Auschwitz-Birkenau
During late 1941 and early 1942 the SS at Auschwitz had received growing reports on the escalating policies against the Jews in the East, especially by those of the Einsatzgruppen (Operational Groups). Since the summer of 1941 Himmler had been making preparations for the mass deportation of Jews to the East. By the end of January 1942, following the Wannsee conference which was a meeting chaired to discuss the ‘Final Solution’ of the Jewish question, the Reichsführer ordered that the concentration camp system was to receive over 150,000 Jews.
The first Jews destined for Auschwitz came from a small transport that arrived on 15 February, and were from the Upper Silesian town of Beuthen.The majority of them was elderly, and because they had already been deemed unfit for work they were immediately led to the camp’s crematorium, and killed.
16.A photograph taken inside one of the SS offices at the Auschwitz main camp. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
17. Most probably Birkenau, close to the birch woods between the western portion of the camp and the Vistula River. A director of the SS Construction Administration Auschwitz (SS-Zentralbauleitung) Karl Bischoff (left) and Walter Dejaco, his assistant. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
18. A blue print showing the construction plans of what became known as the Central Sauna.The building was the most comprehensive disinfection and disinfestation facility built at Birkenau. It was designed following the typhus epidemic that ravaged the camp during July and August 1942. The first drawings were submitted in November 1942, but work on the actual construction project was not completed until late 1943. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
19. A photograph taken at what was known as Auschwitz. I during a visit by Gauleiter Bracht. Rudolf Höss can be seen pictured third from right. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
The increased killing in the crematorium was not an ideal situation. In Höss’s opinion, it certainly did not favour sending convicted criminals and unfit labour, even if they were Jews, to the already overworked crematorium. If they were to open Birkenau with a large influx of Jews, then Auschwitz would need to improve its cremation facility. It had already been proposed building another crematorium in the base camp alongside the existing one. But if Birkenau was to follow the same crooked path to murder, as Auschwitz had done with the Soviet POWs, it was unquestionably easier installing a crematorium at Birkenau. Höss chaired a meeting with his staff concerning the dilemma. If new policies towards the Jews meant they were now being shipped to the concentration camps, then they would need sufficient tools to dispose of those unfit for work. It was soon decided that the cottage known as Bunker I and nicknamed ‘The Little Red House’, should be converted as quickly as possible. As part of the conversion, its windows and doors were to be bricked up, edges sealed with felt in order to ensure it was air tight, and the interior gutted to form two rooms.The doors to both rooms were to have a sign attached over the entrance, ‘Zur Desinfektion’ (To Disinfection).
Bunker I was completed within a few weeks and on 20 March was made operational for the first time. Jews unfit for work from Upper Silesia had been chosen locally for what the SS authorities were now calling ‘special treatment’. Under the cover of darkness the Jews were transported direct to Birkenau.
Despite the panic among some of the elderly Jews, the SS confirmed that the first gassing operation in Birkenau had been a complete success. Most of the Jews had calmly filed into the ‘The Little Red House’ with no trouble caused to the normal operation of camp life. Although they had solved the problem of how to kill in relative secret, their only concern now was how to dispose of the evidence. Without the advantages of a crematorium on site the only short-term solution was to have the corpses buried in a nearby pit.
The first trainloads of prisoners assigned to Birkenau consisted of 999 able-bodied Slovakian women Jews. The long train steamed its way into Auschwitz on 26 March 1942, and the Jews were unloaded from ramps just outside the station. For many that disembarked from the crammed cattle cars that day the railway stop was very much like any other provincial railway station. But this was far removed from anything they had ever endured. Under strict supervision of SS guards, Kapos and local police they were routed through the town of Auschwitz directly to the main camp. All of the Jews had been ordered by the SS to run in groups of five.Those unable to run were simply killed on the spot. Because Birkenau was still under construction Höss had been reluctantly forced to house these women in the main camp, where they were herded into ten specially adapted walled-off barracks.The following day they were ordered to have their heads shaved and were told to wear old Russian uniforms. The uniforms were in abundant supply for nearly 9,000 POWs had so far perished of hunger, illness, malnutrition and various acts of brutality. Housing the Slovakian Jews in the main camp was an administrative nightmare for Höss.There had been no proper preparation for their arrival, which consequently led to numerous problems. Living conditions there had already deteriorated to such a point that there were growing concerns of a typhus epidemic.
