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From a concentration camp for Polish political prisoners, Auschwitz gradually turned into the site of the largest mass murder in history. 1.1 million people died here, more than 200 thousand of them were children. “One image stuck in my memory, stuck at the very moment it was described to me. It was the image of a "procession" of empty baby carriages - property stolen from the dead Jews - which were taken out of Auschwitz towards the station, five of them in a row. A prisoner who saw this column says that it drove past him for a whole hour,” writes Lawrence Rees.
In the spring of 1940, the “New Reich” began construction of one of the first Nazi concentration camps near the town of Auschwitz. Just eight months ago it was Southwestern Poland, and now it is German Upper Silesia. In Polish the town was called Auschwitz, in German - Auschwitz. It should be noted that the functions of the camps in the Nazi state were different. Concentration camps such as Dachau (established in March 1933, just two months after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany) differed significantly from extermination camps such as Treblinka, which did not emerge until mid-war. The history of Auschwitz is interesting, the most notorious of them, which became both a concentration camp and an extermination camp...
No Germans, even those who had previously been fanatical Nazis, admitted to “welcoming” the existence of death camps, but many quite approved of the existence of concentration camps in the 1930s. After all, the first prisoners who ended up in Dachau in March 1933 were mainly political opponents of the Nazis. Then, at the dawn of the Nazi regime, Jews were vilified, humiliated and beaten, but the left-wing politicians of the previous government were considered a direct threat.
The regime at Dachau was not just brutal; everything was arranged in such a way as to break the will of the prisoners. Theodor Eicke, the first commandant of the camp, elevated the violence, ruthlessness and hatred that the Nazis felt towards their enemies into a certain system and order. Dachau is notorious for the physical sadism that reigned in the camp: floggings and severe beatings were common. The prisoners could have been killed, and their death attributed to “murder while trying to escape” - many of those who ended up in Dachau died there. But the Dachau regime truly rested not so much on physical violence, no matter how terrible it undoubtedly was, but on moral humiliation.
The Nazis despised Poland for its “eternal chaos.” The Nazis had no differences in their attitude towards the Poles. They despised them. The question was different - what to do with them. One of the main “problems” that the Nazis had to solve was the problem of Polish Jews. Unlike Germany, where Jews made up less than 1% of the population and where most were assimilated, Poland had 3 million Jews, most of whom lived in communities; they could often be easily identified by their beards and other “signs of their faith.” After Poland was partitioned between Germany and the Soviet Union, immediately after the outbreak of war (under the terms of the secret part of the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact signed in August 1939), more than two million Polish Jews found themselves in German zone occupation.
Another problem for the Nazis, which they themselves created, was finding housing for the hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans who were moving to Poland at the time. Under a treaty between Germany and the Soviet Union, ethnic Germans from the Baltic countries, Bessarabia and other regions recently occupied by Stalin were allowed to emigrate to Germany - “to return home to the Reich,” as the slogan of the time said. Obsessed with the idea of the racial purity of “German blood,” men like Himmler considered it their duty to enable all Germans to return to their homeland. But one difficulty arose: where, exactly, should they return?
By the spring of 1940, Poland was divided into two parts. Areas appeared that officially became “German” and entered the “New Reich” as new imperial districts - Reichsgau - Reichsgau West Prussia - Danzig (Gdansk); Reichsgau Wartheland (also known as Warthegau) in western Poland in the area of Posen (Poznan) and Lodz; and Upper Silesia in the Katowice region (it was this area that included Auschwitz). In addition, in the largest part of the former Polish territory, an entity called the General Government was created, which included the cities of Warsaw, Krakow and Lublin and was intended to house the majority of Poles.
Over the course of a year and a half, about half a million ethnic Germans were settled in the new part of the Reich, while hundreds of thousands of Poles were evicted from there to make way for the arriving Germans. Many Poles were simply pushed into freight cars and taken south to the General Government, where they were simply thrown out of the cars, left without food and without a roof over their heads. It is not surprising that in January 1940 Goebbels wrote in his diary: “Himmler is now engaged in population transfers. Not always successful."
With regard to the Jews, Himmler made a different decision: if ethnic Germans needed living space, which was obvious, then they needed to take it away from the Jews and force them to live in a much smaller area than before. The solution to this problem was the creation of a ghetto. Ghettos that have become like this a terrible omen Nazi persecution of Jews in Poland were not originally designed for the terrible conditions that eventually prevailed there. Like much of the history of Auschwitz and the Nazi Final Solution, the fatal changes that occurred in the ghettos during their existence were not initially part of the Nazis' plans.
The Nazis believed that, ideally, Jews should simply be forced to “get away,” but since this was impossible at that time, they had to be isolated from everyone else: since, as the Nazis believed, Jews, especially Eastern Europeans, were carriers of all sorts of diseases. In February 1940, while the deportation of Poles to the General Government was in full swing, it was announced that all Jews of Łódź were to “move” to an area of the city designated as a ghetto. At first, such ghettos were planned only as a temporary measure, a place to imprison Jews before deporting them elsewhere. In April 1940, the Lodz ghetto was placed under guard and Jews were forbidden to leave its territory without permission from the German authorities.
Auschwitz was originally conceived as a transit concentration camp - "quarantine" in Nazi jargon - where prisoners would be held before being sent to other camps in the Reich. But within a few days after the creation of the camp, it became clear that it would function independently as a place of permanent detention. The Auschwitz camp was intended to detain and intimidate Poles at a time when the entire country was being ethnically reorganized and the Poles as a nation were being intellectually and politically destroyed.
The first prisoners to arrive at Auschwitz in June 1940 were, however, not Poles, but Germans - 30 criminals transferred here from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. They were to become the first capo prisoners to act as agents of SS control over Polish prisoners.
The first Polish prisoners of Auschwitz came to the camp for various reasons: on suspicion of working for the Polish underground or because they were members of one of the social groups, especially those persecuted by the Nazis (such as priests and intellectuals) - or simply because some German did not like them. Many of the first group of Polish prisoners transferred to the camp on June 14, 1940 from Tarnow Prison were university students. The very first task for all newly arrived prisoners was simple: they had to build their own camp. At this stage of the camp's existence, not many Jews were sent to Auschwitz, since the policy of creating ghettos throughout the country was still in full swing.
By the end of 1940, Rudolf Hess - the camp commandant - had already created the basic structures and principles according to which the camp would function for the next four years: kapos who controlled every moment of the prisoners' lives; a very harsh regime that allowed guards to punish prisoners arbitrarily, at their own discretion - often simply without any reason; the prevailing belief in the camp that if a prisoner failed to somehow evade a team sent to dangerous work, a quick and unexpected death awaited him.
By the end of 1940, Hess had already created the basic structures and principles under which the camp would operate for the next four years: the capos, who controlled every moment of the prisoners' lives; a very harsh regime that allowed guards to punish prisoners arbitrarily, at their own discretion - often simply without any reason; the prevailing belief in the camp that if a prisoner failed to somehow evade a team sent to dangerous work, a quick and unexpected death awaited him. But besides this, in those first months of the camp’s existence, another phenomenon was created that most clearly symbolized the Nazi camp culture - it was block 11. This block was a prison within a prison - a place of torture and murder.
