Privileges and Bonuses

Important prisoner functionaries and skilled workers were given privileges, such as being allowed to grow their hair. This was a demonstration of one of the central elements of the camp’s power structure: it highlighted the hierarchy of the prisoners. In the summer of 1943, the SS also introduced a bonus system. Officially, prisoners who fulfilled the work quotas were entitled to receive bonus vouchers with which they could buy food at the canteen, as well as tobacco rations and additional food. The higher chances of survival were intended to be an incentive in the context of forced labor. In the day-to-day life at the camp, however, bonus vouchers and additional food rations were mostly granted arbitrarily and not based on a prisoner’s performance. Because of the insufficient supply of food at the mess, the bonus vouchers contributed little to the prisoners’ food supply. The most coveted items among the prisoners were cigarettes.