20. This photograph is probably taken in the summer of 1943 showing the SS Central Construction Authority in Auschwitz. (SS-Zentralbauleitung der Waffen SS und Polizei Auschwitz) [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
21. Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler visited Auschwitz-Birkenau in March 1941 and then again in July 1942. Here in this photograph he converses with some of the representatives from the giant industrial chemical conglomerate, I.G. Farben, which was proposing the construction of a synthetic-rubber factory near Auschwitz. It would produce a synthetic rubber called Buna and inmates from Auschwitz would erect the building, and be used a slave labour.The project was very lucrative for the SS. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
22. Prisoners from Auschwitz-Birkenau on a work detail being escorted along a road.They are wearing the distinctive blue-and-white-striped uniforms. These are male prisoners as they can be identified wearing hats. Female prisoners were sometimes required to wear headscarves. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
23.Workers can be seen digging a trench system in front of the horse stable barracks at Auschwitz-Birkenau. A German company had designed the standard army horse stable barracks and this was produced and dispatched to Auschwitz as a kit that could easily be erected and dismantled. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
24.25.26.27. Four photographs showing the horse stable barracks at Auschwitz-Birkenau. It was claimed that these prefabricated wooden huts could be quickly assembled with just one carpenter leading a gang of thirty unskilled men. In total, 253 of these huts was assigned to Birkenau. Each of these wooden huts were designed to house 400 prisoners. . [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
28. One of the brick barracks constructed at Auschwitz-Birkenau. In late 1941, in little over five weeks, some 86,000 cubic feet of brickwork had been erected, using some 1.1 million bricks. Initially, much of the construction was undertaken using brick as there was no wood available. . [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
29. With the aid of a crane prisoners can be seen digging drainage ditches in Birkenau.The site was situated on marshy land, with the ground only slightly higher than the Vistula and Sola rivers.This meant that rain, melting snowy and floodwaters would neither drain into the river nor be absorbed back into the earth. As a consequence hundreds of prisoners were set to work digging vast drainageyditches. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
30. Winter of 1943 - 1944 showing the prefabricated wooden stable barracks at B II of the Birkenau camp. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
31. Construction works by the main entrance to Birkenau, the photo taken from the internal part of the camp, possibly during the late winter or early spring 1943. Some months later in May 1944 Rudolf Höss would supervise the laying of a railway line through the main entrance for ‘Aktion Höss’. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
In Birkenau conditions were considerably worse than in the main camp. Birkenau had been officially in operation since early March with the remaining Soviet POWs, a group of German criminals, and 1,200 sick prisoners incarcerated in the area designated for the women, officially known as BA I. It was here that the Slovak transport was soon to be moved. In March Birkenau was like a quagmire.There was hardly any water and washing facilities, and the weak and starving prisoners were living in utter filth and degradation. But despite the abysmal circumstances that the prisoners continually endured Höss was eager to send as many inmates to the new camp as possible, for Auschwitz. I was overflowing with prisoners. Here at Birkenau the site would soon be able to house literally thousands of inmates, many of them Jews.
32.33.Two photographs showing prisoners digging drainage ditches at Auschwitz-Birkenau.They were forced to work despite their appallingly bad physical condition. As a consequence many died from hard labour or disease. By July 1942, the Birkenau site had been completely transformed, with several drainage ditches completed. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
Throughout the spring and summer of 1942 Bunker I together with Crematorium I in the main camp simultaneously continued to operate killing convicted criminals and those unfit for work. But in spite of this increased killing the SS was still not happy with its efficiency. In order to facilitate the transports arriving at the camp the SS held a meeting with SS-Sturmbannführer Karl Bischoff and other members of the Auschwitz Construction Office to discuss plans to convert a second cottage known as the ‘Little White House’, into what he called a ‘bathing facility for special actions’. By the end of June this quiet and unobtrusive looking house, known as Bunker II, went into operation. The interior of the cottage comprised of four narrow rooms that were constructed as gas chambers. With better ventilation and a killing capacity of around 1,200 people at any one time, the SS was sure that Birkenau would run efficiently as never before. As the last finishing touches were made to Bunker II more shipments of Jews were destined for Auschwitz.
