by Jon E. Lewis
Auschwitz is a concentration camp for political prisoners under so-called ‘protective custody’. At the time of my arrival, that is, April 1942, about 15,000 prisoners were in the camp, the majority Poles, Germans, and civilian Russians under protective custody. A small number of prisoners came under the categories of criminals and ‘work-shirkers’.
Auschwitz camp headquarters also controls the labour camp of Birkenau as well as the farm-labour camp of Harmense. All the prisoners arrive first at Auschwitz, where they are provided with prisoners’ registration numbers and then are kept there, or are sent either to Birkenau or, in very small numbers, to Harmense …
There are several factories on the grounds of the camp of Auschwitz: a war production plant of Deutsche Ausrüstungswerke (DAW [an SS enterprise founded in 1939]), a factory belonging to the Krupp works, and one to the Siemens concern. Outside the camp’s boundary is a tremendous plant covering several square kilometres named Buna. The prisoners work in all the aforementioned factories.
The prisoners’ actual living quarters, if such a term is at all appropriate, covers an area approximately 500 by 300 metres, surrounded by a double row of concrete posts about three metres high, interconnected, inside and out, by a dense netting of high-tension wires fixed into the posts by insulators. Between these two rows of posts, at intervals of 150 metres, there are five-metre-high watchtowers, equipped with machine guns and searchlights. The inner high-tension ring is encircled by an ordinary wire fence. Merely to touch this fence is to draw a stream of bullets from the watchtowers. This system is called the ‘small’ or ‘inner ring of sentry posts’.
The camp itself is composed of three rows of houses. The camp thoroughfare lies between the first and second row. A wall used to stand between the second and third row. Up to mid-August 1942, the over 7,000 Jewish girls deported from Slovakia in March and April 1942, lived in the houses separated by this wall. After these girls had been removed to Birkenau, the wall was removed. The road into the camp bisects the row of houses. Over the entrance gate, always, of course, heavily guarded, stands the ironic inscription: ‘Work brings freedom’.
At a radius of some 2,000 metres, the whole camp is encircled by a second ring called the ‘big’ or ‘outer ring of sentry posts’, also with watchtowers every 150 metres. Between the inner- and outer-ring sentry posts are the factories and other workshops. The towers of the inner ring are manned only at night when the high-tension current is switched into the double row of wires. During the day the garrison of the inner-ring sentry posts is withdrawn, and the men take up duty in the outer ring. Escape – and many attempts have been made – through these sentry posts is practically impossible. Getting through the inner-ring posts at night is completely impossible, and the towers of the outer ring are so close to one another that it is out of the question to pass unnoticed. The guards shoot without warning. The garrison of the outer ring is withdrawn at twilight, but only after all the prisoners have been ascertained to be within the inner ring. If the roll call uncovers a missing prisoner, sirens immediately sound the alarm.
The men in the outer ring remain in their towers on the lookout, the inner ring is manned, and hundreds of SS guards and bloodhounds begin a systematic search. The siren brings the whole surrounding countryside to a state of alarm, so that if by miracle the escaping man has succeeded in getting through the outer ring, he is almost certain to be caught by one of the numerous German police and SS patrols. The escapee is furthermore handicapped by his clean-shaven head, his striped prisoner’s outfit or red patches sewn on his clothing, and the passiveness of the thoroughly intimidated population. The mere failure to give information on the whereabouts of a prisoner, not to speak of extending help, is punished by death. If the prisoner has not been caught sooner, the garrison of the outer-ring sentry posts remains on the watch for three days and nights, after which it is presumed that the fugitive succeeded in breaking through the double ring. The following night the outer guard is withdrawn. If the fugitive is caught alive, he is hanged in the presence of the whole camp. If he is found dead, his body – wherever it may have been located – is returned to camp (it is easily identifiable by the tattooed number) and seated at the entrance gate, a small notice clasped in his hands, reading: ‘Here I am’. During our two years’ imprisonment, many attempts at escape were made, but except for two or three, all were brought back dead or alive. It is not known whether those two or three actually managed to get away. It can, however, be asserted that among the Jews who were deported from Slovakia to Auschwitz or Birkenau, we are the only two who were lucky enough to save ourselves.
