The essence and mechanism of change in the morality of Auschwitz prisoners

Concentration camp prisoners came from different ethnic backgrounds and various milieus, so when they were first interned within the perimeter fence, they held diverse political, religious, and moral beliefs. Some of them had never broken the law, while others were persistent offenders; some were members of the Bible Student movement¹, who had refused to join the army and kill other people, and were sent to concentration camps just like multiple murderers; faithful wives and devoted mothers were crowded together with prostitutes; clergymen and religious people with atheists; communists with their opponents, forming an assortment of many social groups and classes. The community of detainees was a collection of individuals who, before they were incarcerated, had undoubtedly observed sundry moral beliefs and principles to regulate their conduct. Yet, regardless of such disparities and the fact that many internees were morally degenerate, we may assume that the vast majority of them were people who, when they had still enjoyed their liberty, would have been considered decent and honest, and their morals sound.

The living conditions in concentration camps brought about changes in prisoners’ morality; I have discussed this problem in several previous articles (Glińska, 1967; and 1969: 57). The majority of survivors think the change was for the worse. Their memoirs and recollections express the opinion that their concentration camp imprisonment had a detrimental influence on their morals.

The survivors say they were better people in ordinary life, prior to their imprisonment in the camp and the ensuing change. However, they describe the essence of that shift in different terms. Basically, their memoirs demonstrate two divergent opinions on this matter. The first can be summed up as follows: the camp revealed a person’s true nature, it laid bare all the things that used to be hidden behind a mask of illusions and appearances, which was worn by an individual leading an ordinary, routine existence. It was only in the camp that the person showed their rectitude and true moral self. The other opinion said that the camp did not expose the truth about an inmate, but instead changed his or her nature, turning the person into an altered individual with a recalibrated set of moral principles. Everybody could either show their true face or not, both as a free person and a camp prisoner, so the moral difference between the two stages of life did not depend on wearing or stripping off a mask, but on an inner transformation.

The former opinion is to be found in a book by Seweryna Szmaglewska, though she is not entirely consistent on this point. In Smoke over Birkenau she writes that in the camp

“[t]he husks of principles fall away and so do the trite forms of good behavior, which many times permit a man‑zero to pass through a normal life in an exemplary fashion and conquer many an awkward situation, without realizing that he is a zero.” (Szmaglewska, 2008: 250)

According to Szmaglewska the hardship of imprisonment reawakens atavistic, dormant instincts which otherwise might have never been brought out. In the camp

“[t]he eternal white and black, the eternal good and evil rise within the human being and come to the surface.” (Szmaglewska, 2008: 251)

A similar view is voiced by Tadeusz Rek, who writes:

“The conditions in the camp, just like any other trials and tribulations, allowed a man’s natural tendencies and instincts to prevail, so now his true visage was seen, with no make‑up, no pose of wisdom, or civilized veneer. In the reality of the camp, sublimity lived side by side with baseness, virtue with vice, greatness and excellence with degeneracy and depravity.” (Rek, 1949: 180)

Krystyna Żywulska’s narrative sums up the camp experience in the following way:

“I know that I could never have learned the ‘lesson’ Auschwitz gave me anywhere else. Nowhere else could I have observed mankind stripped down to what it really is. In civilised conditions of any kind whatsoever the individual always puts on a mask, here [in the concentration camp] he has to be his true self.” (Żywulska, 2008: 150²).

The authors I have quoted above say that the camp debunked all pretence and revealed an individual’s actual moral worth. In their opinion, a person is either essentially good or bad by nature. However, his permanent traits are never observable when he leads a safe and peaceful existence. They only come to the fore in times of affliction, danger or social conflict, and then they put his humanity to the test.

A close parallel to the stance adopted by those authors is found in theoretical ethics, which offers either an egoistic or altruistic interpretation of human nature. Szmaglewska, Rek, and Żywulska appear to favour the former, that is they hold a pessimistic worldview, according to which the overall moral judgement of humans as a species, as well as human nature, is negative. The concept of man being evil by nature, typical of the pessimistic worldview, is present also in other Auschwitz memoirs, written by Józef Kret and Czesław Wincenty Jaworski.

