It was an almost impossible task considering the extraordinary cruelty of the German kapos and the vigilant security of the Gestapo.

Nitpick: the kapos weren't the German guards, they were the inmates used as sadistic help-guards in a cruel and deliberate twist (i.e., letting the Jews/Communists/etc. be terrorised by their own), a position many took just to survive. (The term itself is an abbrevation of the Nazi newspeak Kameradenpolizei - comrade police.)

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}