In 1941, Auschwitz, designed for 10 thousand prisoners, began to expand. From July 1941, Soviet prisoners of war, mainly military political instructors - commissars, began to be sent to Auschwitz. From the moment they arrived at Auschwitz, these prisoners were treated differently from others. Incredible, but true - even considering the torture that was already happening in the camp: this group of prisoners was treated even worse. Jerzy Bielecki heard how they were being mocked even before he saw them: “I remember terrible screams and moans...” He and a friend approached a gravel pit at the edge of the camp, where they saw Soviet prisoners of war. “They ran wheelbarrows filled with sand and gravel,” says Beletsky. “This was not ordinary camp work, but some kind of hell that the SS men specially created for Soviet prisoners of war.” The capos beat the working commissars with sticks, and the SS guards watching all this encouraged them: “Come on, guys! Beat them!”
In 1941, Auschwitz prisoners became victims of a Nazi program called “adult euthanasia.” At first, injections were used to kill disabled people, but then the favorite method became the use of carbon monoxide in cylinders. At first this happened in special centers, equipped mainly in former psychiatric hospitals. Gas chambers were built there, designed in such a way that they looked like showers.
Later, at the end of August or beginning of September 1941, more " effective method destroy people." The basement of block 11 was hermetically sealed, and it naturally became the most suitable place to conduct an experiment with the Zyklon B gas. By the beginning of 1942, “experiments” with the cyclone began to be carried out directly in the camp crematorium, which was much more convenient... In the fall of 1941, the deportation of German Jews began. Many of them ended up first in the ghetto, and then in Auschwitz and other camps. As part of the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question,” gassing of “useless” Jews from the areas surrounding Auschwitz began.
In the fall of 1941, 10 thousand Soviet prisoners of war were sent to Auschwitz, who were supposed to build a new camp, Birkenau (Brzezinka). Polish prisoner Kazimierz Smolen witnessed their arrival. “It was already snowing, which is rare for October; they (Soviet prisoners of war) were unloaded from the cars three kilometers from the camp. They were ordered to take off their clothes and plunge into vats of disinfectant solution, and they went to Auschwitz (the main camp) naked. They were completely exhausted. Soviet prisoners became the first in the main camp to have camp numbers tattooed on their bodies.” This was yet another “improvement” invented at Auschwitz, the only camp in the Nazi state where prisoners were identified in this way.” The working and maintenance conditions of our prisoners of war were so difficult that average duration the life of Soviet prisoners of war in Birkenau was two weeks...
By the spring of 1942, Auschwitz began to develop into a unique institution in the Nazi state. On the one hand, some prisoners were still accepted into the camp, assigned a serial number and forced to work. On the other hand, there was now whole category people who were killed hours and sometimes minutes after arriving. No other Nazi camp operated in this way. There were death camps like Chelmno and concentration camps like Dachau; but there were no similar ones to Auschwitz.
After the defeat of the Germans near Moscow, Soviet prisoners of war were no longer sent to Auschwitz - they were sent to work in military factories, and their place in the camp was taken by deported Slovak Jews, and then French, Belgian and Dutch. In the spring of 1942, both women and children began to be sent to the camp; until that moment, it had been a purely male institution. Jews arrived in trainloads, and if they were not suitable for work, they were ruthlessly disposed of. New gas chambers appeared in Auschwitz: “Red House”, “White House”. However, the extermination process at Auschwitz remained ineffective and improvised. Like a center massacres Auschwitz was still far from “perfect”, and its capacity was very limited...
In the history of Auschwitz and the Nazi “Final Solution,” 1943 was a turning point. By the beginning of the summer of 1943, four crematoria connected to gas chambers were already operating in Auschwitz-Birkenau. In total, these four crematoria were prepared to kill about 4,700 people every day. Birkenau's crematoria and gas chambers became the center of a huge semi-industrial complex. Here, selected Jews were first sent to work in one of the many small camps nearby, and then, when they were deemed unfit for work after months of horrific treatment, they were transported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination zone, which was several kilometers away from the work camps.
Over time, there were already 28 subcamps operating around Auschwitz, which were located near various industrial sites throughout Upper Silesia: from cement plant in Holeszów to the armory in Eintrachthütt, from the Upper Silesia power station to the gigantic camp in Monowice, built to serve the chemical plant for the production of artificial rubber of the I.G. Farben. About 10 thousand Auschwitz prisoners (including the Italian scientist and writer Primo Levi, who after the war would try to understand the reasons for the cruelty of the Nazi regime in his books) were placed in Manowitz. By 1944, more than 40 thousand prisoners worked as slaves in various industrial enterprises throughout Upper Silesia. It is estimated that Auschwitz brought the Nazi state about 30 million marks in net income by selling this forced labor to private concerns.
Auschwitz was famous for its medical experiments on prisoners. As part of the solution to the Jewish question, sterilization experiments were carried out. Auschwitz prisoners were even “sold” to Bayer, a subsidiary of I.G. Farben as guinea pigs for testing new drugs on them. One of the messages from Bayer to the leadership of Auschwitz reads: “The party of 150 women arrived in good condition. However, we were unable to obtain final results because they died during the experiments. We kindly ask you to send us another group of women in the same number and at the same price.” These women, who died while testing experimental painkillers, cost the company 170 Reichsmarks each.
Auschwitz became the site of the largest massacres in history as a result of the events of 1944. Until the spring of that year, the number of victims in this camp was several hundred thousand people less than in Treblinka. But in the spring and early summer of 1944, Auschwitz was operating at full capacity and beyond, beginning the period of the most monstrous and insane killings that the camp had ever seen. Most of the Jews who suffered and died during this terrible time came from one country - Hungary.
The Hungarians have always tried to conduct a cunning political game with the Nazis, consumed by two strong and contradictory feelings. On the one hand, they experienced traditional fear of the power of Germany, and on the other hand, they really wanted to cooperate with the winning side, especially if the latter meant the opportunity to grab a piece of territory from their eastern neighbor, Romania.
In the spring of 1941, the Hungarians supported their ally Germany in the seizure of Yugoslavia, and later, in June, sent troops to participate in the war against Soviet Union. But when the promised “lightning war” failed to succeed, dragging on for much longer than expected, the Hungarians began to realize that they had taken the wrong side. In January 1943, the Red Army utterly defeated the Hungarian forces. Eastern Front, causing catastrophic losses: Hungary lost about 150 thousand people killed, wounded or captured. The new “reasonable” position, the Hungarian leadership decided, was to distance itself from the Nazis.
In the spring of 1944, Hitler decided to send his troops into the territory of an unreliable ally. Hungary remained one of the few Eastern European countries that had not yet been plundered. This was amazingly rich territory, and now, Hitler decided, it was time for the Nazis to seize these riches. And of course, the local Jews became a special target of the Nazis. More than 760 thousand Jews lived in Hungary.
