| COPY OF DOCUMENT L-73 Source: Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Vol.VII. USGPO, Washington, 1946, pp. 818-839 [Affidavit of Bruno
Bettelheim Concerning Patterns of Adaptation of Concentration Camp Inmates] City of Washington Bruno Bettelheim being first duly sworn deposes and says: 2. My political affiliations were with the Social Democratic Party which stood for the independence of Austria. The tenets of this party were diametrically opposed to the Nazi viewpoint and principles. 3. Immediately following the occupation of Austria on or about March 12, 1938, it became apparent to me that I would not be permitted to live in peace in Austria. Therefore, I resolved to leave the country. My wife and I left Vienna on about 12 or 13 of March and were stopped at the Czechoslovakian-Hungarian border that night. The next day we undertook to leave Vienna by train, and while my wife was permitted to proceed, I was detained by the police, ordered to remain in Vienna, and my passport was taken away from me. Within the next day or two the police searched my home. I was extensively questioned but not taken into custody, the police stating that it did not appear that I had violated any of the laws of Austria. Three or four weeks later I was taken into custody, the police stating that it did not appear that I had violated any of the laws of Austria. Three or four weeks later I was taken into custody by the Austria police and for three days questioned about my political activities. At the conclusion of the questioning the police officer who was in charge of the investigation dictated a statement to the effect that there appeared to be no basis whatever for any legal action against me. Thereupon I was released. Two weeks later I was taken into custody and imprisoned. It was stated to me that my confinement was the result of orders issued by the Gestapo in Berlin. I spent three days in jail in Vienna after which I was transferred to the concentration camp at Dachau early in May, 1938. I spent approximately four months in Dachau after which I was transferred to the concentration camp at Buchenwald. Meanwhile my wife had proceeded to the United States. I was released from Buchenwald in April 1939. My release was effected through the aid of some influential friends of mine in America who were able to enlist the assistance of the State Department of the United States. 4. Upon, my release I came to the United States. In November, 1939 'I was appointed Research Associate of the Progressive Education Association at the University of Chicago. Since then I have been connected with this University. At present I am Assistant Professor of Education and Principal of the University's Orthogenic School. 5. My period of confinement in the concentration camp at Dachau and Buchenwald afforded an opportunity to conduct investigations, collect data, and make certain observations concerning the effect on the personality and behavior of individuals who have spent several years in such institutions. The motives which prompted me to make such a study are adverted to below. It is not the purpose of this statement to recount once more the horror story of the German concentration camp. That story has been repeatedly and adequately documented, particularly in recent months following the fall of Germany. Accordingly, this statement does not emphasize individual acts of terror but is limited to the sociological significance of the concentration camp; viz., an examination and appraisal of the concentration camp as a means of producing psychological changes in the prisoners. On the basis of my previous experiencz with Gestapo methods and my observation of the deteriorating changes which occurred in the prisoners during the process of their adaptation to the camp situation, I was enabled to reach certain conclusions as to the results which the Gestapo sought to achieve by means of the camps. These conclusions are stated below. 6. In the concentration camp the Gestapo developed methods for subjecting not only free men, but also the most ardent foes of the Nazi system, to a process of disintegration from their position as autonomous individuals. This process was attained by means of exposing them to extreme experiences. During the course of my confinement my study of this subject embraced an investigation and examination of what occurred in the prisoners from the moment they had their first experience with the Gestapo up to the time when the process of adaptation to the camp situation was practically concluded. 7. Reasons for making studies. While my former training and psychologica1 interests were of material assistance to me in collecting the data and conducting the necessary investigations I did not analyze my own behavior and that of my fellow prisoners in order to add to pure scientific research. On the contrary, the study of these behaviors was a mechanism developed by me in order that I might have some intellectual interests and in this way be better equipped to endure life in the camp. It was developed by me to forestall a complete disintegration of my character and personality. I may add that I felt that without an activity which could force me to remain continuously critical of the Gestapo methods I would not be able to defend successfully the integrity of my personality against the impact of the Gestapo methods. The need for a strong defense against the influence which the camp was exercising on me became apparent during my first few days of confinement. I observed that I was behaving differently from the way I used to. I may add that I am convinced