Muselmann – The Prisoners who became ‘Muslims’ in Auschwitz

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8 Responses

  1. In 1878 Bosnia and Herzegovina became part of the Austro-Hungaria . Then a large number of Bosnian Muslims became the citizens of the Austro-Hungaria. As the second class citizens – out of economic, educational and religious system (they spoke a Slavic language different than German and Hungarian and they were not Christians ) they became very poor, oppressed and vulnerable population as well as non-understood, depressed and fatalistic. So it can be the hidden meaning of the word Muselmann later on used in Auschwitz.

    • martijn says:

      Dear Fahrudin Memic, thank you, that is an interesting piece of info I hadn’t really thought upon yet. I will look into this!

  2. D says:

    I was also surprised and confused when I first learned that this word was used and how it was used in the context of Auschwitz and I was also curious to learn more about this, so thank you, your post has been helpful in bringing some clarity.

  3. Claudia says:

    First heard this term listening to Viktor Frankl audiobook, “The Meaning of Life. “ I had to know “why” the term? Thank you!

  4. Kim says:

    The Original word Musselman, is now, morphed into the word Muslim. There are no two ways about it. I have an old set of encycledias. Before all the wars. That’s why Mussolini is a friend to Islam.

  1. January 12, 2017

    […] I am thrilled to have had a piece published in the brilliant new online magazine Wildcat Dispatches, entitled “Who is Allowed to be Human? ‘Bare Life’ in Aleppo and on the Mediterranean“. I wrote this very quickly and very angrily. It’s about the stripping of biographical life away from so many people in our world, drawing on Arendt and Agamben. Here’s the first section, which I entitled “The Musselmann” (readers of Primo Levi will know that is the term was used in the concentration camps to refer to the…). […]

  2. June 27, 2018

    […] began to experience organic deterioration that led to the so-called “Muzulman,” or Muslim state, extreme physical exhaustion that ended in death. (How did Jews come to be referred to as […]

  3. October 14, 2020

    […] philosopher’s universalizing assertions, which become particularly evident in his writing on the musselman. This is an antiquated and derogatory German word for Muslim men, specifically those within […]

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