Józef Kret (1962: 237–238) says that in the camp a man was completely dehumanized, turned into a wild animal and treated other humans accordingly. Similarly, C.W. Jaworski (1962: 110) describes the extinction of humane feelings in the camp and the inmate’s transformation into a wild beast, driven exclusively by animal instincts. These two authors think that the struggle for survival revealed what human nature really is and exposed its predominantly animalistic features. Yet such a view leads to a paradox, because it considers those features that man shares with the rest of the animal kingdom as constitutively, innately, and quintessentially human.

The comparison of humans to beasts which frequently occurs in survivors’ memoirs seems to serve as a metaphor that is to highlight the authors’ disapproval of the conduct of some prisoners. To a certain extent it may have originated in the observation that the desire to satisfy biological needs, such as the need to eat, sleep, rest, and feel secure, were the primary motive power behind prisoners’ actions. Such needs are common both to people and animals.

The opinion that the camp had an influence on the prisoners’ morals, though it only exposed their true faces, can be contrasted with the other opinion, also present in many survivors’ accounts, which states that prisoners’ morality was transformed. Those who hold that view perceive it as a real change, they never say the prisoners just discarded the burden of habitual thought and conduct which had been hiding their real, innate, and stable morality. Sometimes they don’t just describe the new traits, but attempt to demonstrate how and why these traits formed.

They often write that new traits were “acquired,” that prisoners “got used to reacting” in certain ways, that their reactions were “caused” or “produced” by something. These authors say that the changes in a prisoner’s morals were gradual, taking months or even years. According to Tadeusz Rek (1949: 108), they were continuous and went on for the entire time of incarceration. On the contrary, other authors think that the transformations occurred in a certain period, and afterwards the prisoner’s moral standards were stabilized and did not undergo any further radical modifications.

We may conclude that both opinions are valid and do not contradict each other. The stability of a prisoner’s moral standards depended on the stability of his situation in the camp. When the latter changed, his standards of conduct had to be revised. For instance, during periods of starvation a prisoner would not share food with his fellows, but when he had extra food or some opportunity to procure it, he helped other inmates. When he was sick and exhausted he desperately wanted to be admitted to hospital, even at someone else’s disadvantage, but when he felt stronger and healthier than others he would take care of them.

If we were to identify the more accurate description of the changes in the prisoners’ morals, it would probably be the latter one, treating the transformation as profoundly altering an inmate’s character. The idea that the camp only revealed what was true about an individual seems less convincing, as it is based on an a priori assumption that human nature has some inborn and constant moral qualities which are not affected by the external circumstances of an individual’s life. This reliance on the idea of immutable human nature and an inborn morality gives rise to questions about its ultimate sources and the reason why people are predisposed to good or bad deeds, but these are questions which cannot be answered in scientific discourse.

It has to be added that no author claims the camp changed the prisoners irrevocably. On the contrary, descriptions of moral transformations are accompanied by explanations that the change was observed only during the imprisonment. This suggestion finds its confirmation in the address to the reader that opens Stanisław Jagielski’s memoir. He writes:

“Do not look at us like inhabitants from another planet, like spectres returning from the other world . . . And do not think that the abysmal nightmare has emptied us of all sense of beauty or joie de vivre. The nightmare we saw and survived—that nightmare we want to forget.” (Jagielski, 1946: 20)

Tadeusz Rek is inclined to connect the moral change in the prisoner with the new hierarchy of values that was established in the camp. He says:

“Those matters that once used to be important and most important were slipping away, withdrawing, disappearing, and being replaced by new, previously unknown problems that formerly had had the lowest priority and the least importance, but now were attacking us with their colossal force and pressure. All those issues, formerly non‑existent and irrelevant, were surfacing up, assuming ever larger shapes and besieging the prisoner, until they ultimately consumed all his thoughts, feelings, and needs.” (Rek, 1949: 82)

Since we have concluded the prisoners really underwent a moral transformation, it is necessary to ask about the course of that change and its mechanism.

