Auschwitz III-Monowitz camp

Transcript of the podcast

The Auschwitz-III Monowitz camp was established in October 1942 on the site of the displaced and expelled Polish village of Monowice, located six kilometres from the Auschwitz-I camp. It was connected with the construction of the synthetic rubber and fuel plant by a German chemical company IG Farben Industry. Doctor Piotr Setkiewicz head of the Memorial Research Centre talks about the history of the third part of the Auschwitz camp complex.

Where did the decision to build a factory of synthetic rubber in Oświęcim came from?

Well, there was in 1940 after the first serious defeat of the German army, namely in the Battle of Britain, the higher commando of Wehrmacht decided that they would need another third factory of synthetic rubber somewhere in the east outside the range of the British bombers, they can go from airfields in Southern England. So that was the moment when the IG Faben representatives began to look for a suitable location for the factory and the only available place and most favourable for the needs of the factory, that was Upper Silesia in occupied Poland because of its natural resources. Because of the call deposits, the numerous coal mines and the coal query in Kresendorf salt mining village castle in the end of 1940, the IG Farben representatives arrives at Katowice.
The capital of the province and began to look for the site of the future factory and then Auschwitz was chosen for many purposes and there is a number of opinions about it, why particularly Auschwitz was chosen for this purpose. Some people believe that it was because there was a concentration camp here. But at the very beginning, more important other factors, like the fact that Oświęcim was situated on the outskirts of the industrial basin of Upper Silesia, therefore, it would be easier to find the labour force among the local population of the area and the villages nearby. Then the Vistula was here, that was necessary, the water from the river to cool certain chemical installations in the future factory. Then of course it was the regular line that led from Oświęcim to KraKow very close to selected site, so these were practical reasons why the IG Farben people drove the attention to Oświęcim.

But the presence of the concentration camp made the location in a way more favourable? It was a factor when they made the decision?

Yes, that was another favourable agent in the decision-making process, because as people from the IG Farben stated, the resources of potential workers for the factory here in 1941, were almost exhausted, many Polish farmers who lived around Oświęcim had been sent to Germany to perform safe labour there. There was also the problem with potential labourers in the city of Oświęcim because approximately half of them were Jews, who want to be removed from the area quickly, as that was the plan for massive settlement of Germans in this belt that surrounded the industrial region of Silesia. So, there were many reasons why suddenly the people from IG Farben found out that the fact that there is a concentration camp here would be extremely helpful for the future. Nobody knows actually who for the first time proposed the using of prisoners of concentration camp on the construction side of IG Farben, that was probably the local Arbeitsamt, the employment office. And very quickly the IG Farben people found out that this proximity of concentration camp would be very beneficial for the future. That was probably in February 1941 and for the first time the IG Farben initiated negotiations with the headquarters in the concentration camp as well as with the high ranking officers and personal staff of the Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler. What was most important for IG Farben? It was the fact that the SS proposed a very low wages for the work of prisoners, that mean that was three Reichsmark per day of work of a prisoner. That represented about the half of salary of German construction worker. So that was the first benefit. The second the fact that prisoners had already been here, so there was no need to build for them any quarters. Then the prisoners could now go for the vacations. In this case management of factory would not be obliged to cover certain costs for organisation of cultural life and all these things connected with the social care on the civilian workers. So, these were the most important reasons why the IG Farben was very enthusiastic with the idea of employment of prisoners of concentration camp. But also the people from the concentration camp, the SS officers were extremely happy that such a big company was interested in the future cooperation. Again, for many reasons. First of all, for Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler himself, that was a good argument for propaganda, that the SS is not only responsible for isolating the enemies of the Reich in the concentration camp, but also in this way by hiring the prisoners to private contractors, the SS would be engaged in the nationwide war effort. Then Himmler believed that this cooperation would be beneficial financially for the SS organisation as well because he believed that it would be possible to build a large workshops around the concentration camp, in which prisoners will be employed and their products like concrete posts for the future fence of the factory, like simple furniture, elements of wooden barracks, bricks or gravel, they all would be sell by the IG Farben and would bring the SS substantial profits. And finally, well just, perhaps most important, the fact that IG Farben was a large company, the biggest one in pre-war Germany, and had it at its disposal a large amount of construction materials that were not available even for such a powerful organisation, like the SS itself. So, SS believed that the IG Farben would give them for the needs of expansion of the concentration camp, a certain amount of bricks, cement, iron – whatever was necessary to expand the camp and increase its capacity. So that was why during these initial talks between the representatives of IG Farben and the people from the concentration camp, the both sides expressed their enthusiasm towards the idea of how the future cooperation.