On 4 July the first transport of 1,000 Jews arrived outside Birkenau and was submitted for selection. The transports were unloaded at a side-line at Birkenau. In total, 108 able-bodied women and 264 able-bodied men were chosen for work, whilst the remaining 638 people were herded off under the cover of darkness to barracks where the victims undressed and then went naked to the gas chambers. All through the procedure the victims were told calmly that they were to bathe and be deloused. Once crammed inside the gas chamber and the doors shut SS-Unterscharführer Moll, dressed in a special white protective suit with gas mask, threw the saturated Zyklon B pellets through a little vent, and then waited twenty-five minutes until all the screams of those fighting for their lives fell silent. During the gassing procedure SS surgeons, on duty in the camp, regularly waited nearby with an SS hospital orderly with an oxygen apparatus to revive SS men, in case any of them were to succumb to the poisonous fumes. Once they were certain that all inside were dead the doors and the windows were then opened to ventilate the rooms.The tangled corpses were later removed by the Sonderkommando for disposal.
34.40.Two photographs clearly showing the cramped conditions inside the barracks. Each barrack was subdivided into sixty-two bays, and each bay had a three-level bunk-bed system.These buildings were primitive and hastily thrown together and caused the death rate to steadily climb. [USHMM -Courtesy of the Yad Vashem Museum]
35. Female prisoners being led away in the snow.These women look relatively elderly and it is probable that they would have been deemed unfit for labour and condemned to the death within a short period of time. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
Scenes like this became a common occurrence at Birkenau. SS officers regularly watched the shipments arrive and became morbidly fascinated by the spectacle.They witnessed the selection process at the unloading ramps and saw for themselves first- hand the awful scenes of families being torn apart, the separating of the men from the women and children.
37. Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz, pictured front right taking SS-Reichsfhrer Heinrich Himmler on a guided tour of the I.G. Farben site near the village of Monowitz. The construction of the I.G. Farben enterprise was an enormous undertaking, but Himmler was determined to use Auschwitz’s increased pool of labour to ensure its rapid completion. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
Faced with such a grim task of annihilation the SS was now supposed to bury all those killed in Bunker I and Bunker II. Höss was totally aware that this was an inadequate method of body disposal, but he had no other choice. Literally thousands of bodies from both cottages were disposed of in this manner. From the gas chamber entrance the corpses would be loaded onto a truck and driven to the pit and dumped. Powdered lime would be thrown over the bodies and then covered with soil. Already there were some 107,000 corpses that had been buried in Birkenau that were decomposing and polluting the ground water. June and July had been particular hot months and during the first week of July the buried corpses had started to putrefy.The rotting bodies were rising to the surface and there was a terrible stench across the camp. Plagues of rats too were seen gnawing at the corpses and there was evidence of the first cases of typhus fever in the communal camp of the civilian workers deployed in Birkenau.The smell in the camp was terrible.Where the corpses had been buried the whole area was covered with swarms of flies and where the decomposed bodies had been dumped, traces of stinking body fluids oozed out of the holes. In order to remedy the problem Höss installed a giant open cremation area and hoped once and for all his dirty work could be burnt to ashes. A massive large hole was dug and wooden beams acting as a grill were placed across at ground level. Höss had thus improvised a makeshift crematorium whilst waiting for the proper one nearby to be delivered. At once a number of special units consisting of 1,400 prisoners were ordered to disinter the bodies with their bare hands.The job was horrific. Because of disease and the unbearable smell many used handkerchiefs and rags to cover their mouth and nose as they dug into the blood filled soil. A huge fire was built with wood and petrol and the corpses were simply thrown on to the enormous pyre of burning rags, flesh and bone.