Writers discussing ethics stress that transformations in moral perception, especially in the conscience, are never sudden and radical, but tend to be slow and evolutionary. Lucien Lévy‑Bruhl describes them as follows:

“In fact the content of the conscience is far from remaining immutable. It varies, very slowly sometimes, but it varies. Old elements are gradually eliminated, and new ones find a place.” (Lévy‑Bruhl, loc. 1252–1253)

He adds that the changes in moral awareness entail further changes in moral practice, and that they are hardly visible, as they occur over more than one generation.

Research on the morals of Auschwitz prisoners demonstrates that changes in ethical phenomena can be extremely rapid, taking just months or years, not historical epochs. The reason is that the speed of transformation in the moral sphere depends on the rate and scope of transformation affecting the situation of a given community. Hitherto, historical epochs lasted several centuries and transitions between them took decades, so any metamorphoses in the ethical sphere occurred slowly, by degrees. Yet the community of Auschwitz prisoners, the subject of our study, was all of a sudden removed to a different era, resembling the age of slavery.

Studies concerning ethics have not come up with a comprehensive discussion of the mechanisms of change in morality, especially of the correlation between moral awareness and actual moral practice.

In one of the recent works on the subject, Stanisław Kowalski says that the mechanism of change when an individual’s new morality is being shaped can take one of three forms. The first leads from an individual’s knowledge (i.e. awareness) to action. This mechanism is predominant in periods of social stability, when there are basically no conflicts due to which established moral values could be challenged, and when public opinion exerts its pressure in a strong and unambiguous way. The second mechanism is characterized by changes that first transpire in action, and only later in awareness. It is typical of periods of “depravity,” when the hitherto binding ethical standards are no longer commensurate with the objectively existing conditions and needs. Lastly, the third mechanism involves a relative concurrence of transformation in both action and awareness (Kowalski, 1956: 204).

If the rate of change in moral principles or actions is not identical, no matter whether it is more dynamic in the former or the latter, ethical dilemmas, scruples, and hesitation arise. Such unavoidable moral conflicts caused by non‑symmetrical developments that occur in society and in an individual are highlighted by Lévy‑Bruhl, when he writes that

“ethics necessarily develops by reason of its solidarity with other social institutions, and that evolution cannot be accomplished without shocks and friction demonstrated in the domain of interests by struggles, and in the inward conscience by conflicts of duty, sometimes, at least in appearance, insoluble.” (Lévy‑Bruhl, loc. 2136–2138)

Studies on the transformations in the morals of Auschwitz prisoners indicate that the most common mechanism was the second type, from new behaviour to new beliefs. Although a prisoner went through the camp’s gate equipped with the moral values he cherished and with some habitual forms of conduct, and had previously approved of them, after a period of imprisonment he stopped applying them in practice. Even though he knew that people in need should receive support, he was unable to provide support, given the circumstances. He may have been a strong advocate of integrity, yet in the camp he had to “procure” [i.e. steal] things, because he was struggling for survival. He thought it was imperative to show due respect for the dead, but he was unable to stick to that principle all the time. Even if initially he did not want to break any moral principles, he saw others flouting them and did not stand up against it, remaining passive. The disparity between the old and new elements of morality gave rise to inner conflict. He started pondering about it, getting pangs of conscience and moral scruples when the accepted standards were not obeyed in real life. The conflict erupted when he realised that what he was actually doing was against his principles. It was only after some time that his principles gave way under the unrelenting pressure of camp life.

