As far as I know, Buchenwald was the only self-liberating 'Lager.' It was one of those camps where there were mostly political prisoners. The internal management was in the hands of the political prisoners. The Germans organized it in such a way that they charged the prisoners with different responsibilities. Along with their function, they got certain advantages, for example in terms of food. The office administration was done by prisoners as well: who had died, who was going with the next transport. They mostly knew [among the ordinary prisoners] that this one was a communist, that one was a leftist.
These big camps were rather transit prisons; if the factories needed manpower, then they took a few hundred people from here to work. They knew which workplaces were better and which were worse. The Germans selected people for different places in vain; they could change the registry sheet as well as the people. I didn't have connections with them, but they must have thought: 'This is a youngster; let's put him in a better place.' They primarily saved those whom they knew were communist, leftist, antifascist, as well as the children. They saved me because I was a child. They transferred me to a place where the work was easier. If they had put me into a quarry, I would not have survived.
These big camps were rather transit prisons; if the factories needed manpower, then they took a few hundred people from here to work. They knew which workplaces were better and which were worse. The Germans selected people for different places in vain; they could change the registry sheet as well as the people. I didn't have connections with them, but they must have thought: 'This is a youngster; let's put him in a better place.' They primarily saved those whom they knew were communist, leftist, antifascist, as well as the children. They saved me because I was a child. They transferred me to a place where the work was easier. If they had put me into a quarry, I would not have survived.