PARTISAN REVIEW
1938, this element was represented by masses of Jews, in Russia by
any groups which, for any reason having nothing to do with their
actions, had incurred the disfavor of the authorities. These groups,
innocent in every sense, are the most suitable for thorough experi–
mentation in disfranchisement and destruction of the juridical person,
and therefore they are both qualitatively and quantitatively the most
essential category of the camp population. This principle was most
fully realized in the gas chambers which, if only because of their
enormous capacity, could not be intended for individual cases but
only for people in general. In this connection, the following dialogue
sums up the situation of the individual: "For what purpose, may I
ask, do the gas chambers exist?"-"For what purpose were you born?"
(Rousset). It is this third group of the totally innocent who in every
case fare the worst in the camps. Criminals and politicals are assim–
ilated to this category; thus deprived of the protective distinction that
comes of their having done something, they are utterly exposed to
the arbitrary.
Contrasting with the complete haphazardness with which the
inmates are selected are the categories, meaningless in themselves but
useful from the standpoint of organization, into which they are usually
divided on their arrival. In the German camps there were criminals,
politicals, asocial elements, religious offenders, and Jews, all distin–
guished by insignia. When the French set up concentration camps
after the Spanish civil war, they immediately introduced the typical
totalitarian amalgam of politicals with criminals and the innocent
(in this case the stateless) , and despite their inexperience proved
remarkably inventive in devising meaningless categories of inmates.
Originally devised in order to prevent any growth of solidarity among .
the inmates, this technique proved particularly valuable because no
one could know whether his own category was better or worse than
someone else's. In Germany this eternally shifting though pedantically
organized edifice was given an appearance of solidity by the fact that
under any and all circumstances the Jews were the lowest category.
The gruesome and grotesque part of it was that the inmates identified
themselves with these categories, as though they represented a last
authentic remnant of their juridical person. It is no wonder that a
Communist of 1933 should have come out of the camps more Com–
munistic than he went in, a Jew more Jewish.
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