Auschwitz began as a barracks camp in the town of Oswiecim, for the polish army in the
early 1930's. Germany then
captured Poland and needed another location for Polish political prisoners. In 1940, the
German SS sent a
commission to Oswiecim to see if the barracks there could be used. The first inspection
reported that it could not be
used, however, a later inspection stated that after a few minor changes it would be
useable.
On May 4, 1940 Rudolf Hoss officially established it as a German concentration camp. Hoss
was Auschwitz's first
commandant.
Auschwitz was originally intended for Polish political prisoners and other Poles. In June
of 1940, the first load of
prisoners arrived. 728 Poles and a handful of Jews. Soon, though, it became a melting pot
of prisoners. Czechs,
Soviets, Yugoslavs, Jews, and Gypsies; but only men were housed there. Not until 1942 did
women arrive.
In January of 1942 it was decided that Auschwitz would become the main Jewish
extermination camp. Thereafter
cattle cars brought in ship loads of Jews monthly. They were brought from all over in
these filthy cars, going for
days without food, water, or washing facilities. Many times these cars were so crowded
that people were simply
crushed to death.
During the first few months of operation, Auschwitz simply housed the Jews because an
effective method for mass
extermination had not yet been found. They performed many experiments on the prisoners to
find a gas that was
cheap and quickly effective. Also, they had not yet begun cremating the bodies so they had
prisoners dig huge
trenches 15 ft. wide, 15 ft. deep, and 150 yds. long to bury them. These massive holes
would be filled within days.
However, during the summer, the bodies bloated and rotted and a disgusting purplish liquid
began seeping up from
these graves, smelling of bile and rotting flesh. Nearby fish farmers complained that
their fish were dying from
pollution caused by the rotting bodies. Some other way to deal with the prisoners had to
be found, especially since
their numbers were increasing with every arrival.
The Nazis then discovered Zyklon B. It was a very effective gas. Since they were then able
to kill more efficiently,
they had to find a more efficient means of disposing of the bodies. Soon, mass
crematoriums were erected, capable
of burning 2,000 bodies in a single day.
Upon arrival at camp, doctors made selections as to who would live and perform slave
labor. The others would be
gassed. Two lines would be formed, one going in the direction of the camp, and the other
leading toward the 'shower
rooms'.
Those not selected for the 'life' line were told that they would be going to the showers
for 'delousing'. They were
made to fold their clothes neatly and put them in piles and march, naked, to the
'showers'. Those rooms were
equipped with fake shower heads and benches and everything, but none of them worked. The
Jews would be herded
into these rooms and the doors would lock. Then Vents in the ceiling would open and
granules of Zyklon B would
be released. Within 15 minutes, they would all be dead.
Thirty minutes after they died, they would open the doors and let it air out for two or
three hours. Then they would
send in slaves to remove the bodies, taking them to the crematorium.
The prisoners chosen for the 'life' line had the worst fate though. The conditions at
Auschwitz were unthinkable.
Prisoners slept 6 people to a bunk, which was made for two. These bunks rose 6 feet high,
sometimes with so much
weight on the tops of them, they would collapse and kill all them ones underneath while
they slept. Sleep was
impossible for most though, beds were hard plank boards, over crowded and infested with
lice, ticks and bed bugs.
The rats were so bad that if a prisoners died in the middle of the night, the rats would
have eaten him to the point
where recognition was impossible.
Every morning prisoners had to stand or squat for hours at a time for roll call. They also
had to bring out the bodies
of anyone who had died during the night and hold them up to be counted. Then they were
sent off to work.
Work was long hours of hard labor building more barracks, adding to the camp, or going off
to the German
factories. The Nazis rented out slave labor very cheaply to the industries in the area.
Some had a lunch of cabbage
stew, but those away on work crews did not. After work was another roll call, lasting for
hours. The living holding
up the bodies of those who had died while working.
Dinner for the prisoners was rotten meat, stale bread, and 'coffee' made of warm, dirty
water. Those who had missed
lunch were also given cold pulpy cabbage stew that had been poured at noon. Prisoners were
supposed to be broken
and dehumanized. The Nazis shaved their body hair (yes, all of it) and took all their
possessions. They were allowed
15 minutes every day to use the lavatories. All 1,500 prisoners (per bunker) had 15
minutes to go to the bathroom
with no privacy whatsoever in the mornings before work. They weren't allowed to go while
they were at work, and
if they did, the punishment was so severe that few survived it.
