The history of Auschwitz, a small city located sixty kilometers west of Krakow, did not stand out in any way among the annals of other settlements in Poland until January 1945. During the Vistula-Oder operation, Soviet troops reached the lines specified by the order, occupying the area of Auschwitz and Birkenau (names adopted by the Germans after seizing the territory in 1939). What the soldiers saw shocked them.
No, it was not the very fact of the existence of a death camp that caused confusion among Soviet soldiers and officers. Some of our military men knew, sometimes from their own life experience, that there were institutions of a similar profile in the USSR, and not only in Kolyma. The shock was caused by the pedantry and systematic nature of the process of mass deprivation of life. The cynical inscription on the gates of Auschwitz read: “Work makes you free.” Everything was set up on a broad industrial scale; the belongings of the murdered prisoners were stored systematically. Toothbrushes, shoes, suitcases, cut hair (they were used to insulate the strong hulls of submarines), suits, dresses and much more were sorted and loaded into separate storage facilities. Behind the crematorium, the Soviet military discovered a whole lake, but instead of water it was filled with human fat. The ash served as fertilizer for agricultural land. As it turned out later, there were several similar camps in Nazi Germany, and each of them had its own “motto”. For example, above the gates of Buchenwald there was an inscription: “To each his own.”
General information about the organization
The camp was organized in German style. After his release, part of it was even used by the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs for about two years for its intended purpose. The history of this place of mass extermination of “subhumans” began in 1939, after part of the Polish territory became part of the Reich. The majority of the remaining occupied lands retained their occupied status throughout the war. In May 1940, work began here to rebuild the old barracks of the Polish (and earlier Austro-Hungarian) army to isolate “undesirable elements” such as Jews, gypsies, communists, homosexuals, resistance members, etc. Second floors were built, locals were evicted residents, buildings for special purposes appeared. Since February 1942, new prisoners appeared in the camp - Soviet prisoners of war, mostly political workers. A reliable barbed wire fence was erected, to which high voltage was supplied, and at the same time an inscription appeared on the gates of Auschwitz. Actually, there was not just one camp here, but a whole network, which included three main camp points, divided, in turn, into divisions. Each category of prisoners was kept separately, with the exception of those whose labor could not be profitably used. These were destroyed immediately.
Thus, constantly expanding and improving technology, the largest concentration camp in the Third Reich, Auschwitz, increased its productivity. The death factory operated at full capacity, its crematoria could not always cope with the load, and then the corpses were burned in ditches. Every day, several trains with “human material” entered the gates, filtration was immediately carried out, and those who were of no value were awaited by gas chambers, commissioned in 1943.
Performance
The inscription on the gates of Auschwitz was quite consistent with his murderously busy nature. You really had to work hard. All the hard and dirty work was done by the prisoners themselves, and six thousand guards from the SS “Totenkopf” division only guarded and kept order. The furnaces interrupted their work for three hours a day - at this time the ashes were unloaded from them. There were 46 of them in total, 30 in the first two crematoria and another 16 in the “second stage”. The overall average productivity was eight thousand burned corpses per day.
It was difficult to estimate the number of victims of this death factory; the Nazis tried to hide the scale of the crime. Even the camp commandant had no idea about the number of people he destroyed, citing an approximate figure of two and a half million during the Nuremberg trials. According to historian J. Weller, more than 1.6 million prisoners entered the gates of Auschwitz and did not return, of which 1.1 million were Jews.
Medical experiments
It was here that the sinister Doctor Mengele conducted his research. Under his leadership, other doctors, who without any stretch of the imagination can be called killer doctors, did unthinkable things to prisoners. They infected prisoners with deadly viruses, performed amputations and abdominal operations without anesthesia, just for training. Experiments were carried out on mass deprivation of childbearing functions through irradiation, sterilization and castration. The effects of chemicals on the body, the consequences of freezing were studied, and many other anti-human experiments were carried out. Most of the fanatics suffered a well-deserved punishment. The first commandant of the camp, R. Hess, hoped to escape retaliation by surrendering to the Allies, but was handed over by the British to the Poles. He was hanged near Crematorium No. 1 in 1947. Well, to each his own.
Story with inscription
Collectors are strange people; in their passion they sometimes violate the boundaries of reason. Who could have imagined that some of them were haunted by the inscription on the gates of Auschwitz, which became an open-air museum? However, at the end of 2009 she disappeared. Five people took part in the theft: they cut off a fragment of the fence and sawed it into pieces. The mastermind of the crime was a Swedish citizen who has so far managed to avoid responsibility. How much he promised to pay the performers remains a mystery to this day.
