Friday 13th: Auschwitz/Birkenau

In the Western World the Jewish holocaust represents the most extreme and reprehensible war crime ever committed. Exact numbers do not exist, but a minimum of 6 million people, mainly but not exclusively Jews, were systematically exterminated by the Nazi regime during WW2. Most of these killings took place within their network of concentration camps.  Auschwitz/Birkenau was the most productive of these, accounting for some 1.5 to 2 million deaths.

Having read some of this background beforehand, what do you expect this place of evil deeds to look like? We followed our guide into Auschwitz camp, through the gates with the infamous wrought iron inscription “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work Brings Freedom).

It doesn't look too bad, does it? A few blocks in, we turn right. Another view: it could be a 1960’s housing estate. Explanation: it wasn’t built as a concentration camp, but as a Polish army barracks in the 1930’s. It was commandeered in 1939 for use as a prison for opponents of the Nazi regime and for potential slave labour. This is that ‘down your street’ photo.

In a way, its ordinariness makes it more sinister. From early 1940, with the appointment of enthusiastic commandant Rudolf Hoss, the camp started taking in numbers of Poles and other ethnic groups; also Russian prisoners of war after June 1941. The regime was harsh and many died from beatings, overwork and undernourishment both in the camp and at their allotted slave workplaces.

There was a punishment block, Block 11, where summary justice was administered and where infringers from outside the camp were also brought to be tried. The verdict was almost invariably death, and they were shot against this wall. The total was in thousands. Dreadful punishments were also administered often with the same final result.

Block 11 also saw the trial of the use of Zyklon B (cyanide) gas as a killing agent in September 1941. It was used on 250 Polish political prisoners and 800 Russian POWs. After the war the empty gas canisters were discovered. It makes a chilling display.

There were so many Russian POWs by the summer of 1941 that it was decided to construct a further camp next to Auschwitz. This was Birkenau.

A conference of top Nazis in Jan 1942 decided that all the Jews in German occupied territories should be exterminated. A number had died already in ghettos and from random persecution, but this time it would be systematic deportation to specially appointed camps for elimination on an industrial scale.

One gas chamber only remains intact, at Auschwitz, because it was converted into a bomb shelter when production-line extermination work was transferred to Birkenau. The four Birkenau gas chambers were all destroyed.

This is the remaining one: the Zyklon B gas was administered through vents in the roof.

The crematorium was next to the gas chamber for efficient disposal of the unfortunate victims’ bodies.

At the new Birkenau camp the deportees were brought by rail directly into the camp. The tracks are still there. They came in sealed cattle trucks often for hundreds of miles, travelling without food, water or sanitation.

A photo taken at the time shows the de-training process. There was no panic for the people arriving  believed they were being resettled into work camps. In fact they were screened on this very platform by Nazi doctors as to their fitness for slave labour. About 25% were passed and the rest were directed straight to the ‘cleansing house’. This was a big room made to look like a shower block, but was in fact a gas chamber. The doors were locked. Nobody survived: up to 2,000 perished in each batch.

 The victims had been encouraged to take their portable valuables. These were now sorted by the slave workforce, even hair was cut off and gold teeth removed before the bodies were cremated. We were shown literally mountains of shoes, suitcases and human hair but were asked not to take photographs out of respect.

The slave workers were housed in wooden or brick huts at Birkenau. These were nothing like so well appointed as the Auschwitz ex-barracks. Up to 90.000 at any one time were accommodated. They slept on three-tiered bunks, about 7 or 8 to each compartment. With flimsy clothes and poor heating in minus 20 degree winters, starvation rations and constant brutality, the mortality rate was high.

The camp was liberated by the Russians in January 1945. Only 7,000 prisoners remained; the rest had been marched out to walk west towards Germany just beforehand. It was the coldest winter in living memory: few survived.

This mass genocide is often thought of a crime exclusively against the Jewish race. They were indeed the principal victims; for example 95% of Poland’s Jews were exterminated. But we should not forget that many other peoples suffered. The known, but understated, role-call for Auschwitz/Birkenau is shown below.

Our visit was a sobering experience. It’s an excellent idea to get people of all ages to understand what happened in these dreadful places in the hope that it may modify our treatment of other human beings in the future.