Everyday Life
In accordance to the secrecy surrounding Hinzert camp, the only widely known testimony written originally in English was not released until 1997. Mr. Peter Hassall, a Channel Islander from Jersey, was encouraged by fellow NN Hinzert survivors and the haunting memories of his beloved childhood friends to share his story and “set the record straight” (Hassall, 1997, p.3). His story, a beautifully written tale-gone-ill of a young man carrying on his personal resistance against the German occupation of his island, describes in outstanding detail the sort of atrocities committed to the prisoners of the camp. A healthy, very clever young man, Mr. Hassall was able to pick up astounding details from his surroundings, and his fluency in both French and German (in addition to English) allowed him to report both what was shared with the prisoners and the sort of conversations that the unsuspecting officers would sustain in the presence of the boy.
On Sunday May 3rd of 1942, after months of exhaustive planning, Mr. Hassall, in alliance with his closest friend Dennis Audrain and an acquaintance he had made at the local swimming pool, Maurice Gould, set sail in an attempt to escape the islands, cross the channel and reach mainland England. When the sea’s temper made the escape go astray, however, Dennis drowned and the German authorities captured him and Maurice, after being tipped off about their location by Peter’s mom. This escape attempt would have usually been punished by death, but thanks to the timing of it, and the recent release of the NN decree, the young men were forced into a different future.
The investigation of the attempted escapees lasted for a few weeks, initially in Jersey and later in Paris. Hassall had packed some photographs of German weaponry and organization, which had been taken by the German themselves at his parents’ shop, as he had intended to share those with the English intelligence. After the misfortunes of the escape, the occupying authorities found the incriminating evidence. They were held and interrogated in prison in Jersey for some days and were later sent to the famous Parisian prison of Fresnes. There they stayed for some days as well, being interrogated on a couple of occasions, until the Germans made a decision on how they should proceed.
Once their sentence had been determined, Gould and Hassall were placed in a transport with 50 other men, mainly captured members of the French Resistance, and sent to German soil. They did not know where they had been sent to, nor if their trial had already taken place or would ever do. They were kept in complete oblivion of their fate, without the right to Red Cross letters or packages. He, along with the Frenchmen arrested for resistance, were being taken to Hinzert under the Night and Fog decree which, true to its nature, was completely unbeknownst to them and would remain that way for quite some more time.
The Germans used tactics of physical and emotional abuse alike. Emaciation was perhaps their main tactic to physically weaken their prisoners, by giving them only a small piece of bread with margarine and coffee in the morning. During the day, the captives received some soup with a few vegetable pieces for lunch and dinner. These tiny rations, accompanied with full days of strenuous physical work, such as breaking up boulders into pebbles, digging up tree stumps and transporting tons of coal in a wagon designed to be pulled by horses, along with mandatory exercises such as running and press-ups in the morning and in occasions during the day, drove the formerly healthy young men into skeletal figures. The rules in the camp were supposedly designed to impose discipline, but it was no secret that their true purpose was to run down the prisoners’ bodies. The men were to run everywhere – no walking was permitted – and they were only allowed a maximum of five and a half hours of sleep a night, which was not nearly as much rest as their battered bodies needed. Additionally, the Kapos and SS routinely beat them for any reason imaginable, and often without any reason at all. They would line up on either side of the line of prisoners heading into the dining room and hit them with their clubs on their way in and on their way out. Afraid that their cuts and wounds could get infected, but refusing to go to the Medical Centre unless absolutely necessary, prisoners would resort to methods as rudimentary as urinating on their wounds, which they said made the healing process faster and safer. They would be full of bruises, broken bones and cuts at all times, and they would be lacking muscle, fat and nutrients. Their bodies would be run down as far as they could go.
