A boy in a navy uniform holds the hand of an elegant man in a tie, with a buttonhole and wearing a hat. Next to him walks an older, moustachioed man in a bow tie. Everything could be regarded as normal, if it weren’t for the Stars of David sewn onto their clothes, the freight wagons they’ve just disembarked on the railway ramp and the armed German soldiers. Agnieszka Sieradzka, art historian and curator of the art collection at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum posits that this scene most likely happened, and was immortalised in what she calls the most valuable extant part of camp art: the Sketchbook from Auschwitz, drawn by an unknown artist. The sketchbook is highly accurate, so much so that the SS truck registration numbers marked on the drawings match the documentation preserved in the camp.
Judenrampe
We are on the site of the alleged old judaic ramp, or Judenrampe, at the place where the boy in the navy uniform got off the train. The artist who drew this scene most likely understood the importance of a paper created at the hazard of his life, so he so hid it in a bottle in the foundation of 1 of the barracks. 2 old freight wagons stand on the restored tracks between the grounds of the Auschwitz railway station and the contemporary houses of the village of Brzezinka, whose residents were displaced in 1941, and whose demolished houses provided the materials utilized to build the Birkenau camp.
“This place surely looks a bit different now, if only due to the fact that it has undergone any restoration work,” says Piotr Setkiewicz, head of the investigation Centre at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. “The wagons that are on the tracks present are besides inauthentic in the sense that it is not at all certain that they would have been utilized to transport deportees to Auschwitz. On the another hand, these are wagons from the era,” he adds.
The old judaic ramp is located about halfway between the Auschwitz and Birkenau camps. It was here that from 1942 the Germans began to bring in large transports of Jews condemned to extermination. It was besides here that selections took place, during which a motion of the SS doctor meant life or death. According to surviving documents, 75-80 per cent of the Jews deported here from all over Europe were loaded onto trucks and taken consecutive to the gas chambers, where they were murdered.
“During selection, SS doctors were guided primarily by suitability for work in the camp,” underlines Jacek Lachendro, a historian from the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, stressing the dual function of the death camp and the labour camp. “In the first instance, people who looked young or were fit for work had a chance of endurance and were sent to the camp. Children, women with tiny children and the aged were automatically sent to death. At the same time, there were periods during the operation of the camp erstwhile there was little request for manpower and so those who were possibly fit for work were besides sent to the gas chambers.”
The first makeshift gas chambers were called red and white houses after the colour of the walls of the buildings from which the Germans had evicted the inhabitants and which they had adapted for their killing machine. Today, these buildings no longer exist; simple, multilingual plaques remind us of the places of execution. In total, around 1.1 million Jews were deported to Auschwitz, of whom barely 200,000 were deemed fit for work and registered in the camp. The remainder were murdered in the gas chambers.
Birkenau
“Birkenau was a immense camp, and in fact from the very beginning of its planning there was an intention to build a separate railway siding here, which was to direct wagons from the old judaic ramp straight into the camp,” says Piotr Setkiewicz. “However, no specified work was undertaken until the autumn of 1943 due to material difficulties. The ramp was yet completed in May 1944,” he adds, pointing out that the rails utilized to lay the tracks connecting the 2 ramps were imported from the russian Union by a German company which utilized slave labour.
The completion of the fresh ramp coincided with the alleged Hungarian Action, the deportation of more than 400,000 Jews from Hungary to Auschwitz. According to the historian, this streamlined the process of both selection and directing those selected to the gas chambers, which were much closer. From the ramp, it was besides possible to go straight to the housing barracks, whether in the women’s camp or the men’s camp, located 100-200 metres away.
“Various publications say that the Birkenau camp was an extermination camp, while Auschwitz was only a labour camp,” points out Piotr Setkiewicz. “This is not true, due to the fact that the destiny of the prisoners was the same. If there was a need, prisoners were transferred from Birkenau to Auschwitz and vice versa. Prisoners in both camps received the same striped uniforms, numbers from the same series, tattooed on their forearms, and so on. The density of prisoners in the various rooms at Auschwitz and Birkenau was besides similar. While a single barrack in the Auschwitz Main Camp housed about 500-600 prisoners, in Birkenau there were about 400 in a akin space. The main difference was that the crematorium and gas chambers in Auschwitz ceased operating at the turn of 1942 and 1943, while in Birkenau they remained open practically until the end of the camp’s operation,” he adds.
Jacek Lachendro stresses that the camp complex was much larger than Auschwitz-Birkenau itself, and throughout the period of the camp’s operation there were nearly 50 sub-camps set up in various locations. any were in the immediate vicinity of the main camp, while others were close factories, mines, and steelworks in western Lesser Poland and advanced Silesia. Most of the prisoners in these sub-camps in 1943 and 1944 were Jews sent to do dense work, although there were exceptional places, specified as the Bobrek sub-camp, where all sorts of tiny components were made for the Siemens company and for this reason precision mechanics, turners and millers were employed there. The working conditions there were exceptionally good. In the mines, on the another hand, they were nightmarish and many of the judaic prisoners sent there, who were not accustomed to hard physical work in specified harsh conditions underground, lost their lives, including suicide.”
