"We had risen at dawn, as we did every day. We had received our black coffee, our ration of bread. We were about to head to the work yard as always" (73).
A typical day for a concentration camp prisoner started with a wake up call at about 4:00 a.m. They made their beds, washed quickly, and then went for breakfast. Breakfast consisted of tasteless coffee and a chunk of bread (and sometimes margarine or a thin piece of sausage, if one was lucky). Afterwards, it was time for the morning roll call. All the prisoners had to line up in rows of ten, including the bodies of those who had died during the night. Since the roll call often took place in rain or freezing weather, people sometimes died while the roll call was taking place. Next, prisoners got escorted by an SS officer to where they worked. They would do difficult manual labor for 12-14 hours a day. If one was working too "slowly", they were beaten by the Kapos, sometimes until they died. There was a short lunch break somewhere in the day. When the prisoners returned to the camp, they had to carry the prisoners who died that day back for the evening roll call. This roll call sometimes took hours. After that, dinner was served, which is another ration of bland soup. Finally, prisoners return to their barracks and tried to sleep in the horrible conditions they were put in. They had managed to survive another day.
http://www.jewishgen.org/Forgottencamps/Camps/DayEng.html
It is so difficult for us to imagine such conditions. We complain about having to get up early to get to school, a heated, dry, safe place. Attendance is only a few minutes at the beginning of every class and in homeroom. Also, we only spend at least 7 hours in school a day. If we have activities in the afternoon, sometimes longer. Our lunch break is 30 minutes long, we get to sit down, talk, and have a good time. Compared to what they had to do we are practically in heaven, yet we still complain. All we can do is learn as much about the Holocaust and try at any cost not to repeat it, even though there is a common saying that history repeats itself.
ReplyDeleteI have always known about how bad the Holocaust was when I was younger. I knew that Hitler was a terrible man and that many Jews were killed, but now that I am a little older I have a better understanding of what really happened and how families were affected. I cannot fathom what those camps must have been like to the Jews. Learning about these situations makes me take a step back and see how lucky I really am to have the life that I do. Hopefully people have learned acceptance and tolerance to people that are different than them.
ReplyDeleteI was surprised at how early they had to wake up. I wonder why they had to get up that early, for there was nothing that they had to do that couldn't wait. I am also confused about why they were always given bread, since things like crackers would keep better than bread. It's amazing how long they had to work. Most people in America work 8 hour days, while they were working for nearly double that amount of time everyday. I'm surprised that they were given lunch, because the pictures of the frail people in the holocaust made me think that they were not given a midday meal. Also, I wonder why the dead had to be carried to roll call. This was a really good description of their bleak existence.
ReplyDeleteWow it's really horrible just reading their everyday life, when the Jewish people must of gotten used to it some how. It sounds cruel, especially since they had to carry in the dead campers, and had to stand out in the horrible weather conditions for the role calls. All of it must have been so horrible! I know that I hate waking up every morning for school, so waking up at like 4 in the morning must have been even worse. I thought school was horrible. At least we have a choice of seeing our friends and having fun classes and long lunch periods. They however had to suffer through it all, because it's not like they chose that path way. They were forced into something they didn't want to go through, and since they were separated from their family and friends, they didn't anybody to help them through. And even if they did have family with them, they could of died easily because of the poor conditions. It's really sad reading what they did everyday, and it's very hard to imagine. I feel pity for them.
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