Newsgroups: alt.revisionism Subject: Holocaust Almanac: The Destruction of Hope... Reply-To: kmcvay@nizkor.almanac.bc.ca Followup-To: alt.revisionism Organization: The Nizkor Project, Vancouver Island, CANADA Keywords: Fenelon,Birkenau,Capo Archive/File: camps/auschwitz capo.01 Last-modified: 1993/03/05 Fania Fenelon relates a conversation between herself and Ewa (a Polish friend and fellow prisoner with Fania at Birkenau); the discussion began when Ewa, troubled by a fellow Pole's monstrous behavior, approached Fania to let her know that all Poles were not to be judged by the behavior of a few. This leads to a discussion about the Polish kapos, and why they behave the way they do. I thought the thoughts expressed were worth saving... "They're pretty tough physically, and you need to be, in their job. The SS know it and get the message across. Some of these women have been here since 1942. When a young girl is flung into this atrocious atmosphere, here instinct orders her to react. She learns very quickly that you have to please the Nazis in order to survive, and that to do that you have to act like they do - it's only then that they trust you. That's the only guarantee of survival one can have here. It's true for people like [kapos]. They've ended up thinking like Nazis, feeling that they too are a master race. The Nazis obliterate all traces of humanity in the internees, they appeal to the lowest instincts, set prisoners against each other, arouse all possible forms of savagery, crush the weak, protect those who become monstrous like themselves - and that's how they attain one of the aims of National Socialism; the destruction of human dignity. And of course with some underprivileged people born in a socially impoverished milieu, where there's no education of any kind, the ground is already prepared; all you need to do is alternately beat them and reward them for them to become torturers in their turn." (Fenelon, 133-34) Work Cited Fenelon, Fania, with Marcelle Routier. Playing for Time. New York: Athenium, 1977. ISBN 0-689-10796-X
Home ·
Site Map ·
What's New? ·
Search
Nizkor
© The Nizkor Project, 1991-2012
This site is intended for educational purposes to teach about the Holocaust and
to combat hatred.
Any statements or excerpts found on this site are for educational purposes only.
As part of these educational purposes, Nizkor may
include on this website materials, such as excerpts from the writings of racists and antisemites. Far from approving these writings, Nizkor condemns them and
provides them so that its readers can learn the nature and extent of hate and antisemitic discourse. Nizkor urges the readers of these pages to condemn racist
and hate speech in all of its forms and manifestations.