56 pages • 1 hour read
Olga LengyelFive Chimneys: The Story of Auschwitz
Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1947A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Index of Terms
Blocova
Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses antisemitism, the Holocaust, murder, and physical and sexual violence.
The blocova is a term used for barrack chiefs who were chosen from among the inmates. She reported to the Lageraelteste. The Nazis tended to select brutal and large women for the role. The blocova often disciplined women in her care even though she was a prisoner herself, as participation in the camp’s hierarchy resulted in privileges and exemption from the selections for the gas chambers.
Lengyel remembers a time that the blocova called the women in the barrack to witness the “disobedience” of a woman who had diarrhea during the night: “Trembling like a child caught in a naughty act, she excused herself beseechingly: ‘Pardon me, please. I’m terribly ashamed, but I couldn’t help myself!’” (33). This anecdote emphasizes that the women could not hope for mercy from their blocova, even though she herself was also an inmate of the camp and therefore a victim of the Nazi system. This blocova, like others, likely participated in the camp’s culture of cruelty and punitive punishment in order to keep herself safe.
Canada
The warehouse where confiscated clothes and possessions of those condemned to the gas chambers were stored was called Canada. Thousands of inmates worked to sort items in Canada, including unpicking the lining of clothing to find hidden jewelry. The items in Canada were a stark symbol of the tragic loss of life at the camp; Lengyel describes how baby carriages were a painful reminder of how many babies were murdered in the gas chambers: “The children’s shoes and toy section, always well stocked, was another heartrending place” (60).
Items were often clandestinely circulated from Canada to inmates, such as pieces of clothing. In other cases, inmates working in Canada tried to barter their freedom from guards, but most often the guards killed these individuals, keeping the bribes for themselves.
Lengyel describes how Irma Griese would dress herself in high fashion items that she took from Canada, a jarring reminder of how the Nazis profited from the genocide they committed.
Lageraelteste
Similar to the blocova, the Lageraelteste refers to inmates who were chosen to serve as the leader of the other prisoners. She reported only to the Germans and was “the uncrowned queen of the camp” (43). The Lageraelteste during Lengyel’s imprisonment was a Czech kindergarten teacher. The immense power held by this individual—who was far from a position of civic responsibility in her previous life—characterizes the unreal world created by the Nazis within their camps; they recreated a social hierarchy where German murderers and rapists were given positions of responsibility over Jews, even those who might have been doctors or leaders in their previous life.
The Lageraelteste lived in private quarters, which Lengyel remembers as a “paradise compared to the filthy holes in which the common deportees lived” (44). The Lageraelteste’s living conditions illustrate the way that Nazi guards manipulated individuals into complicity not only using threats of violence or murder, but through privileges. Because of these privileges, the Lageraelteste was likely to cooperate with the Nazis and even be complicit in the murder of her fellow inmates.
Mussulmen
“Mussulmen” is a colloquial term used in extermination camps during World War II to describe prisoners who had reached a state of extreme physical deterioration due to immense deprivation, exhaustion, and despondence that they were near death. These individuals were emaciated, exhausted, devoid of vitality, and stripped of their humanity by the brutality of their captors.
Lengyel’s depiction of Mussulmen portrays the degradation and dehumanization inflicted upon inmates in Nazi death camps. She describes Musselmen as mere shells of their former selves, their bodies reduced to skeletal frames, their eyes hollow and devoid of life. They shuffled through the camps in a daze, barely able to comprehend their surroundings or muster the strength to carry on. These individuals were targeted in selections to die at the gas chambers.
Sonderkommando
The Sonderkommando was a group of inmates, usually Jewish, who were selected to work in the gas chambers and the crematorium. Lengyel states that this work was heinous and tragic, noting that the Sonderkommando workers were provided with hooked poles to allow them to separate and remove the crushed bodies from within the gas chambers. Some members of the Sonderkommando, particularly those who had been dentists or doctors, were charged with removing gold teeth from corpses and shaving the bodies of the deceased. They then loaded the bodies into the crematorium and dealt with the cremated remains, which were either buried or disposed of in the Vistula River.
The Sonderkommando workers would themselves be gassed and cremated after a few months; the Nazi officers would replace the squad with new workers from among the Jews who were brought there from around Europe.
