Spring 1929 in 04, 1996 traditional Judaism III- towards Berlin Monowitz middle of (Prussia), 1944 Germany
*John Steiner has given two testimonies; both are available on the VHA. One was for the JFCS Holocaust Center on November 03, 1996 under Interfiew Code 53029, and one was for the on March 27, 1991 for the USC Collection under Interview Code 22141. He mentions sexual acts in his later interview with the JFCS, so have used his testimony from that interview.
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Appendix D: USC VHA Survivor Testimonies
(i) Victims’ Testimonies
1. Jaffé, Norman. Interview 6026. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation, 1995. Accessed 12 May 2019. 2. Steinberg, Sam. Interview 1568. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation, 1995. Accessed 12 May 2019. 3. Cyterman, Leon. Interview 13196. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation, 1996. Accessed 12 May 2019. 4. Breitstein, Jacob. Interview 40862. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation, 1998. Accessed 12 May 2019.
(ii) Victims’ Testimonies (those attempted to be made Piepel)
1. Aftel, Harry. Interview 11817. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation, 1996. Accessed 12 May 2019. 2. Frank, Reinhard. Interview 28165. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation, 1997. Accessed 12 May 2019. 3. Wollberg, Jacob. Interview 27307. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation, 1997. Accessed 12 May 2019.
(iii) Witness Interviews
1. Lubat, Sam. Interview 47407. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation, 1998. Accessed 12 May 2019. 2. Salzberg, Jack I. Interview 3956. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation, 1995. Accessed 12 May 2019. 3. Kolischer, Herbert. Interview 20003. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation, 1995. Accessed 12 May 2019. 4. Metz, Gilbert. Interview 45926. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation, 1995. Accessed 12 May 2019. 5. Kliger, George (Gedali). Interview 13799. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation, 1995. Accessed 12 May 2019.
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6. Katz, David. Interview 28673. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation, 1997. Accessed 12 May 2019. 7. Dunst, Lou. Interview 41450. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation, 1998. Accessed 12 May 2019. 8. Burstin, Frank. Interview 37151. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation, 1997. Accessed 12 May 2019. 9. Abrahams, Stephen. Interview 2540. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation, 1995. Accessed 12 May 2019. 10. Steiner, John. Interview 53029. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation, 1996. Accessed 12 May 2019. 11. Sonnenbluck, Henri. Interview 49157. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation, 1998. Accessed 12 May 2019. 12. Hersh, Mayer. Interview 30624. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation, 1997. Accessed 12 May 2019. 13. Gelblat, Melvin. Interview 16678. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation, 1996. Accessed 12 May 2019. 14. Ducci, Teo. Interview 38354. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation, 1996. Accessed 12 May 2019. 15. Garbarz, Moszek. Interview 2969. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation, 1996. Accessed 12 May 2019. 16. Bayona, Isaaco. Interview 43627. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation, 1996. Accessed 12 May 2019. 17. Lovász, Ferenc. Interview 50427. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation, 1999. Accessed 12 May 2019. 18. Spring, Jospeh. Interview 22675. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation, 1996. Accessed 12 May 2019
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Appendix E: Memoirs and Autobiographies