Perpetrators
Through the large windows in the tower above the entrance gate you can see almost the full Birkenau camp. present it is rows of barracks and brick chimneys left over from the wooden structures that were already dismantled after the war. Both from here and from the lower towers, the SS guards could see everything that happened on the ramp with an unhindered view. In turn, the towers close the crematoria gave a good view of the prisoners sent to their deaths in the gas chambers as they descended the stairs to their place of execution. Piotr Setkiewicz stresses that the SS men at Birkenau must have known what kind of place they were serving in.
In January 1945, the camp’s staff numbered more than 4,000, and during the full period of the camp’s operation around 8,000 guards passed through the place, of whom about 7,000 survived the war. Only a fewer died while at the camp or of disease. More lost their lives after being transferred to the east Front. All the guards were Germans or Volksdeutsche. The only exception was a company of Ukrainians brought here in 1943, however, these rapidly rebelled and were expelled from the camp after 3 months.
The SS men posted to Auschwitz could consider themselves fortunate to be on quiet, safe duty. comparatively few, possibly 300 or 400 of them, straight killed prisoners. The squad of “disinfectors” trained in the usage of the poisonous Zyklon B gas, released from pellets poured from cans through holes in the roof of the gas chambers, numbered a fewer twelve at most.
“Those SS men who were on work in the defender battalion, that is, more or little 80 per cent of the full Auschwitz staff, even if they did not shoot anyone, by the fact that they did not let escapes, besides yet contributed to the mass deaths of prisoners,” Piotr Setkiewicz points out.
Documents and correspondence show that there was a plague of drunkenness among the SS, which the commanders tried to combat by managing the soldiers’ free time. Sports and cultural events were organised in the camp. The crew even had their own resort. Conditions were very good and, in the case of the lower-ranking SS men, resembled life in barracks in peacetime. Officers, on the another hand, could number on comfortable accommodation, sometimes full villas with a garden and servants. any besides tried to enrich themselves illegally by stealing money and valuables taken from prisoners that formally belonged to the Reich. There were investigations into this and even any sentences were handed down.
After the war, any members of the Auschwitz-Birkenau staff answered for their crimes. Until the end of the 1940s, the Allies had no problems in issuing and executing death sentences on these people. any 700 of them were extradited to Poland, where most stood trial in group trials. Due to limited contact between guards and prisoners, it was hard for witnesses to identify them. Hence, they were sentenced to 1 to 2 years in prison “for belonging to a criminal organisation, the concentration camp crew”. Most left for the national Republic of Germany after serving their sentences.
Poles in the camp
A tiny booklet with the dedication ‘Son, remember that courage is the most crucial thing in life’, kept at the Museum, helps to tell the communicative of Bernard Świerczyna, a Polish Auschwitz prisoner and associate of the camp opposition movement. Prisoners employed in the offices found books of fairy tales that most likely belonged to murdered judaic children. Illustrations and texts were copied and illegally sent home to keep relationships with relatives or to leave behind mementos. 1 specified booklet, telling the communicative of a hare whose home was taken distant by a wolf but rescued thanks to the aid of another animals, was made by Bernard Świerczyna for his boy Felicjan.
Hidden in a German dictionary, the booklet was handed to the boy’s parent without a word by an anonymous SS man after Świerczyna had already been hanged in the last execution carried out at the camp on 30 December 1944. After an unsuccessful escape from Auschwitz, he and respective another prisoners were caught and, after an investigation, executed.
More than 140,000 Poles were registered at Auschwitz, half of whom died here. Setkiewicz points out that this was a importantly higher mortality rate than among prisoners in another German concentration camps, which was most likely already due to the way Auschwitz was designed, where a stationary crematorium was first put into operation. It should be noted, however, that in 1943 the conditions of Aryan prisoners, including Poles, improved when, worried about manpower, the Germans allowed food parcels to be sent to the camp. Jews were not allowed to take advantage of this privilege.
“We besides know from prisoners’ accounts that there were many more motives, reasons or ways in which 1 could last being a Pole in the camp,” says Piotr Setkiewicz. “For example, a strong psyche. It could besides have been the aid of colleagues or participation in the opposition movement. Nevertheless, endurance in Auschwitz was most frequently decided by chance. Even a Polish prisoner in a good kommando could have contracted typhus at any time, which was a very common illness in the camp. Then he would either die or be murdered by the SS.”
Despite the panic and terrible conditions at Auschwitz, there were besides respective opposition groups, although comparatively fewer prisoners knew about it. They could only observe its effects, specified as the disappearance of a peculiarly cruel kapo or the escape of fellow prisoners. The most crucial organisation of this kind was the military conspiracy centred around Rotmistrz Witold Pilecki, to which the imprisoned officers belonged. 1 should besides remember the leftist underground, headed by Józef Cyrankiewicz, a well-known pre-war PPS activist. 1 of the most crucial achievements of the conspirators was the collection and transmission outside the camp of information and data on what was happening inside. Figures on incoming transports, registered or dying prisoners or production were smuggled outside the camp and, thanks to the conspirators’ networks and the work of couriers, reached the Polish government in London. These activities active large risks, and discovered members of the underground were subjected to cruel investigations, torture and then murdered, as was the case with Bernard Świerczyna.
