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  Holocaust Survivor Ruth Klüger: "Vienna Reeks of Anti-Semitism"

Holocaust Survivor Ruth Klüger "Vienna Reeks of Anti-Semitism"

Part 2: Part II: "One of the youngest at Birkenau

Klüger: Could be. But more interesting still is the question whether people who are paranoid react better when they are really being persecuted than those who aren’t paranoid. That would then contradict the theory of Bruno Bettelheim and others, that a completely rational person, someone who has been brought up correctly, would know how to react in emergencies and crises. That, for example, you would join the partisans and defend yourself. But that apparently is not the case. It is the crazy ones who react correctly in crazy situations.

SPIEGEL: A good theory, which could perhaps be proved with the example of your mother…

Klüger: Yes. You don’t believe it?

SPIEGEL: I don’t know. But getting back to this woman who said after arriving in Auschwitz: “After all we are in Central Europe.” What she was probably getting at was that rumors such as the gassing of prisoners were hard to believe. Were you surprised at this woman’s reaction?

Klüger: A little bit, yes. I slowly came to realize that the adults actually knew less than I did. That I was ahead of the adults because I had been born during this period and didn’t have to adapt to it.

SPIEGEL: You were already aware of this as a child?

Klüger: Certainly. The adults were constantly talking about things that didn’t mean anything to me. All the things that were part of a free, middle-class existence. I hadn’t known any of that. Instead I learned to be cautious. Right from the very beginning.

SPIEGEL: I find the skepticism of this woman quite sensible. After all she merely believed that such an advanced culture, as that of the Germans, must surely have led to more sensitive society.

Klüger: So what? This genocide was carried out in Central Europe by a country where practically everyone was able to read.

SPIEGEL: We know that now. But that aside, don’t you believe that Central European culture provides some sort of a shield from barbarism, albeit an imperfect one.

Klüger: In this matter I am far too level-headed. I don’t believe that it protected us in any way, shape or form. In fact quite the opposite. Cultures which we used to refer to as primitive do at least stick to the rules. So, for example, we know they might have perhaps scalped their enemies but not their own people. This couldn’t be relied on in cultivated Europe. After all we were their “own people.” We were German or Austrian citizens. And the fact that we didn’t go to church didn’t in reality bother that many people. Especially since church attendance was down even among the rest of the population.

SPIEGEL: You were subjected to extreme physical and of course psychological strains in Auschwitz. Do you ever find yourself in situations now which remind you of that time?

Klüger: Oh, you know, for years I smugly thought I was the sort of person able to survive a concentration camp. But the older I’ve got, the clearer it has become to me that I am not. And now that I’m old, I know I wouldn’t survive two weeks.

SPIEGEL: Back then you were of course physically stronger.

Klüger: Well, yes. But to answer your question about being reminded of that time: that did happen to me once. I had locked myself out of my house and had to wait on the doorstep the whole night. It was bitterly cold. It wasn’t until five o’clock in the morning that the papers were delivered and I could be let in. I was so frozen that it took hours, with a warm shower and so on, to get warm again. But somehow it reminded me of everything. It even brought back a sort of feeling of solidarity with the people from my childhood, a certain reassurance and even some sort of contentment.

SPIEGEL: Do you remember concrete situations in Auschwitz?

Klüger: Rarely. On the one hand, this whole experience in the concentration camp seems so far away to me now, that it is almost impossible to imagine it properly. And I can barely grasp the fact that I was there at all. On the other hand, the complete opposite is also true…

SPIEGEL: That the experience is also very present?

Klüger: No. That you ask yourself: How on earth did we get out? How was it at all possible to get out? That thought sometimes occurs to me again and again.

SPIEGEL: And how did you get out in the end?

Klüger: There was a selection of prisoners fit to work in June 1944. At the time it seemed so easy: On the first attempt, I was turned away but then I tried again and I was selected to work. Looking back now, it seems crazy. I am really one of the youngest people you’ll find who was in Birkenau at that time and managed to get out. I was only just 12-years-old.

SPIEGEL: It wasn’t until October 1944 that you turned 13.

