Muselmann

Muselmann (pl. Muselmänner, the German version of Musulman, meaning Muslim) was a slang term used among captives of World War II Nazi concentration camps to refer to those suffering from a combination of starvation (known also as "hunger disease") and exhaustion and who were resigned to their impending death.[1][2] The Muselmann prisoners exhibited severe emaciation and physical weakness, an apathetic listlessness regarding their own fate, and unresponsiveness to their surroundings owing to the barbaric treatment by the Nazis and prisoner functionaries.[3]

Buchenwald inmates, 16 April 1945 when camp was liberated

Some scholars argue that the term possibly comes from the Muselmann's inability to stand for any time due to the loss of leg muscle, thus spending much of the time in a prone position, recalling the position of the Musulman (Muslim) during prayers.[4]

Usage of the term in literature

The American psychologist David P. Boder assisted in identifying the term musselman when in 1946 he conducted interviews with camp survivors in Europe. He asked them to describe, spell and pronounce the word for camp inmates so emaciated that they had lost the will to live.[5][6]

Primo Levi tried to explain the term (he also uses Musselman), in a footnote of If This Is a Man, his autobiographical account of his time in Auschwitz:[1]

This word ‘Muselmann’, I do not know why, was used by the old ones of the camp to describe the weak, the inept, those doomed to selection.
— Primo Levi, If This Is a Man, chapter: "The Drowned and the Saved".

The psychologist and Auschwitz survivor Viktor Frankl, in his book Man's Search for Meaning, provides the example of a prisoner who decides to use up his last cigarettes (used as currency in the concentration camps) in the evening because he is convinced he won't survive the Appell (roll call assembly) the next morning; his fellow captives derided him as a Muselmann. Frankl compares this to the dehumanized behavior and attitudes of the kapos.[7]

The testimonial of the Polish witness, Adolf Gawalewicz, Refleksje z poczekalni do gazu: ze wspomnień muzułmana ("Reflec­tions in the Gas Chamber's Waiting Room: From the Memoirs of a Muselmann"), published in 1968, incorporates the term in the title of the work.[8]

Origin and alternative slang terms

The term spread from Auschwitz-Birkenau to other concentration camps. Its equivalent in the Majdanek concentration camp was Gamel (derived from German gammeln - colloquial for "rotting") and in the Stutthof concentration camp, Krypel (derived from German Krüppel, "cripple"). When prisoners reached this emaciated condition, they were selected by camp doctors and murdered by gas, bullet or various other methods.

Action 14f13

The gas chamber at Bernburg Euthanasia Centre, designed by Erwin Lambert
Sachsenhausen gate Arbeit macht frei

Those prisoners who were considered Muselmänner and thus unable to work were also very likely considered to be "excess ballast" inside the concentration camps.[9] In spring 1941 Heinrich Himmler expressed his desire to relieve concentration camps of sick prisoners and those no longer able to work.[10] Action T4, an "euthanasia" programme for mentally ill, disabled and other inmates of hospitals and nursing homes who were deemed unworthy of life, was extended to also include the weakest concentration camp prisoners.[11][12] Himmler, together with Philipp Bouhler transferred technology and techniques used in the Aktion T4 programme to the concentration camps, and later to Einsatzgruppen and death camps.[13][14]

The first concentration camp victims were gassed by carbon monoxide poisoning and the first known selection took place in April 1941 at Sachsenhausen concentration camp. By summer, at least 400 prisoners from Sachsenhausen were "retired". The scheme operated under the Concentration Camps Inspector and the Reichsführer-SS under the name "Sonderbehandlung 14f13".[15] The combination of numbers and letters was derived from the SS record-keeping system and consists of the number "14" for the Concentration Camps Inspector, the letter "f" for the German word "deaths" (Todesfälle) and the number "13" for the cause of death, in this case "special treatment", a bureaucratic euphemism for gassing.[16]

See also

Further reading

References

  1. 1 2 Levi, Primo. If This Is a Man / The Truce. Abacus (1987), ISBN 0349100136, p.94.
  2. ↑ Danuta Czech (1996). Auschwitz: Nazi Death Camp. Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. ISBN 978-83-85047-56-8.
  3. ↑ Muselmann definition Johannes Kepler University of Linz, official website. Insitut für Sozial und Wirtschaftsgeschichte. Retrieved November 30, 2010
  4. ↑ Muselmann definition (PDF) Yad Vashem, official website. Shoah Resource Center, The International School for Holocaust Studies. Retrieved November 30, 2010
  5. ↑ Donald A. Ritchie (2011). The Oxford Handbook of Oral History. OUP USA. pp. 245–. ISBN 978-0-19-533955-0.
  6. ↑ Alan Rosen (18 October 2010). The Wonder of Their Voices: The 1946 Holocaust Interviews of David Boder. Oxford University Press. pp. 306–. ISBN 978-0-19-978076-1.
  7. ↑ Viktor E. Frankl (1 June 2006). Man's Search for Meaning. Beacon Press. ISBN 978-0-8070-1428-8.
  8. ↑ Adolf Gawalewicz, Refleksje z poczekalni do gazu: ze wspomnień muzułmana, Cracow, Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1968. 165 pp.
  9. ↑ Robert P. Watson (26 April 2016). The Nazi Titanic: The Incredible Untold Story of a Doomed Ship in World War II. Da Capo Press. pp. 65–. ISBN 978-0-306-82490-6.
  10. ↑ Stephen Goodell; Sybil Milton; United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (1995). 1945: the year of liberation. U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. ISBN 978-0-89604-700-6.
  11. ↑ S. Kühl (7 August 2013). For the Betterment of the Race: The Rise and Fall of the International Movement for Eugenics and Racial Hygiene. Springer. pp. 126–. ISBN 978-1-137-28612-3.
  12. ↑ United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (2002). The Holocaust and History: The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed, and the Reexamined. Indiana University Press. pp. 332–. ISBN 0-253-21529-3.
  13. ↑ David Nicholls (2000). Adolf Hitler: A Biographical Companion. ABC-CLIO. pp. 34–. ISBN 978-0-87436-965-6.
  14. ↑ Henry Friedlander (9 November 2000). The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution. Univ of North Carolina Press. pp. 142–. ISBN 978-0-8078-6160-8.
  15. ↑ Peter Hayes (17 January 2017). Why?: Explaining the Holocaust. W. W. Norton. pp. 86–. ISBN 978-0-393-25437-2.
  16. ↑ Michael Burleigh; Wolfgang Wippermann (7 November 1991). The Racial State: Germany 1933-1945. Cambridge University Press. pp. 161–. ISBN 978-0-521-39802-2.
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