Women in the camp
With the first transport of women to Auschwitz in March 1942, 999 German women prisoners from Ravensbrück were brought in to form a women’s camp. An identical number of young judaic women from Slovakia arrived on the same day. Initially, the camp authorities did not seem to know what to do with specified a large number of women. It was hard to find suitable work for them all. It was not until the summertime that most of the already 17,000 women prisoners were transferred to the alleged Frauen-Lager (German: women’s camp) in Birkenau, where they were employed in construction and agricultural work. Educated women, especially those with cognition of abroad languages, were employed in the administration, and medical staff were sent to the camp hospitals.
“The women who were incarcerated in the camp underwent physical changes very quickly,” says Teresa Wątor-Cichy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum. “Already during registration at the camp, most had their heads shaved. They were losing something that is an component of beauty, of care, a designation of being a woman. Female prisoners said that they stood in a group as colleagues who had known each another for many years and abruptly could not recognise each other. Working beyond their strength in the camp and the minimal amounts of food caused them to lose weight. The deficiency of sanitary facilities, and so the anticipation to wash themselves, caused their skin to become grey and rough. Another component that was of large concern to the female prisoners were the changes related to physiology: the stoppage of menstruation, precisely due to the failure of weight, due to the fear, the traumatic experiences they went through and witnessed,” she adds.
The Museum’s collection includes a twelve or so portraits of female prisoners drawn by Zofia Stępień-Bator. The women look beautiful, have long hair and are elegantly dressed. Agnieszka Sieradzka emphasises that in this way the humiliated, deprived of identity and ailing female prisoners regained not only their beauty, but besides their dignity and humanity.
Minorities in the camp
Members of various ethnic, spiritual or sexual groups and minorities were victims of the racist policies of the 3rd Reich. In Birkenau, 21,000 members of the Roma and related Sinti communities were registered. Disease, starvation and later their planned extermination meant that only 1 in 7 of them made it out alive after the camp’s liquidation.
An unusually advanced mortality rate was besides recorded among the about 15,000 russian prisoners of war brought to the camp. any of them, in peculiar political officers, were not registered but were sent to their deaths consecutive away. Only a fewer of the 12,000 registered survived. The prisoners of war brought to Auschwitz after the German invasion of the USSR in 1941 were subjected to torture, assigned to the hardest labour and treated worse than another groups of prisoners, with the exception of the Jews. Their situation began to gradually improve from mid-1942, erstwhile the Germans needed more hands to work. Initially, registered Russian prisoners of war were given a number on scraps of cloth to sew onto their uniforms. However, it turned out that many were dying and the others were taking parts or full garments together with the numbers from the dead, which caused confusion in the camp registers. Hence the thought of tattooing the numbers on the left side of the chest. Only later, from the spring of 1942, did the Germans start systematically tattooing numbers on the left forearm of all registered prisoners.
Around 400 “Bible Students”, whom we would now call Jehovah’s Witnesses, were besides deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. They ended up in the concentration camps due to their deep commitment to their beliefs. They refused not only military service, but even work in the armaments industry, which was punishable in the 3rd Reich. They had the anticipation of regaining their freedom in exchange for a written renunciation of their spiritual principles. At Auschwitz-Birkenau, no 1 signed specified a document.
It is highly hard to ascertain precisely how many homosexuals were sent to the camp. According to Bogdan Piętka of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, there may have been 77. Jacek Lachendro points out that German investigator Rainer Hoffschildt puts the number at over 130. The inaccuracies are due to the ambiguous marking of this category of prisoner. any received pink triangles signifying imprisonment under the paragraph condemning homosexuals, but there were besides those who might have received red triangles intended for political prisoners or green triangles signifying criminals. In contrast, historians’ investigation suggests that these people were among the most mistreated groups.
Death, or the slightest chance for survival…
Once again, the unknown author has drawn a boy in a navy uniform who is being forcibly dragged distant from an elegant man in a hat by an SS man. The boy and the man helplessly extend their hands to each other. The kid finds himself on the same side as an elderly, moustachioed hebrew with a Star of David sewn on. Knowing the double function of Auschwitz-Birkenau, 1 can guess that the boy and the older man were facing immediate death. The elegant man, later stripped of his dignity, dressed in a striped suit, with a number alternatively of an identity, had a chance of being sent to the camp, which in itself did not yet mean survival.
Republished on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, January 27th, 2025.
The article was produced as part of the Jan Nowak-Jeziorański east Europe College task funded by the Polish Ministry of abroad Affairs. Public task financed by the Ministry of abroad Affairs of the Republic of Poland within the grant competition “Public Diplomacy 2022”. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of the authoritative positions of the Ministry of abroad Affairs of the Republic of Poland.
