Muselmann (pl. Muselmänner, from the German, of Persian origin, meaning Muslim) was a slang term used among captives of World War II Nazi concentration camps to refer to those suffering from a combination of starvation (known also as "hunger disease") and exhaustion and who were resigned to their impending death. The Muselmann prisoners exhibited severe emaciation and physical weakness, an apathetic listlessness regarding their own fate, and unresponsiveness to their surroundings.
The following quotation appears as a footnote in If This Is a Man, Primo Levi's autobiographical account of his time in Auschwitz, and it serves as the introduction to the word in that book. "Selection", in the context of the quotation, means selection for the gas chambers, i.e., death. In If This Is a Man Levi uses two variations of the spelling; Muselmann and Musselman, as well as the plural, Muselmänner.
This word ‘Muselmann’, I do not know why, was used by the old ones of the camp to describe the weak, the inept, those doomed to selection.
Some scholars argue that the term possibly comes from the Muselmann's inability to stand for any time due to the loss of leg muscle, thus spending much of the time in a prone position, recalling the position of the Mussulman (Muslim) during prayers.
Concentration camps
The term spread from Auschwitz-Birkenau to other concentration camps. Its equivalent in the Majdanek concentration camp was Gamel (derived from German gammeln - colloquial for "rotting") and in the Stutthof concentration camp, Krypel (derived from German Krüppel, "cripple"). When prisoners reached this emaciated condition, they were selected by camp doctors and murdered by gas, bullet or other methods by the camp staff. The first victims were gassed by carbon monoxide poisoning in the Action 14f13. The scheme operated under the Concentration Camps Inspector and the Reichsführer-SS under the name "Sonderbehandlung 14f13". The combination of numbers and letters was derived from the SS record-keeping system and consists of the number "14" for the Concentration Camps Inspector, the letter "f" for the German word "deaths" (Todesfälle) and the number "13" for the means of killing, in this case, for gassing in the T4 killing centers. Natural deaths were recorded with the code number "14f1", suicide or death by accident with "14f2", "14f3" meant shot while trying to escape. The execution of Soviet prisoners of war in concentration camps were recorded as "14f14" and the forced sterilization of prisoners was recorded as "14h7".
The psychologist and Auschwitz survivor Viktor Frankl, in his book Man's Search for Meaning, provides the example of a prisoner who decides to use up his last cigarettes (used as currency in the concentration camps) in the evening because he is convinced he won't survive the Appell (roll call assembly) the next morning; his fellow captives derided him as a Muselmann. Frankl compares this to the dehumanized behavior and attitudes of the kapos.
The testimonial of the Polish witness, Adolf Gawalewicz, Refleksje z poczekalni do gazu: ze wspomnień muzułmana ("Reflections in the Gas Chamber's Waiting Room: From the Memoirs of a Muselmann"), published in 1968, incorporates the term in the title of the work.