Nevertheless, perhaps some of their most successful terror tactics were emotional, designed to also starve their psyche: keeping the prisoners in the dark about the length of their stay in the camp, severely limiting their hours of sleep – which could be often interrupted by sudden bursts into the barracks and random beatings –, alternating between scalding hot water and cold water during the prisoner’s short weekly showers, their humiliating nude inspections. The organizational system was twisted, it was made to break the prisoners from the inside, to wound their hearts and minds. The married men were ordered to remove and turn in their wedding bands, so that they gave up their past. The prisoners were made to learn their numbers in German as if they were their names, so that they would give up their humanity. They were to stand at attention next to their beds without permission to lay down until 11PM, after their last roll call, to give them as little rest as possible and break their spirits. They were to have supervisors of their own kind, to put themselves against each other, to remove all trace of hope. This latter aspect of organization creates such distress between both the subordinates and the allocated supervisor that the unity in the group breaks from the inside, it is intended to make them feel lonely and fearful at all times.
Mr. Peter Hassall, however, makes quite an emphasis on how not all leaders were perceived negatively. Sometimes these supposed collaborators managed to slip between the Nazis’ fingers and help their comrades in some way. Sometimes the prisoners managed to put themselves in the others’ shoes, despite all the wrongdoings directed at them. And yet sometimes, these collaborators were in fact underserving of all sympathy.
One of the beauties of Hassall’s diary is how observant of a young man he was and how his stories are abundant in strenuous detail. He is quite careful to mention the backstory of as many of the young men from the camp as he can and we, as readers, are rewarded with brief yet inspiring recounts of other survivor’s stories. Mr. Hassall puts especial focus on those stories that show the rebellious side of his fellow prisoners, as well as the complexity of character and conscience of many who surrendered to the hierarchy of the German rule.
Hinzert camp was directed by SS officers but run by Kapos. These were prisoners assigned to keep order among their comrades, as the Germans themselves were absent most of the time. They were the Judenräte of the camp, except they were violent and had no administrative roles. They were assigned solely to the maintenance of discipline. If they failed to keep their assigned groups up to German’s standards, they would be brutally punished themselves. And yet, the choice to be violent towards their fellow prisoners or not was theirs only. In no occasion in the testimony were the Kapos reprimanded for not injuring the camp’s inmates, rather they would choose said path themselves in order to fall in better light among the SS members present in the camp.
André Callaux was a Frenchman who was taken into Hinzert in the same group as Peter Hassall. Once the Kapo in charge, Senior Kapo Wipf, asked for a volunteer, he stepped forward briskly. He was appointed senior of their barrack and was in charge of keeping the room clean and always prepared for German inspection. Callaux, however, immediately turned to violent practices and became a very cruel figure among the group, wounding his fellows captees out of greed. He would keep bigger food rations for himself at the expense of his comrades and go beyond his line of duty to stablish his power. He had a special fascination with Hassall and his fellow Englishman Maurice Gould, because of their nationality. Callaux held a strong grudge against all of the English for abandoning France during its occupation and enjoyed making Maurice suffer in representation of his people.
Wipf was also known to be despicable and incredibly violent. He was Swiss and a prisoner, and yet, during his first description of him, Hassall comments on how “he seemed to put fear into the SS”. (Hassall, 1997, p.78) However, one day he called Hassall into his office to give him some boots for Maurice, whose feet were getting hurt because his clogs kept falling off. Later that evening, he called him in again and excused his behavior to him. “I hate Nazis! I am Swiss, not German, but I intend to get out of here, because I value my life.” (Hassall, 1997, p.101) After affirming that he would look over Maurice – and reminding him that the conversation had not taken place – he let Hassall run back to his barracks. He was too a victim, and yet he might not be completely free of fault. He is aware that he chose this position for his own benefit, and even though he tries to help Peter and Maurice, he “intends to earn his way out of there” (Hassall, 1997, p.101) at the expense of the other prisoners.