Klüger: Yes. My mother and I didn’t go through the selection process on the ramps when we arrived, but went straight to the family camp. Of course the family camp wasn’t a friendly, comfortable living room. It just meant that men and women from Theresienstadt were in the same camp. They then decided to select women between 15 and 45 for work. My mother said: “We have to do it. It’s our only chance.” And I said. “But I am 12 and don’t look older.” And she just replied: “Then say you are 15.” And I thought, if I tell such obvious lies I will have nothing but problems and God knows what will happen to me. So I put myself in line and when it was my turn I said I was 13. I was rejected.

SPIEGEL: Were you separated at once from your mother?

Klüger: No. We were standing round a while, and my mother said: “Now go again and try again.” And because she pushed me so much, I did. I was totally against it, and still didn’t believe it would work. Even then I was always very skeptical about what my mother thought. This time I stood in a different line. I think the line that I was in was being checked by Dr. Mengele…

SPIEGEL: … who was the doctor who made the decision about who should live and who should die.

Klüger: I think so. I don’t want to namedrop, but I think I recognized him on photos I saw later. One of the women who was writing down the information came up to me and asked me my age, just before it was my turn to go up. “How old are you?” And I said: “13” And she said: “Say you’re 15.” One or two minutes later it was my turn and I just said to the doctor: “I am 15,” and he said “But she doesn’t look it. She looks weak.” And the woman taking notes said: “No, no, she looks strong. Look she has strong legs, she can work.” She said it very kindly.

SPIEGEL: The woman was no doubt also a prisoner.

Klüger: Yes, she was a prisoner. I’ll never forget that. There can only be one explanation why she did that: She wanted to do some good and she wanted to help me. She had no other reason to do it. For me this scene is, so to speak, the epitome of goodness without any self-interest. I have of course thought about her a lot since then.

SPIEGEL: Did the female prison guards actually act differently to the SS men?

Klüger: In Auschwitz itself I realized very quickly that you should attract as little attention as possible. So I had very little to do with the SS people. They just did an awful lot of shouting around the place. Although the Block elders, who were also prisoners, did that too. We were constantly snarled at and shouted at. And I made myself as small as possible. Which wasn’t very hard, as I was small.

SPIEGEL: And what about later in the work camp?

Klüger: The first female guards I came into contact with were actually in Christianstadt, which we were brought to from Auschwitz. That was a sub-camp belonging to Gross Rosen in Silesia. Some of these women were nasty, others weren’t. In general women are less violent than men.

SPIEGEL: What did you have to do there?

Klüger: The older prisoners worked in the munitions factories. I always worked outside in the forest or the quarry.

SPIEGEL: And you worked by your mother’s side?

Klüger: No, she worked somewhere else. But yes, it was in the same camp. We always stayed together.

SPIEGEL: In spite of all the tensions between you both, being with your mother must have been a blessing.

Klüger: Definitely. I wouldn’t want to deny that. But the best thing of all was that my mother had found this wonderful friend Susi, who I really liked. She only died three years ago in Los Angeles.

SPIEGEL: What happened when the Nazis closed the camp?

Klüger: We had to march and march, further and further, with all the other prisoners. I was really weak and completely starved. Then on the second evening six of us ran away. Three of the others were Czech: We were quite near the border so they obviously thought they would be able to make it over. The other three, Susi, my mother and I, wanted to get over to the Russians. But we never made it. It was impossible to get past the front. In the end we passed ourselves off as German refugees and managed to get transported by train to Bavaria.

SPIEGEL: Was that not a big risk? Did everyone look as wretched as you?

Klüger: I think that around that time, when everyone was living on the street, no one was looking very closely. But of course we were lucky. One time we were spotted and even arrested. But the policeman didn’t quite know what to do with us. His boss wasn’t there, and the Russians were firing behind him, so he let us go free. I tell you: pure luck.

SPIEGEL: Do you remember the day the war ended?

Klüger: Yes. For me the war came to an end in April. We had reached Straubing and the Americans were already there. Suddenly we saw a military policeman on the corner directing traffic. So my mother went up to him and said that we had come from a concentration camp. And he just turned round, covered his ears with his hands and said something along the lines of: “More of them again. I’ve already had enough of that lot.”

Interview conducted by Martin Doerry