The Wilhelmshagen transit camp for the laborers were in a picturesque area. The author suggests that the idyllic atmosphere on the outside might have led some new arrivals to feel relief. But the relief stopped there. The laborers were gathered together, given identity cards, and numbered on their chests.
Here is an image of women arriving at the Wilhelmshagen transit camp.
Here is a photograph of Polish women receiving their identification cards at Wilhelmshagen transit camp.
The author provided insight into the treatment of forced laborers. For instance, foreign and force laborers were not treated fairly in Nazi Germany. While some Czechs were seen as employees, others were viewed as prisoners. What I found astounishing was that in these earlier periods of the labor camps, some of the westerners that were imprisoned received necessities, such as blankets, clothing, and even silverware.
Can you even imagine? After reading about the labor camps, the thing I was most empathetic for was the lack of space and privacy. I think in the freedom that we have, not only in the U.S., but also in modern times, we often forget how lucky we are to have privacy. I can’t imagine having to share a bed small enough for one with someone else, having to do very private and personal things, with an audience, or just being deprived the time and space to mentally escape the stress of the outside world. While every aspect of what prisoners went through is horrifying, I think that this may be the worse. These prisoners were never able to mentally escape their hellish experience, because they were never alone. They were constantly surrounded by it, and even if they weren’t surrounded specifically by their work or the physicality of the camps, they were always surrounded by others who were sharing their experience. As much as humans are socially beings, I do believe that one can be driven mad by having too much of one extreme: isolation or constant conjunction with many other people. While it may have been impossible to ever be physically distracted fully from the horrific conditions that surrounded the prisoners, there was no mental escape either.