Due to the difficult military situation and the growing need for forced labor, the Nazis should have paid more attention to selecting those Jews who could serve physical labor Germany's military economy, from those who were of no value to the Third Reich and, therefore, had to be subjected to immediate destruction. Thus, from the Nazi point of view, Auschwitz became the ideal destination for the deportation of Hungarian Jews. He became a giant human sieve through which specially selected Jews could get into the factories of the Reich that used slave labor. By July 1944, Auschwitz had received 440 thousand Hungarian Jews. In less than 8 weeks, more than 320 thousand people died here.
Everything was organized with German pedantry. The trains were unloaded in the basement of the crematorium. The gas chambers of crematoria 2 and 3 were located underground, so the delivery of “cyclone B”, when people were pushed into the chamber and the door was closed behind them, was carried out almost directly. Standing outside on the roof of the gas chamber, SS members opened the valves, gaining access to hidden columns in the gas chamber. Then they placed canisters with “Cyclone B” in the columns and lowered them, and when the gas reached the bottom, they pushed the valves back in and battened them down. The Sonderkommando had to remove the bodies from the gas chamber and transport them using a small lift upstairs to the crematorium ovens on the ground floor. They then entered the cells again, carrying heavy fire hoses, and washed away the blood and excrement that covered the floors and walls.
Even the hair of those killed in the prison camp was put into the service of the Reich. An order was received from the economic department of the SS: to collect human hair from two centimeters in length so that it could be spun into thread. These threads were used to make “felt socks for submarine crews and felt hoses for the railway”...
When the end came, everything happened incredibly quickly. In January 1945, the Nazis blew up the crematoria, and on January 27, Soviet soldiers of the 1st Ukrainian Front entered the camp complex. There were about 8 thousand prisoners in the camp, whom the Nazis did not have time to destroy, and 60 thousand were driven to the west. Rudolf Hess was executed at Auschwitz in April 1947. According to modern estimates, of the 1.3 million people sent to Auschwitz, 1.1 million died in the camp. The Jews made up a staggering 1 million people.
Despite the decision of the Nuremberg trials that the SS as a whole was a "criminal" organization, no one ever even attempted to defend the position that mere work in the ranks of the SS at Auschwitz was already a war crime - a position that would undoubtedly have been supported by the public opinion. Convicting and giving a sentence, even the mildest, to every member of the SS from Auschwitz would certainly convey the message very clearly to future generations. But that did not happen. Approximately 85% of the SS men who served in Auschwitz and survived the war escaped punishment.
Auschwitz and the “Final Solution” represent the most heinous act in history. With their crime, the Nazis brought to the world an understanding of what educated, technically equipped people can do if they have a cold heart. The knowledge of what they did, once released into the world, should not be forgotten. It still lies there - ugly, heavy, waiting to be discovered by another generation. A warning for us and for those who come after us.
The article was written based on the book “Auschwitz” by Lawrence Rees. Nazis and the final solution to the Jewish question", M., KoLibri, Azbuka-Antikus, 2014.
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Unfortunately, historical memory is a short-lived thing. Less than seventy years have passed since the end of World War II, and many have a vague idea of what Auschwitz is, or the Auschwitz concentration camp, as it is commonly called in world practice. However, there is still a generation alive that has experienced first-hand the horrors of Nazism, famine, mass extermination and how deep a moral decline can be. Based on surviving documents and testimony of witnesses who know first-hand what WWII concentration camps were, modern historians present a picture of what happened, which, of course, cannot be exhaustive. It seems impossible to calculate the number of victims of the infernal machine of Nazism due to the destruction of documents by the SS men, and simply the lack of detailed reports on the dead and killed.
What is the Auschwitz concentration camp?
The complex of buildings for holding prisoners of war was built under the auspices of the SS on the directive of Hitler in 1939. The Auschwitz concentration camp is located near Krakow. 90% of those held there were ethnic Jews. The rest are Soviet prisoners of war, Poles, gypsies and representatives of other nationalities who are total number the number of killed and tortured was about 200 thousand.
The full name of the concentration camp is Auschwitz Birkenau. Auschwitz is a Polish name, commonly used mainly in the former Soviet Union.
History of the concentration camp. Maintenance of prisoners of war
Although the Auschwitz concentration camp is notorious for the mass extermination of Jewish civilians, it was originally conceived for slightly different reasons.
Why was Auschwitz chosen? This is due to its convenient location. Firstly, it was located on the border where the Third Reich ended and Poland began. Auschwitz was one of the key trading hubs with convenient and well-established transport routes. On the other hand, the closely approaching forest helped to hide the crimes committed there from prying eyes.
The Nazis erected the first buildings on the site of Polish army barracks. For construction, they used the labor of local Jews who were forced into captivity. At first, German criminals and Polish political prisoners were sent there. The main task of the concentration camp was to keep people dangerous to the well-being of Germany in isolation and use their labor. Prisoners worked six days a week, with Sunday being a day off.
In 1940 local population, who lived near the barracks, was forcibly expelled German army for the construction of additional buildings on the vacated territory, where later there were a crematorium and cells. In 1942, the camp was fenced with a strong reinforced concrete fence and high-voltage wire.
However, such measures did not stop some prisoners, although cases of escape were extremely rare. Those who had such thoughts knew that any attempt would result in all their cellmates being destroyed.
In the same 1942, at the NSDAP conference, it was concluded that it was necessary mass destruction Jews and the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question". At first, German and Polish Jews were exiled to Auschwitz and other German concentration camps during the Second World War. Then Germany agreed with the allies to carry out a “cleansing” in their territories.
It should be mentioned that not everyone agreed to this easily. For example, Denmark was able to save its subjects from imminent death. When the government was informed about the planned “hunt” of the SS, Denmark organized the secret transfer of Jews to a neutral state - Switzerland. Thus, more than 7 thousand lives were saved.
However, in the general statistics of those killed, tortured by hunger, beatings, backbreaking labor, disease and inhumane experiences, 7,000 people are a drop in the sea of shed blood. In total, during the existence of the camp, according to various estimates, from 1 to 4 million people were killed.
In mid-1944, when the war unleashed by the Germans took a sharp turn, the SS tried to transport prisoners from Auschwitz to the west, to other camps. Documents and any evidence of the merciless massacre were massively destroyed. The Germans destroyed the crematorium and gas chambers. At the beginning of 1945, the Nazis had to release most prisoners. They wanted to destroy those who could not escape. Fortunately, thanks to the offensive of the Soviet army, several thousand prisoners were saved, including children who were experimented on.
Camp structure
Auschwitz was divided into 3 large camp complexes: Birkenau-Auschwitz, Monowitz and Auschwitz-1. The first camp and Birkenau were later united and consisted of a complex of 20 buildings, sometimes several floors.
