Animals Under the Swastika

As unbelievable as it sounds, Munich-based journalist Mohnhaupt (The Zookeeper’s War: An Incredible True Story from the Cold War) details and describes concentration camps, such as Buchenwald and Treblinka, that had zoos purposely built nearby, staffed by Roma people because of their so-called natural affinity for bears and the like. Camp prisoners realized that the animals were better fed, so many longed for any sort of menial work at the zoo, so they might be able to ferret meat or bread from among the animal rations. The number of pigs safely transported by train depended upon strictly limiting numbers, as well as adequate supplies of water and food, niceties that were denied to the transport of humans on death camp cattle cars. These and other fantastical juxtapositions demonstrate Nazism’s fanatical desire to categorize and favor the ones deemed “master animals” (German shepherds, pigs, and predatory beasts) and to root out what they called the despised “human animals” (Jews, Roma, and gay people, to name a few).