5. Life in the camps was subject to the Kapos and SS guards
At most camps, the prisoners were awakened at four in the morning, and given thirty or forty minutes to attend to their morning toilet and ablutions, clean their beds and barracks areas assigned to them, and eat breakfast. There were seldom the amenities of fresh water and soap, and up to 2,000 prisoners could be forced to share the same washing area, and water. The Kapos were responsible for ensuring the prisoners completed these morning functions satisfactorily and arrived at roll call on time, and for providing an accurate count of the prisoners to the SS guards. It was the Kapos who usually discovered prisoners who had died in the night, and reported such to the SS.
Prisoners remained at roll call until any discrepancies in the count were resolved, and those arriving late faced punishment from the Kapos or the SS. Officially the work day began with the sunrise (for this reason prisoners were often awakened later in the winter months). What type of labor the prisoners performed varied from camp to camp. Some worked as forced labor in manufacturing facilities nearby, others in the fields growing crops, and some were taken outside the camps to work on roads, electrical grids, canals, and other infrastructure of the Third Reich. Some worked within the camp itself.