Other Kapos were described to have similar attitudes, such as a Belgian who was the one in charge of looking over shower time, who would take great pleasure in disrupting the temperatures of their showers, and even sometimes completely cutting the water flow, leaving the prisoners covered in soap and deprived of their short weekly attempt at cleanliness. This collaboration with the Nazi authorities reached much smaller roles, such as the one played by a Belgian fifteen-year-old who would secretly listen to conversations in toilet stalls and then proceed to report them to the SS. The German planted a seed of distrust among the prisoner population, in such a way in which it was very challenging to trust one another, as “the SS and Kapos had snitches everywhere.” (Hassall, 1997, p.104)
There were others, however, that brightly contrasted with the cowardice shown by Callaux and Wipf. Another Room Senior, a Luxembourger, was kind and was not mentioned to abuse his prisoners. When Peter and Maurice were swapped into his room, he asked them why they were in the camp if they were English and proceeded to give the ample advice on how to best survive the conditions of the camp, what to do and not to do, and how to mentally approach their situation. Finally, he said “Do not collaborate, as you will lose respect for yourselves!” (Hassall, 1997, p.90), which is interesting advice from a man that was appointed by the Germans to look after the rest of the men in the room. However, this could indicate that he does not consider himself a collaborator, which would explain his helpful attitude, even though he makes sure to always stay within the rules.
Smaller, seemingly simpler acts of defiance were also quite present among the prisoners in the camp. A younger Frenchman who was captured for having taken part in an armed act of resistance in occupied France led the clearest act of defiance in the testimony, as he purposefully crashed a coal wagon into a ditch. (Hassall, 1997, p.103) He then suffers the physical punishment administered by the leaders of the camp and smiles afterwards, saying that it was worth it. Such bravery and toughness were much admired by the rest of the captees. The captured Frenchmen as a group are described as quite an enthusiastic group, as they were all assuring each other with comforting words on the train on their way to the camp, inspiring one another. “Don’t worry! We’ll get them! We’ll soon be out of here!” (Hassall, 1997, p.75) They would also show their defiance by assuring Callaux that they would ensure for him to be punished for his crimes as Kapo once the war was over. (Hassall, 1997, p.83) They believed in an end to the war, even in such grim circumstances. Even the French doctors in the camp, still prisoners but in a more privileged position, did what they could to stand up to German rule. They would try to get wounded prisoners off-work for as much time as possible, and they would advise the prisoners what was safe to eat from the forest. (Hassall, 1997, p.104)
The Luxembourgers, who had also been brutally occupied by Germany, added their spirit to the fire of rebellion. They stood tall and quiet, they held Kapo positions in the camp, but they helped whenever they could. The Room Senior in Room 2 once took a very distasteful punch from Kapo Wipf without moving, for which the Kapo was said to have given “a glance at his knuckles and a respectful look at the man.” (Hassall, 1997, p.94) He then proceeded to post one of the inmates as a vigil to make sure another Kapo did not sneak up on them while he gave the men some time to rest. Another inmate, Captain J., who used to be an officer in the Luxembourg army, worked in the Medical Centre and would share secret information that often-drunk Nazi medic Josef Brendel would let slip. (Hassall, 1997, p.97) Upon hearing Hassall and Gould’s story, he assured them that they “could call on the Luxembourgers for help.” (Hassall, 1997, p.97)
Through Hassall’s experience – which took place from June 13th to July 24th of 1942 – it is quite breathtakingly clear how the Nazi organization created layers among their occupied populations. The borders between perpetrator, collaborator and victim blur, and evil and good do not seem to be the ends of one same spectrum: resistance has many planes, aggressiveness can be calculated, and victimhood can lack innocence. In this story, the complexity of the human mind is seen from such a variety and richness of angles that one understands how valuable testimonies are in companionship to historical facts: one can never fully comprehend why the people acted the way they did or why the world was never the same unless through their eyes.
