The doctors were chosen, subject to examination, from among those who had declared on entering the Camp that they had a degree in medicine, with priority going to those who were fluent in German or Polish. Only in rare and exceptional cases would dressings be secured with adhesive plaster, which was used with the utmost frugality on account of its scarcity.Medication was reduced to a minimum; many products, even the most basic and commonly used, were totally absent, while of others there was only a meagre amount. In the evenings, there would be a rapid follow-up examination.In the surgical wards, the dressings would be applied in the mornings, and since the dormitory was divided into three aisles and each aisle was treated in turn, it followed that each patient received treatment only every third day. There they would be shaved to the last hair, then made to take a shower, and finally they would be sent to the relevant section of the hospital. To get there, they would have to go outside, covered only by a wrap, and walk 100 to 200 metres in this state, whatever the season and whatever the atmospheric and meteorological conditions.In the various clinical wards, the doctor in charge, assisted by one or two nurses, would perform his morning round without personally going up to the patients’ beds; rather, it was they who would have to get out of bed and go to him, excluding only those who were completely prevented from doing so by the seriousness of their condition. The dressings were secured with paper bandages which tore and came apart in the course of a few hours; so the wounds, whether septic or not, were always left exposed. This kind of work, moreover, always had to be carried out at the double and without any breaks except for an hour, from noon till one, for the midday meal; woe betide anyone who was caught being inactive or standing at ease during working hours.’Contempt for hygienic, therapeutic and humanitarian principles’: life inside the Auschwitz hospitalIn order to be allowed into the hospital, the patients judged by the clinic doctors to be worthy of admission had to report a second time the following morning, immediately after reveille, to undergo another, very cursory examination by the doctor in charge of medical services; if he confirmed the need for hospitalisation, they would be sent to the shower room.

Its quality was extremely poor; it consisted of a rectangular block, very hard, devoid of any fatty material but instead full of sand. It did not produce lather and disintegrated very easily, so that after a couple of showers it was completely used up. After showering, there was no way of rubbing down one’s body or of drying it since there were no towels, and on coming out of the bath-house one had to run naked, whatever the time of year, the atmospheric and meteorological conditions or the temperature, as far as one’s own particular “block”, where one’s clothes had been left.The work to which the great majority of prisoners was assigned was manual labour of various kinds, all very demanding and unsuited to the physical condition and the abilities of those condemned to it; very few were employed in work which had any connection with the profession or trade they had practised in civilian life. Thus, neither of the present writers were able to work in the hospital or in the chemical laboratory of the “Buna-Werke”, but were forced to share the lot of their companions and undergo labours beyond their strength, sometimes working as navvies with pick and shovel, sometimes unloading coal or sacks of cement, or doing other sorts of very heavy work, all of which naturally took place out of doors, winter and summer, in snow, rain, sun or wind, and without clothing that provided adequate protection against low temperatures or bad weather.

To drink, half a litre of ersatz coffee, without sugar, was distributed morning and evening; only on Sundays was it sweetened with saccharin. There was no drinking water at Monowitz; the running water in the washrooms could only be put to external use, since it was river water, which arrived at the Camp neither filtered nor sterilised and was therefore highly dubious. It was clear in appearance, but of a yellowish colour if seen in any depth; its taste was between the metallic and the sulphurous.The prisoners were required to take a shower two or three times a week. However, these ablutions were not sufficient to keep them clean as soap was handed out in very parsimonious quantities: only a single 50g bar per month. The margarine was distributed on six days of the week only, and later this was reduced to three.