As stated previously, we were transferred from Auschwitz to Birkenau on the day of our arrival. Actually there is no such district as Birkenau. Even the word Birkenau is new in that it has been adapted from the nearby Brzezinki. The existing camp centre of Birkenau lies four kilometres from Auschwitz, though the outer borders of Birkenau and Auschwitz adjoin …
When we arrived in Birkenau, we found only one huge kitchen there for 15,000 people and three stone buildings, two already completed and one under construction. The buildings were encircled by an ordinary barbed-wire fence. The prisoners were housed in these buildings and in others later constructed … All are built according to a standard model. Each house is about thirty metres long and eight to ten metres wide [divided into tiny cubicles] … too narrow for a man to lie stretched out and not high enough for him to sit upright. There is no question of having enough space to stand upright. Thus, some 400–500 people are accommodated in one house or ‘block’ …
After three days I was ordered, together with 200 other Slovak Jews, to work in the German armament factories at Auschwitz, but we continued to be housed in Birkenau. We left early in the morning, returning at night, and worked in the carpentry shop as well as on road construction. Our food consisted of one litre of turnip soup at midday and 300 grams of bad bread in the evening. Working conditions were inconceivably hard, so that the majority of us, weakened by starvation and the inedible food, could not endure. The mortality was so high that our group of 200 had thirty to thirty-five dead every day. Many were simply beaten to death by the overseers – the Kapos – during work, without the slightest provocation. The gaps in our ranks caused by these deaths were replaced daily by prisoners from Birkenau. Our return at night was extremely painful and dangerous, as we had to drag, over a distance of five kilometres, our tools, firewood, heavy cauldrons, and the bodies of those who had died or had been killed during the working day. With these heavy loads we had to maintain a brisk pace, and anyone incurring the displeasure of one of the Kapos was cruelly knocked down, if not beaten to death. Until the arrival of the second group of Slovak men some fourteen days later, our original number had dwindled to 150. At night we were counted, the bodies of the dead were piled up on flat, narrow-gauge cars or in a truck and brought to Brzezinki, where they were burned in a trench several metres deep and about fifteen metres long ...
Until the middle of May 1942, a total of four convoys of Jewish men from Slovakia arrived at Birkenau and all were given treatment similar to ours.
From the first two transports 120 men – ninety Slovak and thirty French Jews – were chosen, including myself, and placed at the disposal of the administration of the camp of Auschwitz, which needed doctors, dentists, intellectuals, and clerks. As I had in the meantime managed to work my way up to a good position in Birkenau – being in command of a group of fifty men, which had brought me considerable advantage – I at first felt reluctant to leave for Auschwitz. However, I was finally persuaded to go. After eight days, eighteen doctors and attendants as well as three other persons were selected from this group of 120. The doctors were used in the so-called Krankenbau (‘patients’ building’ infirmary) at Auschwitz ... The remaining ninety-nine persons were sent to work in the gravel pits where they all died within a short time.
Shortly thereafter a Krankenbau was set up. It was destined to become the much dreaded Block 7, where I was first
chief attendant and later administrator. The ‘infirmary’ chief was a Pole. This building actually was nothing but an assembly centre of candidates for death. All prisoners incapable of working were sent there. There was no question of any medical attention or care. We had some 150 dead daily and their bodies were sent for cremation to Auschwitz.
At the same time, the so-called ‘selections’ were introduced. Twice-weekly, Mondays and Thursdays, the camp doctor indicated the number of prisoners who were to be gassed and then burned. Those selected were loaded on to trucks and brought to Brzezinki. Those still alive upon arrival were gassed in a big barracks erected near the trench used for burning the bodies. The weekly contingent of dead from Block 7 was about 2,000, 1,200 of whom died a ‘natural death’ and about 800 by ‘selection’. For those who had not been ‘selected’, a death certificate was issued and sent to the central administration at Oranienburg, whereas a special list was kept of the ‘selectees’ with the indication ‘S.B.’ (Sonderbehandlung – special treatment). Until 15 January 1943, up to which time I was administrator of Block 7 and therefore in a position directly to observe the events, some 50,000 prisoners died of ‘natural death’ or by ‘selection’.