The tenth block occupied far from last place due to terrible conditions of detention. Medical experiments were carried out here, mainly on children. As a rule, such “experiments” did not so much represent scientific interest, how many were another way of sophisticated bullying. The eleventh block especially stood out among the buildings; it caused terror even among the local guards. There was a place for torture and executions; the most careless people were sent here and tortured with merciless cruelty. It was here that attempts were made for the first time at mass and most “effective” extermination using the Zyklon-B poison.
Between these two blocks, an execution wall was constructed, where, according to scientists, about 20 thousand people were killed.
Several gallows and incinerators were also installed on the premises. Later, gas chambers were built that could kill up to 6 thousand people a day.
Arriving prisoners were divided by German doctors into those who were able to work and those who were immediately sent to death in the gas chamber. Most often, the disabled were classified as weak women, children and old people.
The survivors were kept in cramped conditions, with virtually no food. Some of them dragged the bodies of the dead or cut off hair that went to textile factories. If a prisoner managed to hold out for a couple of weeks in such a service, they got rid of him and took a new one. Some fell into the “privileged” category and worked for the Nazis as tailors and barbers.
Deported Jews were allowed to take no more than 25 kg of weight from home. People took with them the most valuable and important things. All things and money left after their death were sent to Germany. Before that, it was necessary to disassemble and sort everything valuable that the prisoners were doing in the so-called “Canada.” The place acquired this name due to the fact that previously “Canada” was the name given to valuable gifts and gifts sent from abroad to the Poles. Labor on "Canada" was relatively gentler than in general at Auschwitz. Women worked there. Food could be found among the things, so in “Canada” the prisoners did not suffer so much from hunger. The SS men did not hesitate to pester beautiful girls. Rapes often occurred here.
First experiments with Cyclone-B
After the 1942 conference, the concentration camps begin to transform into a machine whose goal is mass destruction. Then the Nazis first tested the power of Zyklon-B on people.
“Zyklon-B” is a pesticide, a poison based on Bitter irony, the product was invented by the famous scientist Fritz Haber, a Jew who died in Switzerland a year after Hitler came to power. Haber's relatives died in concentration camps.
The poison was known for its strong effect. It was convenient to store. Cyclone-B, used to kill lice, was available and cheap. It is worth noting that the gaseous Zyklon-B is still used in America to carry out capital punishment.
The first experiment was carried out in Auschwitz-Birkenau (Auschwitz). Soviet prisoners of war were herded into the eleventh block and poison was poured through the holes. There was an incessant scream for 15 minutes. The dose was not enough to kill everyone. Then the Nazis added more pesticide. This time it worked.
The method turned out to be extremely effective. Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War began to actively use Zyklon-B, building special gas chambers. Apparently, in order not to create panic, and perhaps because of fear of retaliation, the SS men said that the prisoners needed to take a shower. However, for most prisoners it was no longer a secret that they would never leave this “soul” again.
The main problem for the SS was not the destruction of people, but the disposal of corpses. At first they were buried. This method was not very effective. When burned, the stench was unbearable. The Germans built the crematorium with the hands of prisoners, but incessant terrible screams and a terrifying smell became commonplace in Auschwitz: traces of crimes of this scale were very difficult to hide.
Living conditions of the SS men in the camp
The Auschwitz concentration camp (Auschwitz, Poland) was a real town. It had everything for military life: canteens with abundant good nutrition, cinema, theater and all human benefits for the Nazis. While the prisoners did not receive even the minimum amount of food (many died in the first or second week from hunger), the SS men feasted continuously, enjoying life.
Features Auschwitz has always been a desirable place of service for the German soldier. Life here was much better and safer than that of those who fought in the East.
However, there was no place more destructive of all human nature than Auschwitz. A concentration camp is not only a place with good maintenance, where the military did not face anything for endless killings, but also a complete lack of discipline. Here the soldiers could do whatever they wanted and whatever they could stoop to. Huge flows of money flowed through Auschwitz from property stolen from deportees. Accounting was carried out carelessly. And how was it possible to calculate exactly how much the treasury should be replenished if even the number of arriving prisoners was not taken into account?
The SS men did not hesitate to take precious things and money for themselves. They drank a lot, alcohol was often found among the belongings of the dead. In general, employees in Auschwitz did not limit themselves in anything, leading a rather idle lifestyle.
Doctor Josef Mengele
After Josef Mengele was wounded in 1943, he was deemed unfit to continue serving and was sent as a doctor to Auschwitz, the death camp. Here he had the opportunity to carry out all his ideas and experiments, which were frankly crazy, cruel and senseless.
The authorities ordered Mengele to conduct various experiments, for example, on the effects of cold or altitude on humans. Thus, Joseph conducted an experiment on temperature effects by covering the prisoner on all sides with ice until he died from hypothermia. In this way, it was found out at what body temperature irreversible consequences and death occur.
Mengele loved to experiment on children, especially twins. The results of his experiments were the death of almost 3 thousand minors. He performed forced sex reassignment surgeries, organ transplants, and painful procedures to try to change eye color, which ultimately led to blindness. This, in his opinion, was proof that it was impossible for a “purebred” to become a real Aryan.
In 1945, Josef had to flee. He destroyed all reports about his experiments and, using false documents, fled to Argentina. He lived quiet life without deprivation and oppression, without ever being caught and punished.
When did the prisoners collapse?
At the beginning of 1945, the situation in Germany changed. Soviet troops began an active offensive. The SS men had to begin the evacuation, which later became known as the “death march.” 60 thousand prisoners were ordered to go on foot to the West. Thousands of prisoners were killed along the way. Weakened by hunger and unbearable labor, the prisoners had to walk more than 50 kilometers. Anyone who lagged behind and could not go further was immediately shot. In Gliwice, where the prisoners arrived, they were sent in freight cars to concentration camps located in Germany.
The liberation of the concentration camps occurred at the end of January, when only about 7 thousand sick and dying prisoners remained in Auschwitz who could not leave.
Life after release
The victory over fascism, the destruction of concentration camps and the liberation of Auschwitz, unfortunately, did not mean complete punishment of all those responsible for the atrocities. What happened at Auschwitz remains not only the bloodiest, but also one of the most unpunished crimes in the history of mankind. Only 10% of all those who were directly or indirectly involved in the mass destruction of civilians were convicted and punished.
Many of those who are still alive never feel guilty. Some refer to the propaganda machine, which dehumanized the image of the Jew and made him the culprit of all the misfortunes of the Germans. Some say that an order is an order, and in war there is no place for reflection.
As for the concentration camp prisoners who escaped death, it seems that they don’t need to wish for more. However, these people were, as a rule, left to the mercy of fate. The houses and apartments where they lived had long been appropriated by others. Without property, money and relatives who died in the Nazi death machine, they needed to survive again, even in the post-war era. One can only be amazed at the willpower and courage of the people who went through the concentration camps and managed to survive after them.
Auschwitz Museum
After the end of the war, Auschwitz was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List and became a museum center. Despite the huge flow of tourists, it is always quiet here. This is not a museum in which something can please and pleasantly surprise. However, it is very important and valuable, as an incessant cry from the past about innocent victims and moral failure, the bottom of which is infinitely deep.