that I would have been unable to make these observations without the strict and continuous self-observation which my years of psychoanalytical training taught me. 8. I observed that some of my actions evidenced psycho-pathological behavior. Thereupon the questions arose in my mind as to whether or not I was progressing into insanity. Moreover I observed my fellow prisoners act in a most peculiar way although I had every reason to assume that they, too, had been normal persons before being imprisoned. To ascertain the nature of my own observations and to protect myself from the apparent disintegration manifested by tbe other prisoners obviously became a matter of prime importance to me. The answer was comparatively simple: to find out what happened in them and to me. If I did not change any more than all other normal persons, then what happened in me and to me was a process of adaptation and not the setting in of insanity. By undertaking this analysis I not only erected a bulwark against personality disintegration but I also succeeded in killing time in a way which seemed constructive. To forget for a time that I was in the camp seemed at first the greatest advantage of this occupation. As time ,went on, the enhancement of my self-respect due to my ability to continue to do meaningful work despite the contrary efforts of the Gestapo became of first importance. 9. Methods of collecting data. It was impossible to keep any records, because there was no time for them, no place to keep them and no way to take them out of the camp. This difficulty was overcome by making an effort to commit to memory the essential facts. While this procedure was handicapped by extreme malnutrition, the improvement in my health following termination of confinement in camp was accompanied by the recollection of much seemingly forgotten material. 10. The prisoners were wihing to talk about themselves because to find somebody interested in them and their problems added to their self-esteem. While conversation at work was strictly prohibited, during the hours of early morning and late evening, the guards could not see whether or not the prisoners talked. This afforded an opportunity of one or two hours per day which was available for conversation. 11. I worked in at least 20 different labor groups whose number varied from 20 or 30 all the way up to a few hundreds. I slept in five different barracks in each of which 200 or 300 prisoners lived. In this way I came to know personally at least 600 prisoners at Dachau (out of approximately 6,000) and at least 900 at Buchenwald (out of approximately 8,000). Although older prisoners of the same category lived together in barracks, all categories were mixed at work so that I was able to contact and interview prisoners of all types. The main different categories were : political prisoners; "work-shy" prisoners, that is, persons who did not agree to work wherever the government wanted them to work, or who had changed working places to get higher wages, etc.; former members of the French Foreign Legion and spies ; Jehovah's Witnesses and other conscientious objectors; Jews; criminals; and other groups, e. g. former members of such suppressed Nazi groups as the followers of Roehm who were still alive. 12. I was thus afforded an opportunity of interviewing all different groups and in this way secured an adequate sampling, I was able to find only two other persons whose intelligence and training qualified them to participate in my investigation. These individuals spoke to several hundred prisoners. Every day during the morning count of the prisoners, while waiting for assignment to labor groups, reports were exchanged, and theories discussed. These talks proved very helpful in clarifying mistakes due to taking a one-sided viewpoint. 13. The process of adaptation to the camp situation can be broken down into three different stages. The main event of the first stage is the transportation to the camp and the first experiences in it. The next stage is characterized by a slow process of changing the prisoner's life and personality. It occurs step by step continuously. The last stage is the final adaptation to the camp situation. These three stages will be analyzed below: 14. The transportation into the camp and the first experiences in it. After having spent several days in prison, the prisoners were brought into the camp. During this transportation they were exposed to constant tortures of various kinds. Corporal punishment consisting of whipping, kicking, slapping intermingled with shooting and wounding with the bayonet, alternated with tortures the obvious goal of which was extreme exhaustion. For instance, the prisoners were forced to stare for hours into glaring lights, to kneel for hours, and so on. From time to time a prisoner got killed; no prisoner was permitted to take care of his or another's wounds. These tortures alternated with efforts on the part of the guards to force the prisoners to hit one another, and to defile what the guards considered the prisoners' most cherished values. For instance, the prisoners were forced to curse their God, to accuse themselves of vile actions, accuse their wives of adultery and of prostitution. This continued for hours and was repeated at various times. 