After restoration, the famous ominous inscription will take its place in the Auschwitz museum exhibition; they will not replace it.
Sixty-five years ago, on January 27, 1945, Soviet troops liberated prisoners of Auschwitz, the most famous concentration camp of World War II, located in southern Poland. One can only regret that by the time the Red Army arrived, no more than three thousand prisoners remained behind the barbed wire, since all able-bodied prisoners were taken to Germany. The Germans also managed to destroy the camp archives and blow up most of the crematoria.
There is no way out
The exact number of Auschwitz victims is still unknown. At the Nuremberg trials, an approximate estimate was made - five million. The former camp commandant Rudolf Hoess (Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Höß, 1900-1947) claimed that there were half as many dead. And historian, director of the Auschwitz State Museum (Państwowe Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau w Oświęcimiu) Frantisek Piper believes that about a million prisoners did not receive freedom.
The tragic history of the death camp, called Auschwitz-Brzezinka by the Poles and Auschwitz-Birkenau by the Germans, began in August 1940. Then, in the small ancient Polish town of Auschwitz, sixty kilometers west of Krakow, construction of the grandiose concentration complex Auschwitz I began on the site of former barracks. Initially it was designed for 10,000 people, but in March 1941, after the visit of the head of the SS Heinrich Himmler (Heinrich Luitpold Himmler, 1900-1945) its capacity was increased to 30,000 people. The first prisoners of Auschwitz were Polish prisoners of war, and it was with their efforts that new camp buildings were erected.
Today, on the territory of the former camp there is a museum dedicated to the memory of its prisoners. You enter it through an open gate with the infamous inscription in German “Arbeit macht Frei” (“Work sets you free”). In December 2009, this sign was stolen. However, the Polish police showed efficiency, and soon the loss was found, although it was sawn into three parts. So a copy of it now hangs on the gate.
Who did labor free from this hell? Surviving prisoners write in their memoirs that they often heard: there is only one way out of Auschwitz - through the pipes of the crematorium. Andrei Pogozhev, a former prisoner of the camp, one of the few who managed to escape and survive, says in his memoirs that only once did he happen to see a group of prisoners leaving the protected area not in prison uniforms: some were wearing civilian clothes, others were wearing civilian clothes. black cassocks. They rumored that, at the request of the Pope, Hitler ordered the transfer of the clergy who were in the concentration camp to Dachau, another concentration camp with “milder” conditions. And this was the only example of “liberation” in Pogozhev’s memory.
Camp order
Residential blocks, administrative buildings, camp hospital, canteen, crematorium... A whole block of two-story brick buildings. If you don’t know that there was a death zone here, everything looks very neat and, one might say, even pleasing to the eye. Those who recalled their first day outside the gates of Auschwitz wrote about the same thing: the neat appearance of the buildings and the mention of an imminent lunch misled them, even delighted them... At that moment, no one could imagine what horrors awaited them.
January of this year was unusually snowy and cold. The few visitors, covered with flakes of snow, gloomy and taciturn, quickly ran from one block to another. The doors opened with a creak and disappeared into dark corridors. In some rooms, the atmosphere of the war years has been preserved, in others, exhibitions have been organized: documents, photographs, stands.
The residential blocks resemble a dormitory: a long dark corridor on the sides of the room. In the middle of each room there was a round stove for heating, lined with iron. Moving from room to room was strictly prohibited. One of the corner rooms was allocated for a washroom and a latrine, and it also served as a mortuary. You were allowed to go to the restroom at any time - but only by running.
Three-tier bunks with mattresses made of paper fabric stuffed with straw, prisoners’ clothes, rusty washstands - everything is in its place, as if the prisoners left this room a week ago. Trying to convey in words how heavy, perhaps eerie, oppressive an impression every meter of this museum makes is unlikely to succeed. When you are there, your mind resists with all its might, refusing to accept on faith the fact that all this is reality, and not a scary set for a war film.
In addition to the memories of the surviving prisoners, three very important documents help to understand what life was like in Auschwitz. The first is the diary of Johann Kremer (1886-1965), a doctor who was sent to serve in Auschwitz on August 29, 1942, where he spent about three months. The diary was written during the war and, apparently, was not intended for prying eyes. No less important are the notes of camp Gestapo officer Pery Broad (1921-1993) and, of course, the autobiography of Rudolf Hoess, written by him in a Polish prison. Hoess held the position of commandant of Auschwitz - could he not have known about the order that reigned there.