As previously described, the prisoners were numbered consecutively, so that we can reconstruct fairly clearly their order of succession and the fate which befell each individual convoy on arrival.
The first transport of Jewish men reaching Auschwitz for Birkenau was composed, as mentioned, of 1,320 naturalized French Jews bearing approximately the following numbers: 27,400–28,000
28,600–29,600
In April 1942 the first convoy of Slovak Jews (our convoy).
29,600–29,700
100 men (Aryans) from various concentration camps.
29,700–32,700
3 complete convoys of Slovak Jews.
32,700–33,100
400 professional criminals (Aryans) from Warsaw prisons.
33,100–35,000
1,900 Jews from Kraków.
35,000–36,000
1,000 Poles (Aryans) – political prisoners.
36,000–37,300
In May 1942 – 1,300 Slovak Jews from Lublin-Majdanek.
37,300–37,900
600 Poles (Aryans) from Radom, a few Jews among them.
37,900–38,000
100 Poles from the concentration camp of Dachau.
38,000–38,400
400 naturalized French Jews with their families.
This whole convoy consisted of about 1,600 individuals, of whom approximately 200 girls and 400 men were admitted to the camp, while the remaining 1,000 persons (women, old people, children, as well as men) were sent without further procedure from the railway siding directly to Brzezinki, and there gassed and burned. From this moment on, all Jewish convoys were dealt with in the same way. Approximately 10 per cent of the men and 5 per cent of the women were assigned to the camps and remaining members were immediately gassed. This process of annihilation had already been applied earlier to the Polish Jews. During long months, without interruption, trucks brought thousands of Jews from the various ghettos directly to the pit in Birkenwald ...
48,300–48,620
320 Jews from Slovakia. About 70 girls were transferred to the women’s camp, the remainder, some 650 people, gassed in Birkenwald. This convoy included about 80 people who had been transferred by the Hungarian police to the camp at Sered …
49,000–64,800
15,000 naturalized French, Belgian, and Dutch Jews. This figure certainly represents less than 10 per cent of the total convoy. This was between 1 July and 15 September 1942. Large family convoys arrived from various European countries and were at once directed to Birkenwald. The Sonderkommando, employed for gassing and burning, worked day and night shifts. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were gassed during this period.
64,800–65,000
200 Slovak Jews. Of this transport, about 100 women were admitted to the camp, the rest were gassed and burned …
65,000–68,000
Naturalized French, Belgian, and Dutch Jews. Not more than 1,000 women were ‘selected’ and sent to the camp. The others, 30,000 at the least, were gassed.
71,000–80,000
Naturalized French, Belgian, and Dutch Jews. The prisoners brought to the camp hardly represented 10 per cent of the total transport. A conservative estimate would be that approximately 65,000 to 70,000 persons were gassed …
Number 80,000 marks the beginning of the systematic annihilation of the Polish ghettos.
80,000–85,000
Approximately 5,000 Jews from various ghettos in Mlawa, Maków, Ciechanów, Lomża, Grodno, Bialystok. For fully thirty days truck convoys arrived without interruption. Only 5,000 persons were sent to the concentration camp; all the others were gassed at once. The Sonderkommando worked in two shifts, twenty-four hours daily, and was scarcely able to cope with the gassing and burning. Without exaggeration, it may be said that some 80,000–90,000 of these convoys received Sonderbehandlung. These transports also brought in a considerable amount of money, valuables, and precious stones.
