June 24, 1943:
- June 23: "Ukrainian police surround a Jewish school at Czortków, Ukraine, where 534 Jewish slave laborers are housed.
The camp commandant, Thomanek, shoots several prisoners and orders others carted off for execution.
A local gentile, Jan Nakonieczny, successfully hides five Jews in his tiny henhouse."
- Initiation at the Camps
"Transition to life inside a Nazi concentration camp was a jarring and disorienting experience.
From the moment one entered the Lager, life's every routine had to be renegotiated. Failure to adapt was lethal.
"Deprived of food, water, and sanitary facilities for days on end, new arrivals were momentarily relieved when the doors to their rail wagons were thrown open and they were ordered to disembark.
Their relief, however, was short-lived.
"At some camps, SS officers dressed in crisply pressed black uniforms ordered new arrivals to move left or right, toward life or death.
Guards welcomed prisoners with blows from their rifle butts and truncheons, while emaciated figures in striped uniforms herded the new prisoners to their destinations.
"Once inside the camp, new arrivals were shaved, tattooed (in some camps), and discarded into a completely alien environment.
To survive, prisoners had to forget that they had ever lived in a civilized society, and learn the ways of the Lager.
They had to move with the crowd, avoid being singled out, and, whenever possible, secure an extra ration of food.
Inmates had precious little time to learn the routines of their new surroundings.
Within days they were transformed from human beings to nameless victims of the Nazi regime "