38.A group of relatively healthy prisoners that appear to have only just arrived at Auschwitz are seen here at roll-call.These men have been spared immediate death by being selected for labour. However, they were immediately stripped of their individual identities by having their hair shaved off and a registration number tattooed on their left forearm. Men were forced to wear striped clothing, and women wore work dresses. Both were issued ill-fitting work shoes, sometimes clogs.They had no change of clothing and slept in the same clothes they worked in. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
39. SS Guards at Auschwitz during a ceremony. At Auschwitz these guards soon learnt the trade of brutality, and all compunction towards mankind was obliterated. Many had already arrived indoctrinated into an almost fanatical determination to serve the SS with blind allegiance. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
42. 43.Two photographs showing members of the SS female auxiliaries (Helferinnen) and SS officer Karl Hocker who can be seen standing next to the women eating bowls of blueberries.These photographs were taken at an SS retreat called Solahuette not far from Auschwitz. [Courtesy of the USHMM]
44.45.Two photographs showing SS officers, SS female auxiliaries and wives with their children relaxing at the Solahuette retreat.Throughout the evolution of Auschwitz a close-knit community developed amongst the camp’s staff and their families; the guards’ wives visited one another, gossiped, held afternoon tea parties, and invited their husbands along for evening drinks and dinner. As for the children, they attended private schools in Kattowitz and the surrounding areas, or alternatively the services of a governess were employed.When the children were not attending school they were looked after by domestic slaves, who cooked their meals and cleaned their nicely furnished homes. [Courtesy of the USHMM]
46. A view of the SS retreat at Solahuette.This timber framed building was regarded as an idyllic location for the SS officers’ staff of Auschwitz to spend time relaxing and joking. It was a far cry from the horrors less than thirty miles away. [Courtesy of the USHMM]
47. Relaxing among female company and an unidentified officer, the commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, can be seen pictured wearing a white suite. [USHMM -Courtesy of the Yad Vashem Museum]
49. 50.Two photographs showing SS troops marching along a road very near to Auschwitz. For many SS guards, their posting to Auschwitz was preferable to having to fight the growing might of the Red Army on the Eastern front. [Courtesy of the USHMM]
The already terrible state of affairs was made worse by the typhus epidemic, which by the second week of July had spread to the prisoners of Birkenau. Sanitary conditions were rapidly worsening, mortality rate among able-bodied prisoners were rising, the Jewish transports were arriving so frequently that hygienic and sanitary conditions in the camp would worsen to catastrophic levels.To make matters worse the crematorium in the main camp had not been functioning properly since early June, because its chimney was worn out. At the beginning of July the crematorium went out of service so that the chimney could be removed and relined.
51.A photograph of three members of the SS female auxiliary unit employed at Auschwitz. In total there were some 55,000 guards who served in Nazi concentration camps; of them about 3,700 were women. In 1942, the first female guards arrived at Auschwitz and Majdanek from Ravensbrück.The year after, the Nazis began conscripting women because of a guard shortage. [Courtesy of the USHMM]
52. An SS officer arrives on a visit to Auschwitz. Many SS officers and party officials came to Auschwitz to see for themselves the progress of the expansion programme of the camp, and to meet with the commandant and other members of staff.They even visited occasionally to see firsthand the extermination process. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
53. 54. SS officers including Karl Hocker and SS female auxiliary staff take time away from the killings at Auschwitz on a day trip to the mountains in southern Poland. [Courtesy of the USHMM]
41. Jews have arrived by train and have been unloaded and selected for work detail.Two Jewish women can be seen visibly wearing the Star of David stitched to the left breast of their coat. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
55. A familiar sign at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Hundreds of Jewish men, women and children have arrived on the ramps and both sexes are being separated. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
56.The ramps of Birkenau have been cleared of Hungarian Jews during ‘Aktion Höss’ and their belongings have been collected together. In the distance the twin chimneys of Crematoria II and III can be seen in the background to the left and right of the two trains. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
57. Hundreds of Jews have arrived on the ramp carrying the only possessions they have left with them.The journey to Auschwitz often lasted for days and weeks in appalling sanitary conditions. In this photograph guards have ordered the new arrivals to carry their belongings with them where they would be separated further down the ramp into sexes. In the distance left to right are Crematoria II and III. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
58. 59.60.61.62. Five photographs of Jews unloading from cattle trucks during the transportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz in the summer of 1944. Many young children can be seen in these photographs and all of them would have been deemed unfit for labour.Those unfit for labour were directed immediately to the crematoria, while all able-bodied workers were either interned in Auschwitz or transferred to other camps in the Reich.The number of prisoners selected for labour from each transport varied daily; it could be as low as ten per cent of the total transport, or as high as fifty per cent. But the majority of prisoners who passed through the gates of Birkenau were directly sent to their deaths.