16. The purpose of the tortures was to break the resistance of the prisoners, and to assure the guards that they were really superior to them. This can be seen from the fact that the longer the tortures lasted, the less violent they became. The guards became slowly less excited, and at the end even talked with the prisoners. As soon as a new guard took over, he started with new acts of terror, although not as violent as in the beginning, and he eased up sooner than his predecessor. Sometimes prisoners who had already spent time in camp were brought back with a group of new prisoners. These old prisoners were not tortured if they could furnish evidence that they had already been in the camp. That these tortures were planned can be seen from the fact that during my transportation into the camp after several prisoners had died and many had been wounded in tortures lasting for 12 hours, the command, "Stop mistreating the prisoners," came and from this moment on the prisoners were left in peace till they arrived in the camp when another group of guards took over and started anew to take advantage of them. 16. Most of the prisoners became so exhausted that they were only partly conscious of what happened. In general, prisoners remembered the details and did not mind talking about them, but they did not like to talk about what they had felt and thought during the time of torture. The few who volunteered information made vague statements which sounded like devious rationalizations, invented for the purpose of justifying that they had endured treatment injurious to their self-respect without trying to fight back. The few who had tried to fight back could not be interviewed ; they were dead. 17. I can vividly recall my extreme weariness, resulting from a bayonet wound which I had received early in the course of transportation and from a heavy blow on the head. Both injuries led to the loss of a considerable amount of blood, and made me groggy. Nevertheless I wondered that the guards really tortured prisoners in the way it had been described in books on the concentration camps; that the Gestapo was so simple-minded as either to enjoy forcing prisoners to defile themselves or to expect to break their resistance in this way. I wondered that the guards were lacking in fantasy when selecting the means to torture the prisoners; that their sadism was without imagination. I was rather amused by the repeated statement that guards do not shoot the prisoners but kill them by beating them to death because a bullet costs six pfennigs, and the prisoners are not worth even so much. Obviously the idea that these men, most of them formerly influential persons, were not worth such a trifle impressed the guards considerably. It was clear that these tortures followed a deliberate and purposeful plan. This is evidenced by the fact that the railroad coaches in which prisoners were transported were equipped with unusually strong light bulbs. The prisoners were forced to stare for hours at these lights which created in them a condition analogous to a state of hypnotism. These circumstances contributed to creating a condition which may best be described as a state of "depersonalization." It seemed as if I had become convinced that these horrible and degrading experiences somehow did not happen to "me" as a subject but to "me" as an object. This experience was corroborated by the statements of other prisoners. 18. All the thoughts and emotions which I had during the transportation were extremely detached. It was as if I watched things happening in which I only vaguely participated. Later I learned that many prisoners had developed this same feeling of detachment, as if what happened really did not matter to oneself. It was strangely mixed with a conviction that "this cannot be true, such things just do not happen." Not only during the transportation, but all through the time spent in camp, the prisoners had to convince themselves that this was real, was really happening, and not just a nightmare. They were never wholly successful. 19. There were good indications that most guards embraced a similar attitude, although for different reasons. They tortured the prisoners partly because they enjoyed demonstrating their superiority, partly because their superiors expected it of them. But, having been educated in a world which rejected brutality, they felt uneasy about what they were doing. It seems that they, too, had an emotional attitude toward their acts of brutality which might be described as a feeling of unreality. After having been guards in the camp for some time, they got accustomed to inhuman behavior, they became "conditioned" to it; it then became part of their "real" life. 20. To summarize: During the transportation the prisoners were exposed to physical and mental tortures, the purpose of which seemed to be to break any ability to resist the Gestapo. They seemed, moreover, to serve the purpose of overcoming the Gestapo members' fear of the prisoners who were more intelligent and belonged usually to a higher social group. During the transportation the prisoners developed a state of detachment, feeling as if what happened did not really happen to them as persons. Thus, transportation into the camp was instrumental in bringing about the alienation of the prisoner from his normal personality. 21. It seems that camp experiences which remained within the normal frame of reference of a prisoner's life experience were dealt with by means of the normal psychological mechanisms. Once the experience transcended this frame of reference, the normal mechanisms seemed no longer able to deal adequately with it and new psychological mechanisms were needed. The experience during the transportation was one of those transcending the normal frame of reference and the reaction to it may be described as "unforgetable, but unreal." 