Between life and death: experiences of concentration camp mussulmen during the holocaust

During the years of 1981 and 1982, 89 former prisoners of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp responded to questionnaires on mussulmen-prisoners in the extreme phase of starvation disease. In this article, I describe the origin of the term "mussulman," mussulmens' somatic and mental state, their behavior and camp customs. Prisoners characterized as mussulmen remain between life and death, without expressing emotional reactions and defense mechanisms apart from a hypersensibility to food-related stimuli. A mussulman was a product of the camp factory of death. A deep somatic and emotional stigma remains in those who survived the mussulmen state.