When did the first Auschwitz prisoners started actually working at the site of the future factory?

The first prisoners was appeared on the site in April 1941. Several hundred prisoners were transported to Monowice by trucks. Then prisoners had to walk simply from the concentration camp to the construction site. The distance that was about 5 kilometres but there were two problems with such way of delivering prisoners to Monowitz because, first of all, prisoners had to march along the city on the only reach over the Sola River and the residents of Oświęcim had a chance to see the prisoners, how exhausted how poorly they look like. And secondly, there was a problem with the constant fogs that appeared usually in this area and that's resulted in substantial delays in deliveries of prisoners to Monowitz. For these reasons the IG Farben in the end of June 1941 decided to pay for a shuttle train which will transport the prisoners directly from Auschwitz-I to railway station in Dwory which was situated very close to the construction site. Of course, that means that IG Farben had to pay some more money and the other problem was that because the railway lines that led from Germany to the Eastern Front were overcrowded, so the train had to wait sometimes, even a couple of hours for the green light to go to Monowice and to deliver prisoners to
the factory. Finally, the train had a limited capacity, particularly in the middle of 1942. It became obvious that this prove to be not so good as IG Farben expected – that it was not possible to enlarge the train and to bring more prisoners to Monowitz, more than about 2000, that was the maximum capacity of the train. And that was the reasons why the people from IG Farben began to look for another solution.

The solution was to build a subcamp. Why exactly such a decision was taken?

The two reasons, first of all, that was not possible to bring more prisoners each day to the construction site. However, the second and perhaps more important, that was the outbreak of typhus epidemics in in the base camp in Auschwitz and Birkenau in the middle of 1942. The camp was practically closed and prisoners could not simply be delivered to the construction site. So, IG Farben people were very disappointed. They're looking for other sources of labour. They were in touch, for example, with the so-called Schmelt Organisation that was the unit of SS responsible for labour camps for Jews in Silesia. But because Brigadeführer Schmelt finally refused, so the IG Farben were waiting for the end of epidemics and in order to solve the problem of potential sources of typhus among the prisoners on the construction site and that was a serious threat that the other civilian workers could be infected with typhus, IG Farben decided that they would sacrifice one of their precious barrack camps for the needs of the subcamp of Auschwitz. Apart from the Auschwitz concentration camp inmates, IG Farben employed a large number of forced labourers from Germany. These were the people who occupied the leading position in the factory engineers, foremen and so on. But also, many thousand forced labourers from Poland, France, Netherlands, Denmark, Italy in order to find quarters for them. The IG Farben decided to build a number of barrack camps around the construction site. Three of them were ready in the middle of the year and the fourth one was under construction. So, the IG Farben proposed to the SS that they will be ready to donate this camp for the needs of the concentration camp prisoners namely, they believed that because this camp be isolated from the other parts of Auschwitz, so, in this way they would be able to avoid spreading out typhus among the staff of the factory in the way that the new arrivals to Auschwitz, new prisoners being brought to the Auschwitz concentration camp. They would be sent directly to Monowitz without being registered in Auschwitz-I for example. That was this idea and that was accepted by the high-ranking officers from Berlin, including Oswald Pohl who was the head of the main economic office of the SS and his deputy Maurer 13:19? who was responsible for the question of prisoner employment. As we can see in the nearest future, despite the fact that this idea was accepted by the leading figures in the structures of the SS in Berlin, so, Rudolf Höss was not particularly understandable and did not work in favour of this option because around these transports began to arrive to Auschwitz these prisoners actually ended up in the main camp in Birkenau. They had to pass through the procedures of registration as much as all other prisoners, and in this way Höss broke this agreement, which had been previously settled between IG Farben and Oswald Pohl. So that was the starting point of the countless complaints and problems between the people from the IG Farben and commander itself. Finally, as we can presume, Höss was forced to send the first groups of prisoners from Auschwitz to Monowitz in October in 1942, and what was perhaps more important, he had to send every day a report to Berlin with information about the number of prisoners who were employed on the construction site, who were sick, number of the guards in Monowitz and so on and so on. So, the camp was opened, initially, it consists of about twenty barracks and it was surrounded by a similar barbed-wire fence as it was in the case of Birkenau.

What were the conditions in the camp and did develop or the structure of the barrack come the IG Farben donated to Auschwitz was exactly the same throughout the time of the war?