1. Wiesel, Elie. Night. Vol. 55. Macmillan, 2006. [Original version published as Wiesel, Elie. "Night (S. Rodway, Trans.)." New York: Hill & Wang. 1960; Earlier versions were published in Yiddish as “Un di velt hot geshvign” in 1956 and in French as “Nuit” in 1958]. 2. Levi, Primo. If This Is A Man/The Truce. Abacus 40th Anniversary. 2003. Abacus. Little, Brown Book Group. London: United Kingdom. [The original was published as "La tregua” in 1963 by Giulio Einaudi editore S.p.A. and translated by The Bodley Head in 1965.] 3. Müller, Filip, and Helmut Freitag. Auschwitz Inferno: The Testimony of a Sonderkommando. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979. 4. Kieler, Wieszlaw. Anus Mundi: 1,500 Days in Auschwitz/Birkenau. 1980. 5. Geve, Thomas. Guns and Barbed Wire: A Child Survives the Holocaust. Chicago Review Press, 1987. 6. Stiffel, Frank. The Tale of the Ring: A Kaddish: A Personal Memoir of the Holocaust. Toronto; New York: Bantam Books, 1984. 7. Stras, Walter. Strangers in the Heartland. In: essay format by Donald M. Douglas (Jan. 1989). USHMM Permanent Collection. Accession Number: 1994.A.0206 | RG Number: RG-02.142. Received as a scanned microfiche copy by courtesy of the USHMM after requesting access to view the document. 8. Pankowski, Marian. D‘Auschwitz à Bergen-Belsen. Editions l'Age d'Homme, 2000. 9. Langbein, Hermann. People in Auschwitz. Univ of North Carolina Press, 2005. [Original version published as Langbein, Hermann. Menschen in Auschwitz. Europa Verlag GmbH München. 1995] 10. Venezia, Shlomo, and Béatrice Prasquier. Inside the Gas Chambers: Eight Months in the Sonderkommando of Auschwitz. Polity, 2009.
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GLOSSARY
Aktion (pl. -en): Operation involving the mass assembly, deportation, and murder of Jews by the Nazis during the Holocaust
Blockältester: Block or barracks leader; responsible for the prisoners in one barrack, had to establish order and ensure rules and regulations were being followed
Endlösung der Judenfrage: The Nazis’ goal to murder all Jews in Europe and globally; Final Solution of the Jewish Question
Funktionshäftling: Prisoner functionary; a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp who was selected by the SS guards to carry out administrative tasks in the camp or supervise the forced labour Kommandos
Häftlingsselbstverwaltung: The SS selected prisoners to run the camp; these prisoners collaborated with the SS in exchange for privileges and power. The prisoner self-administration minimized costs by replacing some SS functions in the camp with prisoners. Further beneficial to the Nazis, the system implemented the “divide and rule” tactic in the camp by turning victims against victims, where those who received the favours of the SS dominated and abused those who did not
Kameradschaftspolizei: Prisoner police force
Kapo: Supervised work Kommandos; senior prisoner functionary
Kommando (pl.-s): A forced labour squad, supervised by a Kapo; also Arbeitskommando
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Konzentrationslager: Concentration camps; term often applied to either detention, work or death/extermination camps
KL: Konzentrationslager; concentration camp, alternatively used: KZ
Lagerältester: Concentration camp leader; highest prisoner functionary position in the camp, had to implement the camp commandants’ orders and ensure smoothness of daily operations in the camp. Also partook in selecting other prisoner functionaries via recommendation to the SS
Lebensraum: The territory which a group, state, or nation believes is required for its natural development and betterment; lit.: living space
NSDAP: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers‘ Party)
Piepel: Young boy or adolescent or young male prisoner; servant and sexual servant for prisoner functionaries/Kapos
Privileged prisoner: Prisoners who had certain positions or roles in the camp; they were given better food, had better living conditions, and an opportunity to survive if they agreed to collaborate with the SS or to enforce the brutal order of the camp
Rassenschande: Racial defilement laws; Rassenschande laws prohibited sexual relations between Germans and Jews to avoid contamination of the Aryan bloodline
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Selektion (pl. -en): The selection of individuals who would be exterminated; generally of old or very young, weak, frail or ill people and those who could not work or were deemed unable to work
Sonderkommando: Assigned to work in the crematoria to feed corpses in to the ovens and take out the ashes
SS: Schutzstaffel; administrated and largely staffed concentration camps.
Stammlager: The main camp of a camp complex; Auschwitz I
Stubenältester: Room leader; responsible for hygiene, i.e. delousing and disinfection actions, in the individual rooms of a barrack.
Zeitzeuge (pl. -en): Somebody who as a contemporary can give testimony on certain occurrences (of historical importance)
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