The museum is open to everyone and admission is free. Tours are conducted for tourists in various languages. At Auschwitz I, visitors are invited to look at the barracks and storage areas of the personal items of the dead prisoners, which were sorted with German meticulousness: rooms of glasses, mugs, shoes and even hair. You will also be able to visit the crematorium and the execution wall, where flowers are still brought to this day.
On the walls of the blocks you can see inscriptions left by the captives. In the gas chambers, to this day, there are traces of the nails of the unfortunate people who died in terrible agony on the walls.
Only here you can to the fullest to feel the horror of what happened, to see with my own eyes the living conditions and the scale of the destruction of people.
Holocaust in fiction
One of the works that exposes is “Refuge” by Anne Frank. This book, through letters and notes, tells the vision of the war by a Jewish girl who, together with her family, managed to find refuge in the Netherlands. The diary was kept from 1942 to 1944. Entries close on August 1st. Three days after this, the entire family was arrested by the German police.
To others famous work is Schindler's Ark. This is the story of factory owner Oskar Schindler, who, struck by the horrors happening in Germany, decided to do everything possible to save innocent people and transported thousands of Jews to Moravia.
The book was based on the film “Schindler’s List”, which received many prizes at various festivals, including the Oscars, and was highly appreciated by the critics community.
The policies and ideology of fascism led to one of the largest catastrophes of humanity. The world knows no other cases of such massive, unpunished killing of civilians. The history of error, which led to enormous suffering affecting the whole of Europe, must remain in the memory of mankind as a terrible symbol of what can never be allowed to happen again.
The word Auschwitz (or Auschwitz) in the minds of many people is a symbol or even the quintessence of evil, horror, death, a concentration of the most unimaginable inhuman cruelties and torture.
Many today dispute what former prisoners and historians say happened here. This is their personal right and opinion. But having visited Auschwitz and seen with my own eyes huge rooms filled with... glasses, tens of thousands of pairs of shoes, tons of cut hair and... children's things... You feel empty inside. And my hair is moving in horror. The horror of realizing that this hair, glasses and shoes belonged to a living person. Maybe a postman, or maybe a student. To an ordinary worker or trader at the market. Or a girl. Or a seven year old child. Which they cut off, removed, and threw into a common pile. To hundreds more of the same.
Auschwitz. A place of evil and inhumanity.
1. The young student Tadeusz Uzynski arrived in the first echelon with prisoners. The Auschwitz concentration camp began operating in 1940 as a camp for Polish political prisoners. The first prisoners of Auschwitz were 728 Poles from the prison in Tarnow. At the time of its founding, the camp had 20 buildings - former Polish military barracks. Some of them were converted for mass housing of people, and 6 more buildings were additionally built. The average number of prisoners fluctuated between 13-16 thousand people, and in 1942 reached 20 thousand. The Auschwitz camp became base camp for a whole network of new camps - in 1941, the Auschwitz II - Birkenau camp was built 3 km away, and in 1943 - Auschwitz III - Monowitz. In addition, in 1942-1944, about 40 branches of the Auschwitz camp were built, built near metallurgical plants, factories and mines, which were subordinate to the Auschwitz III concentration camp. And the camps Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II - Birkenau completely turned into a plant for the extermination of people.
2. Upon arrival at Auschwitz, prisoners were selected and those who were found suitable by SS doctors for work were sent for registration. Rudolf Höss, the head of the camp, told them on the very first day that they “... arrived at a concentration camp, from which there is only one way out - through the crematorium pipe.” Arriving prisoners were taken away clothes and all personal items, they had their hair cut, registered and appropriated personal numbers. Initially, each prisoner was photographed in three positions
3. In 1943, a tattoo of the prisoner’s number on the arm was introduced. For babies and young children, the number was most often tattooed on the thigh. According to the Auschwitz State Museum, this concentration camp was the only Nazi camp in which prisoners had numbers tattooed.
4. Depending on the reasons for the arrest, prisoners received triangles different color, which, along with numbers, were sewn onto camp clothes. Political prisoners were given a red triangle, criminals were given a green triangle. Gypsies and antisocial elements received black triangles, Jehovah's Witnesses received purple ones, and homosexuals received pink ones. Jews wore a six-pointed star consisting of a yellow triangle and a triangle of the color that corresponded to the reason for the arrest. Soviet prisoners of war had a patch in the form of the letters SU. The camp clothes were quite thin and provided almost no protection from the cold. Linen was changed at intervals of several weeks, and sometimes even once a month, and the prisoners did not have the opportunity to wash it, which led to epidemics of typhus and typhoid fever, as well as scabies
5. Prisoners in the Auschwitz I camp lived in brick blocks, in Auschwitz II-Birkenau - mainly in wooden barracks. Brick blocks were only in the women's section of the Auschwitz II camp. During the entire existence of the Auschwitz I camp, there were about 400 thousand prisoners of different nationalities, Soviet prisoners of war and prisoners of building No. 11 awaiting conclusion of the Gestapo police tribunal. One of the disasters of camp life was the inspections at which the number of prisoners was checked. They lasted several, and sometimes over 10 hours (for example, 19 hours on July 6, 1940). Camp authorities very often announced penalty checks, during which prisoners had to squat or kneel. There were tests when they had to hold their hands up for several hours.
6. Housing conditions varied greatly in different periods, but they were always catastrophic. The prisoners, who were brought in at the very beginning in the first trains, slept on straw scattered on the concrete floor.
7. Later, hay bedding was introduced. These were thin mattresses filled with a small amount of it. About 200 prisoners slept in a room that barely accommodated 40-50 people.
8. With the increase in the number of prisoners in the camp, the need arose to densify their accommodation. Three-tier bunks appeared. There were 2 people lying on one tier. The bedding was usually rotted straw. The prisoners covered themselves with rags and whatever they had. In the Auschwitz camp the bunks were wooden, in Auschwitz-Birkenau they were both wooden and brick with wooden flooring.
9. The toilet of the Auschwitz I camp, compared to the conditions in Auschwitz-Birkenau, looked like a real miracle of civilization.
10. Toilet barracks in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp
11. Washroom. The water was only cold and the prisoner only had access to it for a few minutes a day. Prisoners were allowed to wash extremely rarely, and for them it was a real holiday
12. Sign with the number of the residential block on the wall
13. Until 1944, when Auschwitz became an extermination factory, most prisoners were sent to grueling labor every day. At first they worked to expand the camp, and then they were used as slaves in the industrial facilities of the Third Reich. Every day, columns of exhausted slaves went out and entered through gates with the cynical inscription “Arbeit macht Frei” (Work makes you free). The prisoner had to do the work running, without a second of rest. The pace of work, meager portions of food and constant beatings increased the mortality rate. During the return of prisoners to the camp, those killed or exhausted, who could not move on their own, were dragged or carried in wheelbarrows. And at this time, a brass band consisting of prisoners played for them near the gates of the camp.