The 'Hospital,' if that's what you want to call it, was a horror. The prisoners referred
to it as the crematorium waiting
room. If you didn't heal fast enough to suit them, they gave you an injection of phenol to
the heart or they sent you
to the gas chambers. There was no medication. The only advantage to the hospital was that
you could spend your
last few days lying down rather than working. Many were sick but afraid to go to the
hospital. As a result, typhus
and diarrhea were an epidemic.
The SS was corrupt. They would select the best rations for themselves and then sell the
stolen goods on the black
market. The prisoners got whatever was left, no matter how meager or rotted it was. SS
officers however were fat
and pig like. They had parties where they were served pork sausages, potatoes, and
vegetables by the women
prisoners.
The professional criminals (burglars, murderers, rapists) at Auschwitz were entrusted with
special jobs. They were
called 'kapos'. It was the kapos job to wake prisoners in the morning, beating them with
sticks if they didn't move
fast enough. They also administered some of the punishments, floggings and beatings
mostly. Kapos were also not
required to do the menial slave labor.
Punishment at Auschwitz was sever and biased. If a an SS officer didn't like a particular
prisoner for some reason
then that poor prisoner was tormented and beaten until the SS was satisfied, usually when
the prisoner died. They
had many ways of punishing people. You could be beaten, flogged (75-100 lashes), or just
plain shot. They were
creative and came up with many torments just to amuse themselves. They might make you
stand holding rocks over
your head for one of the long roll call and shoot you if you drop them. The SS might also
force you to beat or torture
your friends or family. The worst thing they could do to you however was send you to Cell
Block 11. Cell Block 11
was a torture chamber. There were 'standing' cells, four feet square that prisoners were
packed into, sometimes
twenty at a time. These cell had no room to lie down or even sit. The ventilation
consisted of two inch squares
covered over with heavy wire mesh to deter escape attempts. Many peopl!
e suffocated, after being left in them for hours or days at a time. Even if you did
survive a standing cell you still had
to go to work that day. Cell Block 11 also contained starvation cells. These cells
accommodated fifty people or
more. Prisoners were put here to die if one of them attempted to escape. They would lick
the walls and drink their
own urine to stay alive just a little bit longer, some even resorted to cannibalism.
Outside Block 11 more murders
took place. It was there that they held their hangings and floggings. One wall was covered
in cork and the ground in
sand to help absorb the blood from all the shootings that took place there.
Cell Block 10 was just as bad, it was here that 'Doctor' Menegal did his infamous research
on twins and sterilization.
They tried many drugs and new procedures on helpless prisoners. They would inject
poisonous chemicals and
compounds into the prisoners, just to see if some of them might live. Most all died of
course though. On a regular
day in Cell Block 10 they would perform mass sterilization, castrating around ninety
Jewish men. Approximately
twice that many women were sterilized daily. They performed brain surgery and amputations
just for practice and
send samples off to labs in other places. Prisoners would be given deadly viruses to test
antibiotics. They did
experiments on pregnant women and their fetuses. Many things they did were unthinkable.
Winter at Auschwitz was even worse. They had to stand outside for hours at a time in the
freezing snow and sleet for
roll call every morning and every night. Frostbite was very common, and after frostbite
gangrene usually set in
killing the already weak prisoners within days.
In the summer of forty-three, a new director took over. Conditions improved somewhat, but
prisoners still were not
treated as humans.
In late forty-five Allies bombed the railroads that took the shiploads of Jews to
Auschwitz. It didn't end the killing
there though. The SS, knowing that liberation for the Jews was probably coming soon
started killing all the elite
prisoners. The decorated Jewish military men, the gypsies, and the kapos. Then in a
frenzy, burned as many of their
incriminating files as they could before they fled taking all the prisoners able to march
with them. Today very few of
the files from Auschwitz remain. Those prisoners left in the camp, too sick or weak to
walk were liberated a few
days later by the Russian Army. However only half of them lived to see the next week.
All of that is in the past now though. Today Auschwitz still stands. It has become a
Polish museum honoring all the
Jews that needlessly died there.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brimmer, Larry, Pane.
Voices From the Camps.
New York, Franklin Watts; 1994.
Friedrich, Otto.
The Kingdom of Auschwitz.
New York, Harper Perennial; 1994
Leitner, Isabella.
Fragments of Isabella.
New York, Dell Publishing Co.;1987
Swiebocka, Teresa.
Auschwitz A History in Photographs.
Indianapolis, Indiana University Press; 1990
Zacek, F. Josph.
"Oswicim"
Encyclopedia Americana; 1992 ed.
pg 121, 031 ENC
