The prisoners in the camps developed various strategies to help them achieve their own survival. Groups characterised by mutual solidarity usually emerged among people from the same country of origin. To increase a sense of security for each other, they would try to be placed in the same labour detail with as many compatriots or prisoners they already knew from other camps as possible. Or, if necessary, they would even try to ensure that they shared the same bunks.
According to survivors, ‘working with one’s eyes’ became one of the most important skills for avoiding a potentially fatal end to their strenuous forced labour. As soon as they saw that they were no longer being supervised in the tunnels, they would immediately stop their work to conserve their strength. This had to be cleverly coordinated, as otherwise severe punishment would inevitably be imposed.
Often, open and violent conflicts would break out between individuals or groups of prisoners over basic necessities such as shoes, clothes as well as relief packages from the Red Cross.
In addition to this, the chances of being able to survive often depended on the individual decisions made by the guards and civilian supervisors. Those who survived would tell stories of sadists who methodically tortured the prisoners with cruelty and violence, but also of individual supervisors who deliberately looked the other way when work requirements could not be met.
Prisoners' clothing from Barkhausen. The prisoner number indicates that the Soviet prisoner Alexei Kolesnikov, born in 1924, wore this jacket. The jacket was found by a Danish search committee in a storage room at the Kaiserhof after the end of the Second World War.
Source: Privately owned by Niels Gyrsting