Saxon Greeting

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The Saxon Greeting, or Sachsengruss, is a gymnastic routine made famous by the Werk Glaube und Schönheit (Belief and Beauty Society), an organisation set up in Nazi Germany for young women aged between 17 and 21, and part of the Bund Deutscher Mädel (League of German Girls). The routine involved rhythmic dancing and knee bending exercises specifically designed to show off the female physique, and the dancers wore short white gymnastic outfits similar to those of the Women's League of Health and Beauty in the UK. In the years prior to the Second World War the society often toured outside Germany giving displays in other countries.^[1]

The exercise, which involves repeatedly bending the knees, can be very physically exhausting and for this reason was adopted by concentration camp guards as a punishment to inflict on their prisoners. The inmates were forced to perform it naked, for hours each day. If any of them fell, or were unable to continue, they were shot.^[2]

Zlata couldn’t buy it. She knew that at Auschwitz everyone’s dream was to do what the Germans did: to force the Germans to stand in the wind, rain and snow, hour after hour, naked, their hands overhead in a "Saxon greeting," beating them, whipping them as they cried, "No!" and to march them to cyanide to the cadence of "Links! To your left!" But the dream disappeared every day at the call of "Aufstellen! Line up!" and now Zlata wondered if wish and reality weren’t mixed up in Lola’s mind. "Lola," said Zlata. "Are you in charge of any Germans?"^[3]

The Sachsengruss, or Saroquette, is also a type of rose bred in Germany before the First World War.^[4]

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