14. For every inhabitant of Auschwitz, block No. 11 was one of the most terrible places. Unlike other blocks, its doors were always closed. The windows were completely bricked up. Only on the first floor there were two windows - in the room where the SS men were on duty. In the halls on the right and left sides of the corridor, prisoners were placed awaiting the verdict of the emergency police court, which came to the Auschwitz camp from Katowice once or twice a month. During 2-3 hours of his work, he imposed from several dozen to over a hundred death sentences.
15. The cramped cells, which sometimes housed a huge number of people awaiting sentencing, had only a tiny barred window near the ceiling. And on the street side near these windows there were tin boxes that blocked these windows from the influx of fresh air
16. Those sentenced to death were forced to undress in this room before execution. If there were few of them that day, then the sentence was carried out right here.
17. If there were many condemned, they were taken to the “Wall of Death,” which was located behind a high fence with a blank gate between buildings 10 and 11. Large numbers of their camp number were written on the chests of undressed people with an ink pencil (until 1943, when tattoos appeared on the arm), so that later it would be easy to identify the corpse.
18. Under the stone fence in the courtyard of block 11, a large wall was built of black insulating boards, lined with absorbent material. This wall became the last facet of life for thousands of people sentenced to death by the Gestapo court for unwillingness to betray their homeland, attempted escape and political “crimes.”
19. Fibers of death. The condemned were shot by the reportfuehrer or members of the political department. For this we used small caliber rifle so as not to attract too much attention with the sounds of gunfire. After all, very close there was a stone wall, behind which there was a highway.
20. In the Auschwitz camp there was a whole system of punishments for prisoners. It can also be called one of the fragments of their deliberate destruction. The prisoner was punished for picking an apple or finding a potato in a field, relieving himself while working, or for working too slowly. One of the most terrible places of punishment, often leading to the death of a prisoner, was one of the basements of building 11. Here in the back room there were four narrow vertical sealed punishment cells measuring 90x90 centimeters in perimeter. Each of them had a door with a metal bolt at the bottom.
21. The punished person was forced to squeeze inside through this door and it was bolted. A person could only be standing in this cage. So he stood without food and water for as long as the SS men wanted. Often this was the last punishment in a prisoner's life.
23. In September 1941, the first attempt was made to mass exterminate people using gas. About 600 Soviet prisoners of war and about 250 sick prisoners from the camp hospital were placed in small batches in sealed cells in the basement of the 11th building.
24. Copper pipelines with valves were already installed along the walls of the cells. Gas flowed through them into the chambers...
25. The names of the exterminated people were entered into the “Day Status Book” of the Auschwitz camp
26. Lists of people sentenced to death by the extraordinary police court
27. Found notes left by those sentenced to death on scraps of paper
28. In Auschwitz, in addition to adults, there were also children who were sent to the camp along with their parents. These were the children of Jews, Gypsies, as well as Poles and Russians. Most Jewish children died in gas chambers immediately after arriving at the camp. The rest, after a strict selection, were sent to a camp where they were subject to the same strict rules as adults.
29. Children were registered and photographed in the same way as adults and designated as political prisoners.
30. One of the most terrible pages in the history of Auschwitz were medical experiments by SS doctors. Including over children. For example, Professor Karl Clauberg, in order to develop quick method biological destruction of the Slavs, he conducted sterilization experiments on Jewish women in building No. 10. Dr. Josef Mengele conducted experiments on twin children and children with physical disabilities as part of genetic and anthropological experiments. In addition, various kinds of experiments were carried out at Auschwitz using new drugs and preparations, toxic substances were rubbed into the epithelium of prisoners, skin transplants were carried out, etc.
31. Conclusion on the results of X-rays carried out during the experiments with the twins by Dr. Mengele.
32. Letter from Heinrich Himmler in which he orders the start of a series of sterilization experiments
33. Maps of anthropometric data records of experimental prisoners as part of Dr. Mengele’s experiments.
34. Pages of the register of the dead, which contain the names of 80 boys who died after injections of phenol as part of medical experiments
35. List of released prisoners placed in a Soviet hospital for treatment
36. Since the fall of 1941, a gas chamber using Zyklon B gas began to function in the Auschwitz camp. It was produced by the Degesch company, which received about 300 thousand marks of profit from the sale of this gas during the period 1941-1944. To kill 1,500 people, according to Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoess, about 5-7 kg of gas was needed.
37. After the liberation of Auschwitz, it was found in the camp warehouses great amount used cans of Zyklon B and cans with unused contents. During the period 1942-1943, according to documents, about 20 thousand kg of Zyklon B crystals were supplied to Auschwitz alone.
38. Most Jews doomed to death arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau with the conviction that they were being taken “to settlement” in eastern Europe. This was especially true for Jews from Greece and Hungary, to whom the Germans even sold non-existent building plots and lands or offered work in fictitious factories. That is why people sent to the camp for extermination often brought with them the most valuable things, jewelry and money.
39. Upon arrival at the unloading platform, all things and valuables were taken from people, SS doctors carried out a selection of deported people. Those who were declared unable to work were sent to gas chambers. According to the testimony of Rudolf Hoess, there were about 70-75% of those who arrived.
40. Items found in Auschwitz warehouses after the liberation of the camp
41. Model of the gas chamber and crematorium II of Auschwitz-Birkenau. People were convinced that they were being sent to a bathhouse, so they looked relatively calm.
42. Here prisoners are forced to take off their clothes and are taken to the next room, which imitates a bathhouse. There were shower holes under the ceiling through which no water ever flowed. About 2,000 people were brought into a room of about 210 square meters, after which the doors were closed and gas was supplied to the room. People died within 15-20 minutes. The gold teeth of the dead were pulled out, rings and earrings were removed, and women's hair was cut off.
43. After this, the corpses were transported to the ovens of the crematoria, where the fire roared continuously. When the ovens overflowed or when the pipes were damaged from overload, the bodies were destroyed in the burning areas behind the crematoria. All these actions were carried out by prisoners belonging to the so-called Sonderkommando group. At the peak of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, its number was about 1,000 people.
44. A photograph taken by one of the members of the Sonderkommando, which shows the process of burning those dead people.
45. In the Auschwitz camp, the crematorium was located behind the camp fence. Its largest room was the morgue, which was converted into a temporary gas chamber.
46. Here in 1941 and 1942, Soviet prisoners of war and Jews from the ghettos located in Upper Silesia were exterminated.
47. In the second hall there were three double ovens, in which up to 350 bodies were burned during the day.
48. 2-3 corpses were placed in one retort.
49. The crematorium was built by the company Topf and Sons from Erfurt, which installed ovens in four crematoria in Brzezinka in 1942-1943.
50. Building No. 5 is now the most terrible. Here is material evidence of Nazi crimes at Auschwitz
51. Thousands of glasses, the arms of which are intertwined like the fates of people who took them off before the last trip to the “bathhouse”
52. The next room is half filled with personal hygiene products - shaving brushes, toothbrushes, combs...
54. Hundreds of prostheses, corsets, crutches. Disabled people were unsuitable for work, so upon arrival at the camp, only one fate awaited them - a gas chamber and a crematorium.