22. Attitudes similar to those developed toward the transportation could be observed in other extreme situations. On a terribly cold winter night when a snow storm was blowing, all prisoners were punished by being forced to stand at attention without overcoats-they never wore any-for hours. This, after having worked for more than 12 hours in the open and having received hardly any food. The reason for this punishment was that two prisoners had tried to escape. On such occasions all prisoners were always punished very severely, so that in the future they would give away any secret they had learned, because otherwise they would have to suffer. The idea was that every prisoner ought to feel responsible for any act committed by any other prisoner. This was in line with the principle of the Gestapo to force the prisoners to feel and act as a group, and not as individuals. They were threatened with having to stand all through the night. After about 20 prisoners had died from exposure the discipline broke down. The threats of the guards became ineffective. To be exposed to the weather was a terrible torture; to see one's friends die without being able to help, and to stand a good chance of dying, created a situation similar to the transportation, except that the prisoners had by now more experience with the Gestapo. Open resistance was impossible, as impossible as it was to do anything definite to safeguard oneself. A feeling of utter indifference swept the prisoners. They did not care whether the guards shot them; they were indifferent to acts of torture committed by the guards. The guards had no longer any authority, the spell of fear and death was broken. It was again as if what happened did not "really" happen to oneself. There was again the split between the "me" to whom it happened, and the "me" who really did not care and was just an interested but detached observer. Unfortunate as the situation was, they felt free from fear and therefore were actually happier than at most other times during their camp experiences. 23. After more than 80 prisoners had died, and several hundred had their extremities so badly frozen that they had later to be amputated, the prisoners were permitted to return to the barracks. They were completely exhausted, but did not experience that feeling of happiness which some of them had expected. They felt relieved that the torture was over, but felt at the same time that they no longer were free from fear and no longer could strongly rely on mutual help. Each prisoner as an individual was now comparatively safer, but he had lost the safety originating in being a member of a unified group. This event was again freely discussed, in a detached way, and again the discussion was restricted to facts; the prisoners' emotions and thoughts during this night were hardly ever mentioned. The event itself and its details were not forgotten, but no particular emotions were attached to them; nor did they appear in dreams. 24. The psychological reactions to events which were somewhat more within the sphere of the normally comprehensible were decidedly different from those to extreme events. It seems that prisoners dealt with less extreme events in the same way as if they had happened outside of the camp. For example, if a prisoner's punishment was not of an unusual kind, he seemed ashamed of it, he tried not to speak about it. A slap in one's face was embarrassing, and not to be discussed. One hated individual guards who had kicked one, or slapped one, or verbally abused one much more than the guard who really had wounded one seriously. In the latter case one eventually hated the Gestapo as much, but not so much the individual inflicting the punishment. Obviously this differentiation was unreasonable, but it seemed to be inescapable. One felt deeper and more violent aggressions against particular Gestapo members who had committed minor vile acts than one felt against those who had acted in a much more terrible fashion. 25. It seems that all experiences which might have happened during the prisoner's "normal" life history provoked a "normal" reaction. Prisoners seemed for instance, particularly sensitive to punishments similar to those which a parent might inflict on his child. To punish a child within their "normal" frame of reference, but that they should become the object of the punishment destroyed their adult frame of reference. So they reacted to it not in an adult, but in a childish way-with embarrassment and shame, with violent, impotent, and unmanageable emotions directed, not against the system, but against the person inflicting the punishment. 26. Resentment by prisoners of minor vile acts on the part of the guards more than extreme experiences is explained as follows: When a prisoner was cursed, slapped, pushed around "like a child" and if he was, like a child, unable to defend himself, this revived in him behavior patterns and psychological mechanisms which he had developed when a child. Like a child he was unable to see his treatment in the general context of the behavior of the Gestapo. The degradation of the prisoner by means of being treated like a child took place not only in his mind, but in the minds of his fellow prisoners, too. Differences in attitudes of old and new prisoners 27. As time went on the difference in the reaction to minor and major sufferings slowly seemed to disappear. This change in reaction was only one of many differences between old and new prisoners. A few others ought to be mentioned. In the following discussion I refer to the term "new prisoners" to those who had not spent more than one year in the camp ; "old" prisoners are those who have spent at