In some medieval castles, oubliettes could be found.
These were holes in the ground which were tiny prison cells, and where some prisoners
were locked inside of and were simply forgotten.
The oubliette was a terrifying form of physical and psychological torture, and in some cases,
their feared reputation led to a notorious reputation.
In Warwick Castle there is an oubliette which even inspired fear in France during the 100
years war, with French soldiers fearing capture as they may have ended up there.
The Oubliette saw prisoners left to rot, with even rats and sewage found inside of the small
tiny cell.
However during the Second World War, there were forms of these tiny prisons found inside
some of the most terrible and despicable concentration camps.
Dachau was a camp synonymous with punishment, fear and torture and the guards often promoted
a culture of barbarism with public executions and beatings, often some were so severe that
they would lead to death.
Today we look at the Oubliette of Dachau, remember to support our channel please make
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Standing cells were special punishment cells created to prevent a prisoner from moving
in any position.
They were stuck in a standing position for sometimes days on end, and this was a form
of punishment which was incredibly brutal.
Being forced to stand in one position for days on end would promote immense pain, and
the prisoner would be not able to crouch or sit down.
The cells themselves were very small, and were even used inside the Soviet Union during
the NKVD’s torture of people during the Great Purge.
These cells took inspiration from the medieval oubliettes that would do exactly the same,
and sometimes they would be made more savage with more than one person being held inside,
with no toilet also.
They were used by the Nazis in many different concentration camps, for example at Oranienburg,
the SA camp commandant Werner Schafer ordered that two should be built in the basement of
the camp in 1933, at the start of Hitler’s dictatorship.
These particular cells forced a prisoner into a standing position, and one unfortunate prisoner
named Neumann was forced to stand constantly for 192 hours.
The effect of his imprisonment was that he was driven mad, and to expand on this torture
prisoners were sometimes held in closets in a form of standing cells.
At Auschwitz inside the horrific punishment centre of Block 11, there were four standing
cells giving less than a metre square space, and four people were crammed inside them being
only able to stand.
To make things worse, there was also only a 2 inch opening for air, meaning that they
would be incredibly stuffy and the air would be in short supply, making prisoners feel
very ill.
Some were forced into these for up to 10 days, and one man stated how he once was held inside
of one for 6 weeks straight, and that one prisoner was so hungry he was forced to eat
his shoes, being given only 3 meals in 6 weeks.
At Dachau the standing cells inflicted a significant amount of fear.
There was a brutal culture at the camp specifically of terror and horror, with the guards inflicting
severe punishment and evil onto the prisoners.
It was opened on the 22nd March 1933, and was intended to house political prisoners,
but as the camp grows it saw Jews, Romani and other people housed inside of it.
Dachau was supported by 100 sub camps with different prisoners inside of them, and the
guards in all aspects of the camp were violent towards prisoners.
Floggings and whippings in public were often done too to instigate a reign of terror.
It was said of one incident, ‘Two prisoners who had stolen cigarettes were sentenced to
25 lashes each with the whip.
Two prisoners were led forward by their block leader.
Two block leaders carried out the punishments, one prisoner utter no sound.
The other prisoner behaved differently, crying out at the very first stroke.
When the man began to scream I went hot and cold all over, even the beating of the first
prisoner made me shudder.’
During early morning roll calls, prisoners were also forced to wait for a number of hours
in tough and harsh punishment exercises.
If someone had died inside of the night, their Body would be brought to the roll call square,
and they would be included in the numbers.
It was horrific, and the standing cells were part of this.
The length of stay inside of the cells varied and was up to the discretion of the commandant
of Dachau, and as what the prisoner was being punished for.
Prisoners were placed inside the Stehbunker for asking for second helpings of food, and
others were placed here for simply picking an apple from a tree without permission of
the guards.
There are cases in which the standing cells were operated from 3 days up until 6 weeks,
and as the number of prisoners increased in Dachau, the standing cells also began to be
used prominently.
There was a small hatch on the top for air into the cell, and a narrow door with an iron
bar bolted across.