56. A two-story room, which, up to the ceiling of the first floor, is filled with metal utensils that were in the prisoners’ suitcases - bowls, plates, teapots...
57. Suitcases with the names of deported people written on them.
58. All property that the deported people brought was sorted, stored, and the most valuable was exported to the Third Reich for the needs of the SS, Wehrmacht and civilian population. In addition, prisoners' items were used by employees of the camp garrison. For example, they turned to the commandant with written requests to issue strollers, things for babies, and other items.
59. One of the most ominous rooms is a huge room, littered with mountains of shoes on both sides. Which was once worn by living people. Those who took it off in front of the “bathhouse”.
60. Silent Witnesses last minutes the lives of their owners
62. The Red Army, which liberated the Auschwitz camp, discovered about 7,000 kg of hair packed in bags in warehouses that had not been burned by the Germans. These were the remains that the camp authorities did not have time to sell and send to factories. Analysis carried out at the Institute forensic examinations, showed that they contained traces of hydrocyanic acid, a poisonous component that was part of Cylon B. German companies produced tailor's beads from human hair.
63. Found children's things.
64. It’s impossible to stand the sight of them. I want to get out of here quickly
66. And again mountains of shoes. Children's.
67. The steps of the barracks, which currently house the exhibitions of the Auschwitz State Museum, have been crushed by millions of human feet that have visited this museum of horror for almost 70 years.
68. The gates of the death factory were closed on January 27, 1945, when 7 thousand prisoners abandoned by the Germans waited for the Red Army detachments...
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January 27, 2015 |
From the editors of “Russia Forever”: Arkady Maler: I wrote this article 5 years ago and some patriots told me then that it was not “relevant” enough.
Photo:January 1945Liberated children from the Auschwitz concentration camp. These children no longer face anything except nightmares at night and memories that cannot be escaped. Of the 1 million 300 thousand prisoners of Auschwitz, children accounted for about 234,000. Of these—220,000 Jewish children, 11 thousand Roma; several thousand Belarusian, Ukrainian, Russian, Polish. By the day of the liberation of Auschwitz, 611 children remained in the camp.
On January 27, 1945, Soviet troops under the command of Marshal Ivan Stepanovich Konev (1897-1973) liberated the largest Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz, also known as Auschwitz. This event marked the liberation mission of the Russian Soviet army, and in 2005 the UN General Assembly recognized January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Auschwitz was originally the name of a Polish city located 60 kilometers west of Krakow, occupied by Nazi Germany in 1939. The Germans called it in their own way - Auschwitz and by this name it is known throughout the non-Slavic world. In the Auschwitz-Auschwitz area, the German authorities built the famous concentration camp, or rather, a whole complex of concentration camps, which made this name a household name.
But today, the memory of crimes against humanity, as the accusation against the Nazis was accurately formulated at the Nuremberg trials, disappears along with the last witnesses to these crimes, and not every schoolchild, not only in Germany, but even in Poland and Russia itself, imagines what a concentration camp is. and why the memory of this nightmare should never leave human race, if he still wants to remain human. The idea of isolating one or another category of enemies and prisoners in specially designated premises, and bringing them to death with inhuman labor and endless psychobiological experiments, has no author - its initiators can be imagined anywhere and anytime, but only in the country of victorious National Socialism, in “ In the civilized” German Empire of the twentieth century, this idea was fully realized, with German methodology and Nordic equanimity.
Unable to calculate exact number all the people who died in Auschwitz, as well as in the entire system of concentration camps of any totalitarian state, because the very idea of a concentration camp does not imply statistics.
The idea of exterminating people in gas chambers, which horrifies any sane person today, was then and there considered the height of progress and even the most “humane” means of all possible - after all, people had to be killed not individually, but in hundreds and preferably without unnecessary blood . The first gas-baiting test at Auschwitz was carried out on September 3, 1941, on the orders of the deputy camp commandant, SS-Obersturmführer Karl Fritzsch, when a short time 600 Soviet prisoners of war and another 250 prisoners died from suffocation. Later, more than 20,000 people could be killed in a concentration camp in one day. People died from torture, and from hunger, and from unbearable work, and while trying to escape, and if someone suspected them of disobedience, and from their own attempts to commit suicide in this hell created by human hands.
In general, according to general estimates, about one and a half million (!) people died in Auschwitz alone. At the same time, the commandant of this camp in 1940-43, Rudolf Hoess, Nuremberg Tribunal stated that about two and a half million (!) people died, and admitted that no one counted the people themselves. When the Russians liberated Auschwitz on January 27, 1945, about seven and a half thousand prisoners were found on its territory, and 1,185,345 men's and women's suits were found in clothing warehouses. In a short time, the Nazis managed to remove and kill more than 58 thousand people.
The meeting of Marshal Konev’s army with Auschwitz can only be compared with the meeting of Scipio’s army with Carthage - just as the Romans suddenly saw the temple of Baal with the bodies of thousands of burnt people sacrificed to this demon, so the Russians suddenly saw the hell that the “enlightened one” had prepared for them. "Germany. It was an encounter with barbarism masquerading as culture. And it was necessary to have very strong will to life and hope for salvation, so that even after this meeting we can continue to pretend that nothing like this happened. This is why the philosopher Theodor Adorno said that writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric, because why are we, the survivors, better than those who ended up in this hell?
The experience of Auschwitz shows us what a person who has ceased to perceive humanity as a value can be capable of. People living in Germany in the 30-40s of the twentieth century are no worse than any other people living ever and anywhere, but they were only able to create a state that systematically exterminates people based on ethnicity and is sincerely confident that this will happen. will always continue. This is evidence of the abyss of evil in which a person can completely voluntarily find himself and from which everything that we also call culture is trying to protect him. And today all over the world there are a lot of people who would be ready to organize more than one Auschwitz if they had such an opportunity, and they perceive our worries about the past as nothing more than our personal problems,
- after all, it can’t even occur to them that any new Auschwitz could affect them themselves, and often first of all.
In the same way, in our world there are more and more people who believe the Great Patriotic War nothing more than “Soviet-Nazi” and are happy to speculate about all the “delights” of the German occupation. But Auschwitz is exactly what could have happened to each of us, and to each of them, if Nazi Germany had defeated Soviet Russia. If they had won the Second World War, they would have been the Baltic nationalists, the “Banderists”, the “Galicia” division, the so-called. “Russian Liberation Army” of General Vlasov, etc. If they had won, we would have had Auschwitz. That is why, out of hatred for historical Russia Today they are ready to step over the last line and deny even what is recognized throughout European civilization, of which they so want to consider themselves a part - to deny the tragedy of the Holocaust and the Great Victory of 1945. And how can they call for sympathy for their own historical pain if its price is complete indifference to the real pain of everyone else.
