When one enters a new situation, one looks for familiar signposts to provide direction for the appropriate adaptive behavior. However, the concentration camp was a universe that had never before been encountered or imagined. Because of the camp's incomparable nature, the inmate's initial reaction on arrival was generally one of disorientation. The Nazis' deliberate strategy of having transports arrive in the middle of the night, clubbing prisoners out of the cattle cars into the blinding glare of spotlights, and terrorizing them by the sounds and sight of vicious barking dogs added to this disorientation.

Those who were not selected for death on arrival were immediately stripped of their individual identity. All inmates had their body hair shaved, were handed striped uniforms, and given a number to replace a name. Chronic starvation and hard labor soon contributed to a similar appearance. Daily humiliations due to unsanitary...