In Smoke over Birkenau Seweryna Szmaglewska provides many examples of the tragic moral conflicts in the camp. For instance, she describes the inner struggle of a sick woman prisoner who is so thirsty she decides to steal a few gulps of water from another, more provident inmate. The participants in this selected episode are anonymous, so we can surmise Szmaglewska wanted to present a typical dilemma that could be experienced by any prisoner. In a different passage she describes the detainees’ feelings towards the Jews who are being sent to the gas chambers to be murdered there. Those who are allowed to live on have plenty of tragic compassion for those who are doomed to perish, and wish they could show it in words or gestures, to incite them to mount up resistance or to warn them, but instead they remain passive and turn their faces away from the sad cortege in case the vigilant SS men should make them join it (Szmaglewska, 2008: 246, 249).

Fear for their own safety and the desire to survive prevented prisoners from protesting openly against the crimes committed by SS men and other evildoers. Although they deplored such acts and their conscience was troubled, they were not brave enough to help a battered fellow‑prisoner. Perhaps in some abstract and remote world you should have confronted the tormentor, but here in the camp

“[y]ou [could] not jump up and seize the tormentor by the throat, you [could] not slap the SS man in the face or kick him in the belly—you could not, because you [wanted] to live. Because you knew that such an act would be madness. . . .” (Szmaglewska, 2008: 183)

Prisoners’ conduct changed gradually, probably because they were still held back by their moral principles, preventing rapid transformation. Alfred Fiderkiewicz writes that new arrivals who volunteered to serve as functionary prisoners were immediately commanded to batter others and that

“initially they did it reluctantly and hesitated, but when they became more proficient, inch by inch, they would beat us more and more strongly.” (Fiderkiewicz, 52–53)

Fiderkiewicz also says that at the beginning the prisoners did not want to use any belongings that had been taken away from those who had been killed in the gas chambers, but imperceptibly they overcame their scruples, and helped themselves and their fellow‑prisoners to these things, in order to survive.

There is one more question to be answered, namely whether the changes in the prisoners’ morality came to a halt as soon as what they were doing ceased to correspond to their moral principles or whether, as a result of those changes, their moral awareness was changed as well.

We can infer from survivors’ memoirs that the perpetual violation of ethical standards was far from inconsequential. The standards were altered as well, though not in absolute terms, that is their new shape was not accepted unconditionally. In the course of his imprisonment, the detainee began to perceive certain practices as acceptable, yet only when they facilitated the achievement of his ultimate goal, that is survival. So this kind of judgement was merely temporary and utilitarian.

The new standards and new criteria of moral judgement were understood as applicable exclusively in the camp, in those conditions in which you had to suffer every day and keep up your effort to survive. Dr Władysław Fejkiel writes that in order to protect his patients he pretended to be loyal in relations with the SS men, bribing them both materially and “morally,” that is flattering them, all for the good of his fellow‑prisoners and for his own good. Such methods, which in principle are wrong, did not fill him with remorse at the time, as they were the only way to attain his goals (Fejkiel, 1964: 517). In his description of his attitude at the time to the killing of those who were incurably ill or had a contagious disease, Jagielski says:

“My point of view was tuned in to the reality of the camp. A doctor has no right to decide if a patient should continue to live, but . . . theory and practice were two different things.” (Jagielski, 1946: 104)

The excerpts I have quoted above illustrating the mechanism and progress of changes in the moral principles and conduct of these prisoners are representative of the views in the memoirs of other Auschwitz survivors. Practically all who have written on the subject support the hypothesis that the transformations in the prisoners’ conduct appeared prior to those in their moral principles and were more dynamic. Their morality evolved at a less rapid pace and was relativized exclusively to concentration camp life. It was not treated as universally binding, merely accepted within the perimeter of the camp, because prisoners realized it would have been impossible to follow other principles. Therefore, after liberation they not only recuperated physically and mentally, but also, and far more readily, rejected the new, malformed moral standards they had acquired in the concentration camp.

Translated from the original article: Glińska, A. “Istota i mechanizm przemian w moralności więźniów Oświęcimia.” Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim, 1969.

Notes
1. Probably meaning Jehovah’s Witnesses, who were oppressed by the Nazi German regime and after the War (as of 1950) also by the Communist authorities of People’s Poland.
2. The passage has been translated directly from the book’s original Polish edition.