It was these common prisoners, who bore no distinguishing
marks on their sleeves, whom the Capos
really despised. While these ordinary prisoners had
little or nothing to eat, the Capos were never hungry;
in fact many of the Capos fared better in the camp than
they had in their entire lives. Often they were harder
on the prisoners than were the guards, and beat them
more cruelly than the SS men did. These Capos, of
course, were chosen only from those prisoners whose
characters promised to make them suitable for such
procedures, and if they did not comply with what was
expected of them, they were immediately demoted.
They soon became much like the SS men and the camp
wardens and may be judged on a similar psychological
basis.
It is easy for the outsider to get the wrong conception
of camp life, a conception mingled with sentiment
and pity. Little does he know of the hard fight for
existence which raged among the prisoners. This was
an unrelenting struggle for daily bread and for life
itself, for one's own sake or for that of a good friend.
Let us take the case of a transport which was
officially announced to transfer a certain number of
prisoners to another camp; but it was a fairly safe
guess that its final destination would be the gas chambers.
A selection of sick or feeble prisoners incapable
of work would be sent to one of the big central camps
which were fitted with gas chambers and crematoriums.
The selection process was the signal for a free
fight among all the prisoners, or of group against
group. All that mattered was that one's own name and
that of one's friend were crossed off the list of victims,