Initially the camp was relatively small and it would accommodate slightly over 2000 prisoners, but of course the needs of IG Farben were larger, they wish to have more people for work. Regularly, prisoners of concentration camps built more and more barracks in Monowice they end of the first initial phase of development in the middle of 1944. But if we look at the aerial photographs taken by the allies in the fall of the year, we can see that the IG Farben began the construction of a new sector of the Monowitz camp. So, if in the middle of 1944, the maximum capacity of the Monowitz was estimated as to be around 11,000 people, so most probably three or four thousand prisoners more might have been accommodated in the new sector of the camp. Altogether, IG Farben builds sixty wooden barracks. They were marginally smaller than the barracks in Birkenau, and conditions in this barracks were slightly better. First of all, these barracks had windows and what is more important had the central heating installations that had a certain significant impact on the situation of prisoners, because when they had their clothes wet, they could dry them on the pipes of these installations in the barracks. Nevertheless, if we wish to compare the situation of prisoners in Monowitz and in other parts of the Auschwitz complex, the most important feature was the mortality among the prisoners, which was almost equal to the mortality that prevailed in in Birkenau. So, despite these better living conditions in Monowitz the number of deaths was practically the same. I believe that it was because of hard work on the construction site. If in the case of Birkenau, particularly in Auschwitz, we can see many prisoners who worked in certain institutions of the concentration camp, like warehouses or workshops and other such working places in. Prisoners who work there, they would somehow in privileged position if we compare them with the others who had to perform very heavy manual works in Außenkommandos outside the camp. So, in case of Monowitz, we've got almost 100% of prisoners who had to perform this hard manual labour on the construction site. The IG Farben promised to provide prisoners with additional amount of soup and was so-called “Buna-Suppe” but the value of the soup was very low and it was comparible with the quality of soup being distributed among the prisoners in the concentration camp itself. All these factors resulted in almost equal mortality amount in Monowitz prisoners as well as prisoners in other parts of Auschwitz.

What kind of slave labour the prisoners had to do at the site of the IG Farben factory?

Well, these were ordinary works that were connected with the construction of buildings, streets, digging foundations of the buildings, the drainage ditches, like electric cables, all these works are very hard, very exhaustive, including for instance transportation of construction materials from the train station to store houses of the factory. All these works required a lot of energy, and that was probably why the prisoners, very few of them, had a chance to perform certain kind of skilled works that were better, if we assume their chances for survival.

When we look at the situation in Auschwitz, one of the elements of terror is the supervision of both the SS and the functionaries. Is the situation different in Monowitz because the prisoners were working for a private company or the supervision of the prisoners in the SS also contributed to the death of many prisoners?

The system of guarding prisoners was the same in Monowitz. Initially, each individual commander or work detailed 19:15? would receive a certain number of guards. Then with the end of construction of fence that covered the space of about ten square kilometres inside the factory. The fence constituted a sort of large chain of guards. The Grossepostenkette, that also existed in Auschwitz and Birkenau. The only difference was that the SS guards stood by the gates that led to the factory together with the members of the security guards, the Wachschutz of the factory. And as much as it was in Auschwitz individual commanders of prisoners had to work under the supervision of the Kapos and only from time to time the commandos were controlled by SS officers, but perhaps what is more important, the commandos the prisoners had to work being supervised by civilian foreman from IG Farben. Of course, it was in the interest of the full man to be sure that the work would be completed until the end of the day, so if he could see that prisoners work too slow, so he usually could go to the Kapo or to the SS men, and said that, well, do something, they had to work faster and therefore the Kapo bring his stick and beat prisoners more energetically as the IG Farben used to call this.

In 1942, the IG Farben people began to complain that productivity of the prisoners is too low and, therefore, it is necessary to do something to increase it. And first of all, they stated that perhaps the SS men were not sufficient in numbers, or they did not understood the needs of work in private industry. However, in that ways there were negative comments from the headquarters of the concentration camp. For example, the head of employment division Heinrich Schwarz answered that well, IG Farben don't have to tell the SS how the SS guards should supervise the prisoners. Then the IG Farben proposed that perhaps it would be better to send to Monowitz a certain amount of very energetic German Kapos, German criminals, or antisocial prisoners. And this idea that was accepted by SS, and in fact a certain number of a few hundred German criminals were selected among the prisoners in other German concentration camps and sent to Monowitz. So, in this way probably the way how the prisoners were supervised by the Kapos was more dangerous for prisoners in Monowitz than in other parts of the Auschwitz complex. So, these were the practical consequences of IG Farben’s attempts to increase the productivity and the profits for the company itself because the IG Farben had to pay still the same amount of money, three Reichsmark per day of work of a prisoner.