There were two different types of standing cell used, and the one at dachau was the type
that favourited housing just one prisoner.
This cell measured 29.5 inches by 31.5inches across, and this is comparable to being stuck
in a chimney chute for days on end.
One prisoner of war, Max Hoffman was housed inside the cell and he said, ‘It was a terrible
state, as I thought that it was over for me.
Everything was so callous and distant for me, I couldn’t lie down, couldn’t crouch,
the best was to stand, stand six days and six nights long.
You touch the walls on both sides with your elbows, your back touches the wall behind
you, your knee the wall in front of you.
This is no punishment of pre-trial detention, it is torture.
Straight forward, Middle Ages torture.
I had bloodshot eyes, numb from bad air.
I was just waiting for the end.’
The entrance to the cells at dachau was by crawling, the door to the cell was around
2 feet square and was made from timber.
Behind the door were metal bars, and the prisoner had to get on their hands and kneels and crawl
into the standing cell, and then stand up.
Once standing they could not move and had no room to manoevre, they were stuck.
The prisoners back was pressed up against the wall, and their knees would be touching
the walls in front, with their elbows wedged to their left and right.
They were usually kept in this way for 72 hours, and during this time the prisoner would
have to sleep standing up watched in, and if they were fed they were only given bread
and water, but many were not fed at all.
This leads us onto the idea of the starvation cell, and if the crime was deemed serious
enough by the commandant, or Nazi officers then they were sent into the Standing cells,
and many never came out alive as they were systematically starved and dehydrated after
they were not given any food and water, for however long it took for them to die.
Some prisoners were even placed on a shift in the standing cells meaning they would be
put in the stehbunker to sleep in at night, and then during the day they were forced out
to do 10 hours of hard labour.
This was used for the POW to then tell other prisoners of the ordeal, to deter them from
also defying the rules of Dachau.
One inmate of the standing cells, Joannes Neuhausler, was given just one single piece
of bread during a rolling 3 day stay there.
On the fourth day he was taken from the cell, given a normal camp meal and was then allowed
to sleep on a wooden cot.
However he was then forced back into the cell to begin another 3 day stay.
One Czech prisoner, Radovan Drazan was also forced to spend 8 days nonstop without a break
inside of the cell.
Those prisoners who were sometimes allowed a break were cleaned down, as they had burns
from their urine and feces as they would just have to go to the toilet where they were stood.
Another man who was placed into the standing cells was Yurij Piskunov.
Following the occupation of Ukraine by the Germans, he got a job at a railway station
but was arrested by the Gestapo for allegedly sabotaging German trains.
He was then deported to concertration camps before being transferred to Dachau.
Inside of Dachau he had to work outside of the camp repairing the bombed out railway
tracks.
One day he found a German newspaper and he tried to smuggle it inside of the camp, as
news from outside was valuable to the prisoners.
However he was searched and the newspaper was found and because of this he was sent
to the standing cells.
He was locked up inside and he said, ‘It was dark.
Wherever I turned, I immediately came against a wall.
I could only sit a little by learning my back against one of the walls and with my knee
against the opposite wall.
I was very frightened and did not know if I would come to live the next morning.
It was damp and cold in the cell.
This is how a day would pass.
Then they began to mock me.
When the food was brought, the SS office forced me to bark or grunt like a dog on all fours
and scolded me ‘a filthy Russian pig.’
He always had his whip reach, if something did not please him he would whip me immediately.
All I could do was turn to the all mighty, so that he would take my soul and save it
from these torments.’
Yurij was held for 10 days constantly inside of the standing cells, and then he was released
into the regular barracks at Dachau.
The following day he spat blood and had contracted TB, however he recovered and lived out the
war.
The standing cells at Dachau instilled so much fear and hated during the time of the
concentration camp, and they were a brutal torture method which contributed to the horror
of the camp.
They were inspired by medieval torture such as the oubliette, and this was used by the
Nazis for brutality, horror and savagery.
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