Museum stands with historical information and photographs clearly tell how the life of prisoners was organized. In the morning, half a liter of tea - a warm liquid without a specific color or smell; in the afternoon - 800 g of something like soup with traces of the presence of cereals, potatoes, and rarely meat. In the evenings, a “brick” of earthy-colored bread for six with a smear of jam or a piece of margarine. The hunger was terrible. For entertainment, the sentries often threw rutabaga over the barbed wire into the crowd of prisoners. Thousands of people, losing their minds from hunger, pounced on the pathetic vegetable. The SS men liked to organize “mercy” actions at the same time in different parts of the camp; they liked to watch how, lured by food, prisoners rushed inside a confined space from one guard to another... The maddened crowd left behind dozens of crushed and hundreds of crippled ones.
At times, the administration arranged “ice baths” for prisoners. In winter, this often led to an increase in cases of inflammatory diseases. More than a dozen unfortunate people were killed by guards when, in a painful delirium, not understanding what they were doing, they approached the restricted area near the fence, or died on a wire that was under high voltage current. And some simply froze, wandering unconscious between the barracks.
Between the tenth and eleventh blocks there was a wall of death - from 1941 to 1943, several thousand prisoners were shot here. These were mainly anti-fascist Poles captured by the Gestapo, as well as those who tried to escape or establish contacts with the outside world. In 1944, the wall, by order of the camp administration, was dismantled. But a small part of it was restored for the museum. Now it's a memorial. Near him are candles dusted with January snow, flowers and wreaths.
Inhuman experiences
Several museum exhibitions tell about the experiments that were carried out on prisoners at Auschwitz. Since 1941, the camp tested means intended for the mass extermination of people - so the Nazis were looking for the most effective way to finally solve the Jewish question. The first experiments in the basements of block No. 11 were carried out under the leadership of Karl Fritzsch himself (Karl Fritzsch, 1903-1945?) - Hess’s deputy. Fritsch was interested in the properties of Zyklon B gas, which was used to control rats. Soviet prisoners of war served as experimental material. The results exceeded all expectations and confirmed that Zyklon B can be a reliable weapon of mass destruction. Hoess wrote in his autobiography:
The use of Zyklon B had a calming effect on me, because soon it was necessary to begin the mass extermination of Jews, and until now neither I nor Eichmann had any idea how this action would be carried out. Now we have found both the gas and the method of its action.
In 1941-1942, the surgical department was located in block No. 21. It was here that Andrei Pogozhev was taken after he was wounded in his hand on March 30, 1942 during the construction of the Brzezinka camp. The fact is that Auschwitz was not just a concentration camp - that was the name of an entire camp enclave, which consisted of several independent detention zones. In addition to Auschwitz I, or Auschwitz itself, which is in question, there was also Auschwitz II, or Brzezinka (after the name of a nearby village). Its construction began in October 1941 with the hands of Soviet prisoners of war, among whom was Pogozhev.
On March 16, 1942, Brzezinka opened its gates. Conditions here were even worse than in Auschwitz I. Prisoners were kept in approximately three hundred wooden barracks, originally intended for horses. More than four hundred prisoners were crammed into a room designed for 52 horses. Day after day, trains with prisoners arrived here from all over occupied Europe. New arrivals were immediately examined by a special commission that determined their suitability for work. Those who did not pass the commission were immediately sent to the gas chambers.
The wound that Andrei Pogozhev received was not industrial, he was simply shot by an SS man. And this was not the only case. We can say that Pogozhev was lucky - at least he survived. His memoirs contain a detailed account of hospital everyday life in block No. 21. He remembers very warmly the doctor, the Pole Alexander Turetsky, who was arrested for his beliefs and acted as clerk of the fifth room of the camp hospital, and Dr. Wilhelm Türschmidt, a Pole from Tarnow. Both of these people made a lot of efforts to somehow alleviate the hardships of sick prisoners.
Compared to the hard excavation work in Brzezinka, life in the hospital could seem like paradise. But it was overshadowed by two circumstances. The first is regular “selection”, the selection of weakened prisoners for physical destruction, which the SS men carried out 2-3 times a month. The second misfortune was an SS ophthalmologist who decided to try his hand at surgery. He chose a patient and, in order to improve his skills, performed an “operation” on him - “cut what he wanted and how he wanted.” Many prisoners who were already recovering died or became cripples after his experiments. Often, after the “trainee” left, Türschmidt put the patient back on the operating table, trying to correct the consequences of barbaric surgery.