85,000–92,000
6,000 Jews from Grodno, Bialystok, and Kraków, as well as 1,000 Aryan Poles. The majority of the Jewish convoys were directly gassed and about 4,000 Jews daily were driven into the gas-chambers. During mid-January 1943, three convoys of 2,000 persons each arrived from Theresienstadt ... Only 600 men and 300 women of these 6,000 persons were admited to the camp. The remainder were gassed.
99,000–100,000
End of January 1943, large convoys of French and Dutch Jews arrived; only a small proportion reached the camp.
100,000–102,000
In February 1943, 2,000 Aryan Poles, mostly intellectuals.
102,000–103,000
700 Czech Aryans. Later, those still alive were sent to Buchenwald.
103,000–108,000
3,000 French and Dutch Jews and 2,000 Poles (Aryans). During the month of February 1943, two contingents arrived daily. They included Polish, French, and Dutch Jews who, in the main, were sent to the gas-chambers. The number gassed during this month can be estimated at no smaller than 90,000.
At the end of February 1943, a new modern crematorium and gassing plant were inaugurated at Birkenau. The gassing and burning of the bodies in Birkenwald were discontinued, the whole job being taken over by the four specially built crematoria. The large ditch was filled in, the ground levelled, and the ashes used, as before, for fertilizer at the farm labour camp of Harmense, so that today it is almost impossible to find traces of the dreadful mass murder which took place.
At present four crematoria are in operation at Birkenau, two large ones, I and II, and two smaller ones, III and IV. Those of type I and II consist of three parts, i.e.: the furnace room, the large hall, and the gas chamber. A huge chimney rises from the furnace room around which are grouped nine furnaces, each having four openings. Each opening can take three normal corpses at once, after an hour and a half the bodies are completely burned. Thus, the daily capacity is about 2,000 bodies. A large ‘reception hall’ adjoins, so as to give the impression of the antechamber of a bathing establishment. It holds 2,000 people and apparently there is a similar waiting room on the floor below. From there, a door and a few stairs lead down into the very long and narrow gas-chamber. The walls of this chamber are also camouflaged with simulated entries to shower rooms in order to mislead the victims. The roof is fitted with three traps which can be hermetically closed from the outside. A track leads from the gas-chamber to the furnace room.
The gassing takes place as follows: the unfortunate victims are brought into the reception hall where they are told to undress. To complete the fiction that they are going to bathe, each person receives a towel and a small piece of soap issued by two men in white coats. Then they are crowded into the gas-chamber in such numbers that there is, of course, only standing room. To compress this crowd into the narrow space, shots are often fired to induce those already at th
e far end to huddle still closer together. When everybody is inside, the heavy doors are closed. Then there is a short pause, presumably to allow the room temperature to rise to a certain level, after which SS men with gas-masks climb on the roof, open the traps, and shake down a preparation in powder from out of tin cans labelled ‘Zyklon – For use against vermin’, manufactured by a Hamburg concern. It is presumed that this is a cyanide mixture of some sort which turns into gas at a certain temperature. After three minutes everyone in the chamber is dead. No one is known to have survived this ordeal, although it was not uncommon to discover signs of life after the primitive measures employed in Birkenwald. The chamber is then opened, aired, and the Sonderkommando carts the bodies on flat trucks to the furnace rooms where the burning takes place. Crematoria III and IV work on nearly the same principle, but their capacity is only half as large. Thus the total capacity of the four gassing and cremating plants at Birkenau amounts to about 6,000 daily.
On principle only Jews are gassed; Aryans very seldom, as they are usually given Sonderbehandlung by shooting. Before the crematoria were put into service, the shooting took place in Birkenwald and the bodies were burned in the long trench; later, however, executions took place in the large hall of one of the crematoria which has been provided with a special installation for this purpose.
Prominent guests from Berlin were present at the inauguration of the first crematorium in March 1943. The ‘programme’ consisted of the gassing and burning of 8,000 Kraków Jews. The guests, both officers and civilians, were extremely satisfied with the results and the special peephole fitted into the door of the gas-chamber was in constant use. They were lavish in their praise of this newly erected installation.