For the New Year, the Germans, specifically the SS, presented the prisoners with a chilling "gift": a selection process.
This was not a gift of comfort or generosity, but rather a terrifying event designed to determine which prisoners would continue to live and which would be condemned to death.
The New Year's "Selection"
The selection was a brutal examination conducted by SS doctors. Its primary purpose was to assess each prisoner's physical condition and their capacity for continued labor. The outcome of this examination held life-or-death consequences for every individual:
- To Continue Working: Prisoners deemed strong enough, healthy, and still capable of performing arduous labor would be permitted to remain in the camp, thereby extending their ordeal but also their lives, for the time being.
- To Be Sent to Death: Those identified as weak, ill, emaciated, or no longer useful for work were immediately marked for extermination. This typically meant being sent to the gas chambers or other direct methods of execution.
This horrifying New Year's "gift" underscored the constant threat of death under the Nazi regime and forced prisoners to live in perpetual fear, constantly fighting for their very survival by attempting to appear fit and healthy during these inspections.