Thirst for life
However, not all Germans in Auschwitz committed atrocities like the “surgeon.” The prisoners' records preserve memories of the SS men who treated the prisoners with sympathy and understanding. One of them was a blockführer nicknamed the Guys. When there were no outside witnesses, he tried to cheer up and support the spirit of those who were losing faith in salvation, sometimes warning against possible dangers. The guys knew and loved Russian proverbs, tried to apply them to the point, but sometimes it turned out awkward: “Those who don’t know, God helps them” - this is his translation of “trust in God, but don’t make a mistake yourself.”
But, in general, the will of the Auschwitz prisoners to live is amazing. Even in these monstrous conditions, where people were treated worse than animals, the prisoners tried to lead a spiritual life without plunging into the sticky impersonality of despair and hopelessness. Oral retellings of novels, entertaining and humorous stories were especially popular among them. Sometimes you could even hear someone playing the harmonica. One of the blocks now displays preserved pencil portraits of prisoners made by their comrades.
In block No. 13, I was able to see the chamber in which Saint Maximilian Kolbe (1894-1941) spent the last days of his life. This Polish priest became Auschwitz prisoner No. 16670 in May 1941. In July of the same year, one of the prisoners escaped from the block where he lived. To prevent such disappearances, the administration decided to punish ten of his neighbors in the barracks - to starve to death. Among those sentenced was the Polish sergeant Franciszek Gajowniczek (1901-1995). He still had a wife and children at large, and Maximilian Kolbe offered to exchange his life for his own. After three weeks without food, Kolbe and three other suicide bombers were still alive. Then, on August 14, 1941, it was decided to kill them with an injection of phenol. In 1982, Pope John Paul II (Ioannes Paulus II, 1920-2005) canonized Kolbe as a holy martyr, and August 14 is celebrated as the feast day of St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe.
About a million visitors from all over the world come to Auschwitz every year. Many of them are people whose family history is somehow connected with this terrible place. They come to honor the memory of their ancestors, to look at their portraits on the walls of the blocks, to lay flowers at the Wall of Death. But many come just to see this place and, no matter how hard it may be, to accept that this is a part of history that can no longer be rewritten. It is also impossible to forget...
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Arbeit macht frei - this was exactly the cynical inscription on the gates of Auschwitz. This one was not the first in the world, or even in Germany. However, it was he who happened to become the personification of the Holocaust and the military
crimes. A camp that clearly demonstrates all conclusions and decisions. The inscription on the gates of Auschwitz said that work will make a person free, while hiding its real purpose behind pompous phrases. Of course, there was work. However, this was the work of people whose fate was sealed by their executioners. Prisoners were used as virtual slaves, creating a base for fascist and German large corporations.
death camp
However, the main goal of Auschwitz was the specific liquidation of peoples disliked by Adolf Hitler. By the way, already in our time the inscription on the gates of Auschwitz - literally the metal letters themselves - has become a desirable prey for "black" collectors. So, in 2009, the letters were cut down and stolen for subsequent sale, but the attackers were identified and caught in time.
Auschwitz is actually a complex of three German concentration camps built near the city of the same name from the beginning of 1940 until the fall of 1942 on the basis of old army barracks that belonged to the Polish army. Since the camp was located on the territory of Poland (west of Krakow), at first its victims were Poles and Czechs, who had fallen somewhat earlier into the zone of Hitler’s conquests. Truly mass extermination began in January 1942, when the NSDAP set a course for the total extermination of Jews. They were the main victims of the regime.
During the camp's use by the Nazis, up to one and a half million people were killed there, the lion's share of whom were Jews. Moreover, Auschwitz became the most effective death camp in this matter. Thus, the chief commandant of the concentration camp (May 1940 - November 1943) was the first in the Nazi system of extermination of “inferior nations” to come up with the idea of using Zyklon B pesticide crystals as a toxic substance. He was very proud of his invention. The gas they produced made it possible to kill suicide bombers in small doses and very quickly, which affected the throughput of this death machine and, ultimately, made it possible to increase the number of victims. Another hellish innovation of the concentration camp bosses was the construction of gas chambers, which could accommodate up to two thousand condemned prisoners at a time.
Often, the prisoners of Auschwitz had no idea until the very end what a sad fate was in store for them. To avoid riots and acts of disobedience on the part of people who had nothing to lose, the real intentions regarding the fate of the prisoners were hidden from them until the last. Thus, the inscription on the gates of Auschwitz ingratiatingly promised freedom. Even at the moment when the death row prisoners were led into the gas chamber, all this was presented as a disinfection process. The liberation of Auschwitz took place at the end of January 1945, when the Red Army drove the Nazi formations out of Poland. At that moment, only a few thousand exhausted prisoners remained in the camp.
