August 7th, 2009
Trying to describe an average day in the life of a prisoner at the Auschwitz concentration camp would be like trying to describe an average day in hell. Each day brought about new horrors for the unfortunate victims of the Holocaust interred in this Nazi operated extermination camp. Just under one million Jews were killed over the five year history of Auschwitz.
The “lucky” few who weren’t immediately sent to the gas chambers after being shipped to the concentration camp could expect a life of degradation and random punishment. Barracks were overcrowded with not enough beds to house the prisoners. Only the luckiest would receive blankets to keep warm during the cold Polish nights. Days were spent working the prisoners to exhaustion in factories providing materials for the war effort or doing pointless labors such as digging ditches. The unluckiest would have to deal with the remains of their fallen friends, family, and prison mates. Even amongst the prisoners, these prisoners were often reviled although they had little choice in the matter.
Every day, the victims of Nazi cruelty would see their peers taken in front of firing squads, taken away for medical experimentation, starved, beaten, and otherwise tortured. The understanding that it was only a matter of time loomed large in the thoughts of every prisoner. Until Soviet forces freed the prisoners in 1945, it seemed there was no hope of rescue as Allied forces ignored the reality of the situation.
Although the camp conditions were specifically designed to break the spirits of its inhabitants, the fighting spirit of the Jews, Poles, Gypsies, and Russians housed within the walls of Auschwitz did not falter. Over five years, nearly 300 individual prisoners escaped. Unfortunately, Nazis would terrorize inmates by publicly starving ten prisoners for each escaped prisoner. Every prisoner at Auschwitz had to face the hard reality that every moment could be their last and no amount of good behavior or cooperation could prevent an arbitrary punishment.