Was the organisational structures of the Monowitz camp the same as in the whole Auschwitz complex, or were there any differences because of this cooperation with IG Farben and the fact that the camp stood by the factory site?

Officially the camp in Monowitz became something like the first subcamp of Auschwitz, it was called Lager Buna. Buna, that was market name of the synthetic rubber that was the basic product of the factory. And the Lager Buna was X22:43? directly to the commander of the office camp. Then in November 1943, when Auschwitz was divided into three semi-independent parts, then, Monowitz became the headquarter of all subcamps that belong to the structure of Auschwitz-III.

Namely, they were so called industrial subcamps that were located by the coal mine, steelworks and other such places in Upper Silesia. So, from the one hand the commander of Monowitz, Schwarz, was independent in the way how he believed that his camp should be run, but on the other commander of Monowitz was some ways subordinative to the commander of Auschwitz I, the base camp, which was also commander of the SS garrisons. So, the structure was to a certain extent complicated, nevertheless, that worked, and I cannot see any problems or differences in cooperation between Kommandantur or headquarters in Monowitz and authorities of the Auschwitz complex in Auschwitz-I.

You mentioned that IG Farben used different sources of labourers, not only prisoners of the concentration camps, but also slave labourers from different countries in occupied Europe. But also, German workers. What was the nature of the contacts between the prisoners of Auschwitz and the civilians who were present at the IG Farben

That depends on practical considerations to which extend to prisoners could see contact, and even sometimes talk to civilians. Of course, formally, such contacts were forbidden. Nevertheless, assuming the large size of the factory and the fact that there were many hidden places where the prisoners could not be controlled by the SS men or the Kapos, these contacts were more frequent than the contacts with civilians in the Auschwitz and the Birkenau camps. We can see that the whole variety of possible ways how the German workers, German civilians reacted. Of course, that was number of those German who treat the prisoners very brutal way, some things happened at the IG Farben foremen, might beat prisoners if the Kapo was not good enough. On the other hand, that was the case of the formal protest that these were not people from IG Farben itself, but a group of German workers from a company called Schulze. This company was subcontractor of IG Farben so some workers from this firm decided to come to the office of Maximilian Faust who was the chief engineer and deputy director of the factory and they openly protested against the beating prisoners, almost to their death on the construction site, and they stated that they do not want to see such things any longer. As far as I know, that was the only protest of the German civilians in the entire region of Upper Silesia during the war. However, of course it did not bring any results, because Mr. Faust was hostile towards not only prisoners, but even to Polish civilians. When he talked about it with Heinrich Schwarz the commander of Auschwitz, he said that that would be good to move these most brutal acts of torment of prisoners behind the walls of the concentration camp. Nevertheless, this case on the side, it was absolutely unique and the prisoners perhaps might have a chance to at least to be treated better from a certain group of the Germans. Most of them did not react, they pretended not to see killings or beatings on the construction site. Perhaps they did not know what could they do in this situation. Then that was that number of civilian workers from the Western Europe, including Frenchmen, Belgians, Dutchman, workers from Norway, from Italy, from Bohemia, even from Spain. So, they were all segregated into different categories, namely, those workers who came from the countries friendly to the Third Reich, were treated better they lived in the better camps, better barracks, they became somehow a part of the German staff of the factory. That meant that they could participate in certain cultural events organised by the Social Department of the factory, they would receive certain bonuses in form of a bottle of wine from time to time, some vegetables and so on. While the French workers and Belgians and people from those countries who were occupied by Germany, their position was slightly lower in this hierarchy, in this structure. Then there were Poles, and probably on the very bottom of the workers from the western parts of Soviet Russia so called Ostarbeiter. So, they have the different possibilities. First of all, to collect some food and then to give it to the prisoners, that was most important. In the case of Polish workers, particularly those who live in the area of Oświęcim, they have more options or more opportunities to bring some more food to the factory, for example, they could explain it to the guards that they wish to bring some more bread for the breakfast to the construction site.

These were many such cases of contact between concentration camp prisoners and civilians. However, we must remember that on average the workers were sometimes hungry, and they had to take care about the families, about wives and children and their resources were very limited. Nevertheless, if we look at the punishment orders that were issued by the administration of the concentration camp, we can find there a number of cases of prisoners who were arrested, where in case the SS guard discovered some slices of bread. In these cases, the prisoners tried to explain that this bread was stolen from the civilian workers. Interestingly enough, because I believe that in most cases, for instance, simply received this bread from the civilians. But they didn't want to betray them in this way to protect them somehow.

