One Day: A Report from a German Concentration Camp 1939

Early morning on 12 January 1939. A convoy of prisoners arrives in a concentration camp. The tired prisoners are goaded by the guards as soon as they arrive. Morning roll-call in the camp: one loss is recorded. A prisoner was shot as he tried to escape during the night, his corpse hangs from the barbed wire fence. A block leader discovers that two of the prisoners covered themselves with rags and empty cement sacks to keep off the worst of the cold. They will be punished in the evening. Work brigades set off and those remaining in the camp are ordered to dig a pit in the parade ground. No-one knows what for. The new arrivals are given camp clothes and their hair shaved off. The block leader interrogates the prisoners. Anyone who does not give a satisfactory answer is routinely beaten. An old man working on the pit dies of exhaustion. One of the other prisoners who tries to help him is put in solitary detention. The camp commandant dictates letters. Among other things, he reports to his superiors that he has sold the hair shaved from the men's heads. In the clerk's office, two of the political prisoners interrogate one of the new arrivals whom they suspect of being informer. Suddenly the men are ordered to fill up the pit again. The command to dig the pit had been given out of pure arbitrariness. One of the guards drives the Jewish camp elder to his death. The other prisoners are unable to save him. The man dies in a hail of bullets from the watch towers. The work brigades return to the camp. The losses are counted at the evening roll-call. Several prisoners have died, unable to endure the harsh conditions and the hunger.