In The Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, it is mentioned that “for many prisoners, Hinzert was the worst camp that they experienced.” (Browning et.al, 2009, p.825) Perhaps its special factor was how small it was, giving each prisoner no rest from the scrutinizing vigilance of the Kapos and SS. (Hassall, 1997, p.102) After all, no one ever successfully escaped Hinzert, it was too well-guarded. Or perhaps it was its leadership: Hinzert was directed by high names in the Nazi regime, names that would later resound at the Nuremberg Trials. Georg Schaaf, nicknamed Ivan the Terrible, was among them, and was remembered as Hassall as so brutal that he would foam at the mouth from how much he would abuse his prisoners. (Hassall, 1997, p.91) Josef Brendel, who was in charge of the Medical Centre, was also a despicable figure, who made the prisoners have daily inspections in the nude as humiliation and would not let anyone step one foot inside the infirmary unless they were stripped of their clothing, no matter how desperately they needed medical attention. Additionally, he would refuse to help Gould because of his nationality and was remembered to enjoy performing “minor surgery on prisoners, even though he was not qualified.” (Hassall, 1997, p.97) However, the experience at Hinzert was very dependent on which part of the camp the prisoner was assigned to. For French and English prisoners such as Hassall and Gould, the treatment was probably the worst. And yet, Mr. Sam Genirberg had a slightly different perspective.
Sam Genirberg was a very bright Polish young Jew who escaped death by hiding in plain sight. He lived in the Eastern part of Poland, in Dubno, and his tale of survival is an amazing recount of unlikely events. His intelligence saved him in the long run, and since he spoke Ukrainian, Russian and German aside from his more native Yiddish, Polish and Hebrew, he was able to work in the Soviet Union, under a pseudonym that hid his Jewish identity. In the Spring of 1943, he had fled to the east to France, and had been working at a farm under German direction for three weeks, when he was taken for interrogation. He was asked why he had escaped, and he simply said that he no longer wanted to be an interpreter. (Genirberg, 1996)
He was then taken to Hinzert, probably because of his supposed Soviet nationality, though he never had a trial. When describing the camp, Genirberg does recount the absolutely humiliating daily nude inspections, which were especially distressful for him as he was a Jew in hiding. And he does also describe the camp as a “terrible place.” (Genirberg, 1996) He, however, admits that the Kapos gave him special treatment, as they were leftists and, since Mr. Genirberg was supposedly from the USSR and spoke German, they enjoyed questioning him on what life was like there in the East. Therefore, he received a lot more food. Mr. Genirberg affirms that the work was very difficult, but that the best method of survival was to work hard and obey orders. Nevertheless, he remembers the food to be quite good and being allowed to have seconds, which is a stark contrast with Mr. Peter Hassall’s testimony. He also mentions how he was beaten only once, which is also incredibly different from the Englishman’s experience. Aside from being imprisoned almost a year later, perhaps the difference between both of their testimonies lies on which part of the camp they were assigned to reside in, and who were their Kapos. Whichever the reason, and according to The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, Mr. Hassall’s heartbreakingly brutal tale seems to be the more common experience among those who were unlucky enough to go through Hinzert on their way to different destinies.
Wiesel, Elie, Doris L. Bergen, Christopher R. Browning, David Engel, Willard A. Fletcher, Peter Hayes, Michael R. Marrus, and Nechama Tec. “HINZERT MAIN CAMP.” In The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945: Ghettos in German-Occupied Eastern Europe, edited by Geoffrey P. Megargee, 823–46. Indiana University Press, 2009. www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt16gzb17.26.
Hassal, Peter. "Night and Fog Prisoners." Rage University, 1997. https://web.archive.org/web/20170717110244/http://rageuniversity.org/PRISONESCAPE/TRUE%20PRISON%20ESCAPES/CHANNEL%20ISLAND%20POW.pdf
Sam Genirberg. “Sam Genirberg”. JFCS Holocaust Center, USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. December 1,8 1996, https://vha-usc-edu.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/viewingPage?testimonyID=55342&returnIndex=0. Accesed April 12th, 2020.
Photographer unknown, "Peter Hassall". Frank Falla Archive. Date unknown. https://www.frankfallaarchive.org/people/peter-hassall/#&gid=1&pid=2