Auschwitz Report by Primo Levi & Leonardo De Benedetti

Author:Primo Levi & Leonardo De Benedetti
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Verso Books

There were no X-ray machines, so if an X-ray examination was needed the patient would be dispatched to Auschwitz, where there was good X-ray equipment, and from where he would return with a radiological diagnosis.

This description might suggest a hospital which was small, certainly, but complete in almost every department and efficiently run; but in reality there were many deficiencies, some of which, such as the lack of drugs and the shortage of medical equipment, were perhaps insurmountable, given the grave situation in which Germany already found herself, under pressure on one side from the unstoppable advance of the brave Russian troops and on the other from daily air raids by the heroic Anglo-American air force; but others could have been remedied, had there been the will to do so, by better organization of services.

The first and most important of these deficiencies was the inadequacy in number and capacity of the facilities. For example, there was no waiting-room for the clinics, so patients reporting to them were forced to stay out of doors – awaiting their turn in endless queues, whatever the season and whatever the weather – when, already exhausted from their long working day, they returned to the Camp in the evening, since the out-patient facilities were only in operation after all the labourers had returned to the Camp and the evening roll-call was over. Before entering the clinics, every patient had to take off his shoes, and was therefore forced to walk with bare feet over floors, such as that of the surgical out-patient clinic, which were very dirty due to the presence of soiled dressings thrown on the ground, and consequently soiled with blood and pus.

In the wards, there was a very serious shortage in the number of beds, which made it necessary for every pallet to be used by two people, whatever the nature and the gravity of the disease from which they were suffering; the possibility of contagion was therefore very high, especially considering the fact that, due to the lack of shirts, the hospital patients went naked; indeed, on entry to the hospital, every patient would deposit all his clothes in the disinfection unit. The blankets and palliasses of the pallets were absolutely filthy, stained with blood and pus and often with faeces, which patients in a pre-agonal state would void involuntarily.

The rules of hygiene were completely ignored, apart from what little was necessary to keep up appearances. So, for example, due to a shortage of mess tins, meals would be served in two or three shifts, and the patients in the second or third shift would be forced to eat their soup from receptacles inadequately rinsed in a bucket of cold water. In the so-called ‘Schonungs-Block’, running water had not been plumbed in, which was indeed also the case in all the other wards; but while the inmates of the latter were able to go to a specially designated ‘Waschraum’ to wash themselves whenever they wanted, those admitted to the former were

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