least three years in the camp. 28. The main concern of the new prisoners seemed to be to remain intact as a personality and to return to the outer world the same persons who had left it; all their emotional efforts were directed towards this goal. Old prisoners seemed mainly concerned with the problem of how to live as well as possible within the camp. Once they had reached this attitude, everything that happened to them, even the worst atrocity, was "real" to them. No longer was there a split between one to whom things happened and the one who observed them. Once this stage was reached of taking everything that happened in the camp as "real," there was every indication that the prisoners who had reached it were afraid of returning to the outer world. They did not admit it directly, but from their talk it was clear that they hardly believed they would ever return to this outer world because they felt that only a cataclysmic event-a world war and world revolution-could free them; and even then they doubted that they would be able to adapt to this new life. They seemed aware of what had happened to them while growing older in the camp. They realized that they had adapted themselves to the life in the camp and that this process was coexistent with a basic change in their personality. 29. The most drastic demonstration of this realization was provided by the case of a formerly very prominent radical German politician. He declared that according to his experience nobody could live in the camp longer than five years without changing his attitudes so radically that he no longer could be considered the same person he used to be. He asserted that he did not see any point in continuing to live once his real life consisted in being a prisoner in a concentration camp, that he could not endure developing those attitudes and behaviors he saw developing in all old prisoners. He therefore had decided to commit suicide on the sixth anniversary of his being brought into the camp. His fellow prisoners tried to watch him carefully cn this day, but nevertheless he succeeded. 30. There was, of course, considerable variation among individuals in the time it took them to make their peace with the idea of having to spend the rest of their lives in the camp. Some became part of the camp life rather soon, some probably never. The change to accepting camp life as real never took place before spending two years in camp. Even then everyone was overtly longing to regain freedom. Some of the indications from which I could observe the changed attitude were: scheming to find oneself a better place in the camp rather than trying to contact the outer world, avoiding speculation about one's family, or world affairs, concentrating all interest on events taking place inside of the camp. It so happened that on the same day news was received of a speech by President Roosevelt, denouncing Hitler and Ger-many, and rumors spread that one officer of the Gestapo would be replaced by another. The new prisoners discussed the speech excitedly, and paid no attention to the rumors, the old prisoners no attention to the speech, but devoted all their conversations to the changes in camp officers. When I expressed to some of the old prisoners my astonishment that they seemed not to be interested in discussing their future life outside the camp, they frequently admitted that they no longer could visualize themselves living outside the camp, making free decisions, taking care of themselves and their families. The changes in attitudes toward their families and to events taking place in the outside world were not the only ones which could be observed in old prisoners; other differences between old and new prisoners could be recognized in their hopes for their future lives, in the degree to which they regressed to infantile behavior, and in many other ways. When discussing these differences between old and new prisoners I wish to make clear that there were great individual variations, that all statements are generalizations based on my observation of and discussion with the individuals. 31. The new prisoners consistently accused their families of betraying and cheating them. They would weep over a letter telling of the efforts in regard to their property which had been sold without their permission. They would swear at their families which "obviously" considered them "already dead." Even the smallest change in their former private world attained tremendous importance. 32. The violent reaction against changes in their families was the counterpart of the prisoners' realization that they were changing. What enraged them was probably not only the fact of the change, but the change in standing within the family which it implied. Their families had been dependent on them for decisions, and now they were the ones to be dependent. That created in them a feeling of dependency. The only chance they saw for becoming again the head of the family was that the family structure remain untouched despite their absence. Also they knew the attitudes of most persons toward those who have spent time in prisons of any kind. 33. Old prisoners did not like to be reminded of their families and former friends. When they spoke about them, it was in a very detached way. They liked to receive letters, but it was not very important to them. It has been mentioned that they had some realization of how difficult it might be for them to find their way back, but there was another contributing factor, namely, the prisoners' hatred of all those living outside of the camp, who "enjoyed life as if we were not rotting away." |