Other Labeling Mechanisms

Besides tattoos, badges were also used by the Nazi's to label camp prisoners. Different colors represented different groups like immigrants, homosexuals, gypsies, and Jehovah's witnesses. 

Personal Stories: Narrative Truth

The following narratives from various Holocaust survivors demonstrate the many meanings that the tattoos given at Auschwitz can have. In some cases, the tattoo and its combination of numbers instilled a sense of hope into the victims who realized that the tattoo meant another day of life. Others experienced an extreme dehumanization as a result of becoming a number. Regardless of the meaning of the tattoo, these personal narratives confirm the nature of the selection process at Auschwitz: those who were not tattooed proceded to the gas chambers, and those who were tattooed became yet another laborer at the camp. These tattoos are concrete proof of the genocide of the victims that passed through Auschwitz.

Tattooing: Miso Vogel

A testimony from Holocaust survivor Miso Vogel can be found here.

Tattooing: Szlamach Radoszynski

"In November 1940 the Nazis established a ghetto. By April 1943 my entire family had either died in the ghetto or had been deported to the Treblinka death camp. After the ghetto uprising, I was deported to Auschwitz. Day after day my job there was to shovel dirt over discarded, still-smoldering ashes of cremated victims. I kept wondering whether I, too, would end up the same. But I was sustained by the fact that the number tattooed on my arm--#128232--added up to 18, the Jewish mystical symbol for life."

--From an interview with Szlamach Rdoszynski, Holocaust survivor

Tattooing: Jakob Frenkiel

"At age 12, I was put in a group of men to be sent to labor camps. More than a year later, we were shipped to Auschwitz. The day after we arrived, my brother Chaim and I were lined up with kids and old people. I asked a prisoner what was going to happen to us. He pointed to the chimneys. 'Tomorrow the smoke will be from you.' He said if we could get a number tattooed on our arms, we'd be put to work instead of being killed. We sneaked to the latrine, then escaped through a back door and lined up with the men getting tattoos."

--From an interview with Jakob Frenkiel, Holocaust Survivor

Tattooing: Jozef Paczynski

"They checked us all, brought us to a lower level, and there everybody got a file: age, last and first name, nationality, where from, where and how many golden teeth one had, and they also asked, 'what kind of diseases does your family suffer from?' Why did they want to know all that?
"It was clear. When one died, got shot, killed, they would first look into the mouth and check for the gold teeth. And, when the information about his death was sent to his family, they would give thereason for death as the same as his father’s. I received a card – I did not know what it was – but on it was written 121. That was my camp number. Shall I show it?
"Because, at the very beginning, they did not tattoo the numbers. One carried it in his cloth. But, during the Spring of ‘43 when there was such a great mortality, everybody got a tattoo. I have here a number everybody is interested in, 121.

"Now, really very shortly, I had an incident. I got sick. I had typhoid. I was really very sick, could not walk, had a temperature of 40 C. They accepted me into the hospital. Of course, prisoners worked there; they washed me in slightly cold water and they wrote on my chest with a chemical pen. That was in Autumn 1942 – number 121. There were no tattoos then; I said, “don’t write this down on me“ and he said 'I have to, I have to.' And I know that when one died, in order to know who died – number, number."

--From an interview with Jozef Paczynski, barber at Auschwitz

Tattooing: Elie Wiesel

"In the afternoon, they made us line up. Three prisoners brought a table and some medical instruments. We were told to roll up our left sleeves and file past the table. The three "veteran" prisoners, needles in hand, tattooed numbers on our left arms. I became A-7713. From then on, I had no other name."

--From Elie Wiesel's, Holocaust Survivor, book: Night, page 42