The mocking inscription “Arbeit macht frei” or “Work sets you free” (German: Arbeit macht frei) was placed on most of the gates of the most terrible concentration camps of the National Socialists. The exception was where there was the inscription “To each his own” (German: Jedem das Seine). One of the very first concentration camps, Dachau, was no exception.
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The Dachau concentration camp (German: KZ Dachau) is located 20 kilometers from Munich.
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It was created on March 22, 1933, just a few weeks after Hitler came to power on January 30, 1933. From the very first days of the reign of the newly appointed Reich Chancellor, political prisoners began to be brought to Dachau.
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During its existence, more political murders were committed at Dachau than at any other death camp.
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Each prisoner received his own number and a specific mark, which made it easier for staff to identify prisoners by race, sentence or country of origin.
Some examples of so-called winkels - triangular marks:
red- political prisoners: communists, liberals, social democrats, anarchists.
black- “asocial elements”: the weak-minded, crazy, alcoholics, homeless people, feminists, lesbians and pacifists.
pink- primarily men convicted of homosexual acts.
Jews were marked with two triangles lying on top of each other, forming the Star of David.
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The prisoners were housed in 34 barracks (also called blocks), the foundations of which can be seen today in the created memorial complex.
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A two-meter forged door with the inscription “Arbeit Macht Frei” is a symbol of the suffering of concentration camp prisoners.
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Crematorium.
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Crematorium ovens.
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Gas chambers.
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Prisoners were told that they were entering “disinfection chambers” (German: Brausebad) to be disinfected.
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During the existence of the camp, there were from 180 to 200 thousand people there. One in five died from inhumane conditions or were killed. According to various sources, the number of deaths varies from 32 to 41 thousand.
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Ka-Tzet Dachau, considered a symbol of the Nazis' worst crimes, was liberated on April 29, 1945.
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Despite the fact that the word "Dachau" is associated with death and countless broken destinies, today about 50 thousand people live in the city of Dachau.
In 1936, the beloved Olympic Games were held in the capital of Germany, embodying the unity of peoples from all continents of the globe. Simultaneously with this event, peaceful in every sense, one of the largest and most terrible concentration camps of the Third Reich, Sachsenhausen, was created. It was located north of Berlin in the city. According to some estimates, up to 200 thousand prisoners visited here over the years. Between 30 and 40 thousand people died outside the gates of this camp. Let's see what this place looks like now and take a closer look at its history.
After Sachsenhaesen, which was built “thanks to” Heinrich Himmler, a whole era of concentration camps began. They began to appear everywhere: Buchenwald near Weimar, Ravensbrück women's camp near Fürstenberg, Auschwitz (Auschwitz) in Poland and many others.
The central administration of the concentration camps of the entire Third Reich was also located in Sachsenhaesen. In addition, there was a training center for SS men, from which “first-class” guards and supervisors were trained.
Entrance to the territory of the camp, now the memorial complex, is free. If you wish, you can take an audio guide at the information center (2-3 euros).
We approach the so-called Tower “A”. The checkpoint and the camp commandant’s office were also located here.
The camp area was in the shape of a triangle. 19 observation towers were installed along the entire perimeter.
Directly in front of the checkpoint there was an inspection parade ground, where prisoners were not only lined up for roll calls, but also public executions were carried out.
If a prisoner came too close to the electrified barbed wire fence, he was simply shot.
The so-called shoe testing track was also located here. The prisoners had to cover enormous distances at different paces every day.
The “living” barracks were also preserved. Now they serve as museum premises.
You can even find drawings of prisoners at the exhibition.
Various household items, documents, etc.
There is a heavy atmosphere everywhere. The air seems to be charged with negative energy. Even my head starts to ache.
This is felt most strongly in Barracks "C", where massacres were carried out. There was also a crematorium and a gas chamber.
We went into the punishment cell. It also served as a bomb shelter.
Monument to Soviet soldiers and liberators.
The camp was liberated on April 22, 1945 by Soviet troops. Immediately after liberation, it was transformed into special camp No. 7 of the NKVD. Now the enemies of the Soviet regime (Wehrmacht soldiers and officers, anti-communists, SS men) died here. Sometimes old people, women and children fell under the status of criminals. During the existence of the special camp, more than 60 thousand people visited here, 12 thousand of them died. The numbers are no less shocking.
Arbeit macht frei (Arbeit macht frei, “Work makes you free”, “work sets you free”) - it is this well-known phrase, associated with massacres in Nazi Germany, that is “flaunted” on the gates of the checkpoint. This phrase can be found in many "institutions" of this type.
Last year (on my website) I spoke in sufficient detail about an even more terrible place - about
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