The fact of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Russian army is still not sufficiently appreciated in world history. IN Soviet Russia this event was regarded as a natural component common victory above Hitler's Germany, and in the West, the image of the Russian soldier-liberator was carefully supplanted by the American one, so that now the average European schoolchild can be sure that all the concentration camps were liberated by the Americans, and that it was as if there were no Russians in the war at all. But there are facts that cannot be denied - just as Russia, first of all, won the Second World War, so it was Russia that liberated Auschwitz on January 27, 1945. This greatest achievement our national history, not only no less, but even more important than the launch of Sputnik or Gagarin’s flight, because here we are talking directly about the liberation of living people and the victory over the anti-human regime of all times and peoples, which could one day destroy all of humanity. With the liberation of Auschwitz, Russia once again demonstrated its historical mission, and the Soviet regime for the first time received moral justification, so the USSR before and after the war are practically two different states. Therefore, the liberation of Auschwitz should become one of the main pages in Russian history textbooks, it is here that films and programs should be made about it, and this event itself should become a symbol of the universal mission of Russia as a country that has more than once saved European humanity from death.
Before today Only three photographs taken by prisoners on the camp grounds have survived. In the first, stripped naked Jewish women are led to the gas chambers. The other two show huge piles of human bodies, burned in the open air.
Liberating the camp at Auschwitz, Soviet army I found about 7 tons of hair packed in bags in warehouses. These were the remains that the camp authorities did not manage to sell and send to the factories of the Third Reich. The analysis showed that they contain traces of hydrogen cyanide, a special toxic component of drugs called “Cyclone B”. German companies, among other products, produced hair tailor's beads from human hair. Rolls of beading found in one of the cities, located in a display case, were submitted for analysis, the results of which showed that it was made from human hair, most likely women's hair.
It is very difficult to imagine the tragic scenes that played out every day in the camp. Former prisoners - artists - tried to convey the atmosphere of those days in their work:
Scenes from the life of the Auschwitz camp. Construction on the inspection area
Before being sent to the gas chamber. Artist - former prisoner Wladislaw Siwek
To work
Return of prisoners from work. Some exhausted prisoners are carried by their comrades so that the guards do not shoot the exhausted man on the spot. Artist - former prisoner Wladislaw Siwek
A brass band made up of prisoners plays a march as prisoners return from work to the camp. Artist - Mstislav Koscielniak (Miesczyslaw Koscielniak)
The prisoners were allowed to wash themselves. Artist - Mstislav Koscielniak (Miesczyslaw Koscielniak)
Captured fugitives awaiting the death penalty. Artist - Mstislav Koscielniak. Over the entire history of Auschwitz, there were about 700 escape attempts, 300 of which were successful, but if someone escaped, all his relatives were arrested and sent to the camp, and all prisoners from his block were killed. This was a very effective method of preventing escape attempts.
The photographs of 14-year-old Czeslawa Kwoka, provided by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, were taken by Wilhelm Brasse, who worked as a photographer at Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp. In December 1942, a Polish Catholic woman, Czeslawa, originally from the town of Wolka Zlojecka, was sent to Auschwitz along with her mother. Three months later they both died. In 2005, photographer (and fellow prisoner) Brasse told how he photographed Czeslava: “She was so young and so scared. The girl didn’t understand why she was there and didn’t understand what she was being told. And then the kapo (prison guard) took a stick and hit in her face. This German woman simply took out her anger on the girl. Such a beautiful, young and innocent creature. She cried, but she couldn’t do anything. Before taking the photo, the girl wiped the tears and blood from her broken lip. I must admit, I felt bad. as if they had beaten me, but I could not intervene. For me it would have ended fatally" ().
Hard work and hunger led to complete exhaustion of the body. From hunger, prisoners fell ill with dystrophy, which very often ended in death. These photographs were taken after liberation; they show adult prisoners weighing from 23 to 35 kg.
In Auschwitz, in addition to adults, there were also children who were sent to the camp along with their parents. First of all, these were the children of Jews, Gypsies, as well as Poles and Russians. Most Jewish children died in gas chambers immediately after arriving at the camp. A few of them, after careful selection, were sent to a camp where they were subject to the same strict rules as adults. Some of the children, such as twins, were subjected to criminal experiments.
Children, victims of experiments by Dr. Josef Mengele (Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum archives)
Joseph Mengele. Did Mengele consider his experiments serious research, given the carelessness with which he worked? Most operations were performed without anesthetics. For example, Mengele once removed part of the stomach without anesthesia. Another time the heart was removed, and again without anesthesia. It was monstrous. Mengele was obsessed with power.
Experiments on twins
Cards of recording anthropometric data of experimental prisoners as part of Dr. Mengele's experiments
Pages of the register of the dead, which contain the names of 80 boys who died after injections of phenol as part of medical experiments
Selection in the basements of block 11. Artist - former prisoner Wladislaw Siwek
Before execution at the Wall of Death. Artist - former prisoner Wladislaw Siwek
Execution in the courtyard of block 11 at the Wall of Death
One of the most terrible exhibits is a model of one of the crematoria in the Auschwitz II camp. On average, about 3 thousand people were killed and burned in such a building per day...
In the Auschwitz concentration camp, the crematorium was located outside the camp fence. Its largest room was the morgue, which was converted into a temporary gas chamber. Here, in 1941 and 1942, Soviet prisoners of war and Jews from the ghettos located in Upper Silesia were exterminated.
Transportation of the bodies of those executed at the Wall of Death by prisoners from the Sonderkommando. former prisoner Wladislaw Siwek
Tears
Security, guards and camp support staff. In total, Auschwitz was guarded by about 6,000 SS men.
Their personal data has been preserved. Three quarters had completed secondary education. 5% are university graduates with scientific degree. Almost 4/5 identified themselves as believers. Catholics - 42.4%; Protestants - 36.5%.
On a rest
SS Choir
Auschwitz. Members of the SS Helferinnen (overseer) and SS officer Karl Hoecker sitting on a fence eating blueberries from cups, accompanied by an accordion player
Resting...
Hard day's Night
After work: Richard Baer, unknown person, camp doctor Josef Mengele, commandant of the Birkenau camp Josef Kramer (partially obscured) and the previous commandant of Auschwitz Rudolf Hess (not to be confused with the namesake and almost namesake - “flyer” Rudolf Hess)
Liberation of Auschwitz. A Soviet nurse holds the girl Zinaida Grinevich in her hands. This is how it is described in the material about the rescued girl: “Then there is another old newspaper clipping. With a photograph taken in Auschwitz shortly after the liberation. Children in prison clothes with an old, sad look. Barbed wire, watchtowers. On the left, a nurse holds in her hands a man wrapped in child's blanket - Zinaida.
The photo was taken shortly before she, along with two other children, was sent to Lvov, to an orphanage. The three-year-old child had been separated for several months from his mother, who was sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Bartya and her sisters went to a camp in Lithuania. Zinaida was too weak to travel. In addition, the concentration camp executioners needed her as a guinea pig. She was infected again and again with various diseases. Rubella, chickenpox. And then Nazi doctors tested counteracting drugs on her. Zinaida is one of those children who survived torture."