"Running to the wire"

The situation of the prisoner was such that only a very few chose to "run to the wire", meaning to commit suicide by coming in contact with the high-voltage barbed wire.


Reaching the wire was a sure way to escape the camp, but there was always the chance one would be caught before reaching the fence, and then be thrown into the bunker. This would be a death more difficult and more painful than the wire.


On one hand, the SS could have no objective to acts of suicide. The fewer prisoners they had to kill off themselves, the better. But unsuccessful suicide attempts were given very severe punishment: beating at the whipping post or solitary confinement in the bunker [which very few survived]. These measures were intended to deter others from attempting the same to prevent the short-circuiting of the fence, which had to be recharged. They also were intended to reinforce the power of the camp boundary. But above all, the punishments were targeted to deter this final act of attempted self-determination.

Suicide was the ultimate act of the human will. Suicides insulted power by their martyrdom, robbing it of the decision over their own deaths. And these martyrs carried out this decision at the boundaries of the camp, precisely at the spatial point where power believed it had finally vanquished freedom.

Discovering the "Muselmann"

I had recently been very intrigued by a book called "The Time That Remains", written by Giorgio Agamben.

The Muselmann

Muselmann was the term applied to inmates who had been broken psychically and physically by life in the concentration camps.

The Muselmann was a destroyed man/woman, a victim of gradual extermination. A prisoner who only received camp food, who had no possibility to “organise” a bit more to eat, wasted away within a few weeks. Steady hunger led to chronic weakness, the muscles dwindled, the vital functions were reduced to a minimum, the pulse decelerated, blood-pressure and temperature dropped, the body started to shiver from cold. The respiration slowed down, the voice became low, each movement was a great exertion.

Hunger and diarrhoea accelerated the decline. Each gesture was uncoordinated and flighty. When sitting, the trunk staggered. The Muselmann made mechanic movements without reason. When he had to walk, he could not lift his legs any more.

The Muselmann no longer was the master of his own body . He got oedema and abscesses, he was covered with dirt all over and began to stink. The Muselmann appeared as follows:

Extremely thin, dim eyes, apathetic, sad facial expression, grey-coloured skin which looked like hard paper. The hair was rough, dull and used to break easily. The head seemed longish, cheek-bone and eye socket appeared very clearly. But also the spiritual, intellectual and emotional activities decreased radically. The prisoner lost his memory and his ability to concentrate. His conscience was fixed on food only. Hunger phantasies covered the horrible starvation. He only realized things directly in front of his eyes and only heard when word were shouted loudly. Without restistance, we was struck and hit. In the final phase, he even did not feel any hunger nor pain any more. The “Muselmann” perished because he could not go on. He was the symbol for mass-dying, a death of hunger, of being left alone, of killing the soul, a living corpse.