63. 64.65.Three photographs showing Jewish women and children after the selection process on the ramps. After male and females had been divided children up to the age of fourteen stayed with their mother in the women’s camp, and those over fourteen years old with their fathers in the men’s camp. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum/USHMM - Yad Vasham]
66. A transport carrying Hungarian Jews has arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau.This photograph has been taken during the selection process and clearly shows SS officers conversing with some of the new arrivals. Many of the Jews are from the Berehov ghetto.The photograph was taken by Ernst Hofmann or Bernhard Walter of the SS. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
67. 68.69.70.71. Five photographs showing a new transport of Hungarian Jews that have just arrived at the camp. During May 1944, some 3,300 Jews were arriving in the camp every day, but this figure rose as high as 4,300 on occasion. On 20 May, for instance, a convoy arrived carrying approximately 3,000 people, of whom 2,000 were unfit for work.The following day, on 21 May, two convoys reportedly arrived from Hungary carrying 6,000 people, of whom only 2,000 were fit for work, and the remainder were sent straight to their deaths. It is more than probable that the majority of Jews in these photographs, especially the mothers and children and the old, were among those that were selected to die. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
72. 73. 74.Three photographs taken in late May 1944, showing newly arrived Jewish men from Subcarpathian Rus (Carpatho-Ukraine) await selection on the ramp at Auschwitz-Birkenau.The Star of David can clearly be indentified stitched on the left breast of their coats. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
75. New arrivals collect their belongings with the assistance of camp helpers that were employed at Auschwitz to aid all new arrivals and to clear their belongings on the ramps once they had been selected. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
76. New arrivals of Jews from Subcarpathian Rus are on the ramp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Among the many arrivals that day two women can be seen smiling and waving to their male loved ones, clearly not knowing where they have been brought. Behind them is Crematorium. II. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
77.78.Two photographs showing Hungarian Jews lined-up on the ramp inside Birkenau in the summer of 1944. Both sexes have been separated: men on one side and women on the other. Preparations are being made for the infamous selections to begin in earnest. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
79. Hungarian Jews conversing with some of the German guards on the ramp during selection. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
80. Hungarian Jews have been separated into a column of males and stand on the ramp awaiting selection. [USHMM - Courtesy of Yad Vashem Museum]
81. 82.83.84.85.86. Six photographs showing the selection process on the ramp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Entire families often arrived in Auschwitz, but soon after their arrival they were broken apart. Jews were thrown out of the cattle cars often without their belongings and forced to make two separate lines, men and women/children. SS medical personnel then conducted selections among these lines, sending most victims to the gas chambers where they were usually killed and cremated on the same day. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum/ USHMM - Yad Vashem Museum]
87. Male and female prisoners trudge past the endless lines of wooden barracks. Children can also be seen as well in the picture. By the sight of their physical condition it is clear that they have not been in the camp very long. It is almost certain that the children would have already been selected for death. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
88.Women prisoners after selection.These females have been spared by the SS for hard labour.They are probably making their way down to what was known as the Sauna to be disinfected and their hair shaved. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
89. New male arrivals await selection on the ramp.The first two rows of men appear to look young and healthy, and would almost certainly be selected for hard labour.The men in the third row, however, appear to be old and would probably been selected for death. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
90. 91.Two photographs showing newly selected female prisoners prior to being taken to the Sauna. At the Sauna they entered the undressing room where they were medically examined and had their heads shaved. Their clothes were then sent to the autoclaves or hot air chambers.The prisoners were then ordered to the shower in groups of fifty, received a towel to dry themselves and waited for their disinfected and disinfested clothes that they put on in the dressing room. After a final inspection by the SS they emerged from the Sauna and were escorted to their designated barracks. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]
92.93.94.95.96. Five photographs showing disinfected and shorn female prisoners after leaving the Sauna. After being shorn, disinfected and showered under thesurveillance of the SS, they were then given their disinfected and disinfested clothes and escorted to their designated barracks with a blanket for their bunk. Being shaved stripped the new prisoners of the last vestige of their identity.Virtually all the prisoners now looked alike. [Courtesy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum/ USHMM - Yad Vashem Museum]