And there was also a group of British prisoners of war which was very special on the construction site, namely of course they were prisoners, they were guarded by the Wehrmacht guards, however, their situation was better than many other civilians in Monowitz because they would receive food parcels via the Red Cross and in this way they have at their disposal, British cigarettes, chocolate, extremely rare and expensive so they could almost buy everything on the black market in the factory and in this way they have more food at their disposal. So, again in the SS documents, we may find many punishment reports about prisoners who were walking around working places of British prisoners of war and in this way, prisoners were expecting to receive something, some food from the British.

Had the fact that prisoners of Monowitz basically work outside the camp, of course, in the guarded compound, but they are outside and they have contacts with civilians on the terrain that is in constant development. Had it give them some possibilities of escapes, for example?

Some prisoners escape from Monowitz even in the first very initial period of existence of the factory, when they were had to walk from Auschwitz to the construction site. Some of them had a chance to escape, for example when they worked around the factory, particularly when they had to take positions of German anti-aircraft guns that defended the factory against bombings of American aeroplanes in 1944 and even later they work on the huge piece of land on the site of the factor when the number of potential hiding places was much higher than it was in Birkenau. For example, when prisoners had to work on the open field. So, these were the advantages of the site, and the prisoners could use these hiding places during the escape and to spend there a day or two or more there waiting for the end of searching actions and thanks to the fact that they had contact with the civilians or more contacts with the civilians, in some case they could count on their help. Particularly many prisoners escape from Auschwitz in the middle of 1944. That led to certain irritation of the commander of Monowitz, he even gave them instructions to German and Polish Kapos that they should supervise prisoners more carefully and to report about every single case of potential preparations for the escape. So, that was perhaps another factor that led administration of Auschwitz for the mass evacuation of non-Jewish prisoners from Auschwitz to concentration camps in Germany in the second half of 1944.

Both in Auschwitz-I and in Birkenau there were slightly different systems of, or places where people were punished and different kinds of punishments, and also places of execution – has the Monowitz camp also developed its own, either system or places where people were punished and executed?

At the beginning of the way of punishing prisoners was virtually the same. Anyone who opposed the guards, or the Kapos was beaten, sometimes to his death. We can find in the Totenbuch in the Death book of Monowitz camp that approximately 8% of all cases of death were registered not in the camp itself, but on the working places, that mean that such a person was beaten so far by the Kapo or might be shot by the by the guard while escaping. People who committed certain crimes and offences against the regulations of the concentration camp they usually, be taken to Auschwitz-I, to be interrogated by the Gestapo of the officers from the department number 2, and usually if they attempted to escape, they were execute under the Black Wall on the yard between Block 10 and 11 in Auschwitz. Then in 1943, with the arrival of the new Kommandant Arthur Liebehenschel, some of those who attempted to escape, they might be released back to the barracks. However, already after a few months, the SS introduced the practise to hang the prisoners who were arrested in the circumstances, during the roll calls, in the middle of the Monowitz camp, namely, old prisoners of concentration camp, had to look at those who were to be killed. Almost all prisoners remember these executions, among them, for example, particularly the execution of three young Jewish prisoners who prepared escape and they were betrayed and sentenced to death. Witnesses remembered that because those prisoners shouted “Kameraden, wir sind die Letzten!”, “Colleagues we are the last ones, raise your heads up!”, something like that, so that had a very strong impact on the morale of prisoners of the concentration camp.

You mentioned the fact of bombardments, that the IG Farben plant was bombed by the American bombers. What can we say about the bombardments there?

The only reasons for the organisation of such bombings that was the fact that allies, namely the Americans, wish to reduce the production of synthetic fuel in Germany. We must remember that IG Farben plant in Auschwitz was divided into two sectors, two parts. The first in which German switched to produce a synthetic rubber which was essential for German war economy. But in the second part fuel that was called isooctane so that was a very sophisticated kind of petrol used by the German Luftwaffe. These were the reasons why the Americans decided to attack the factory. There were four such bombings, two of them heavy, over onehundred flying fortresses, or B24 attacking the factory in Oświęcim and the escort of the P51 Mustang fighters. So, these were very serious bombings, and fortunately for the prisoners, and even for the slave workers, the factory was not ready yet, and assuming that the process of production required highly explosive materials, gases, so that was probably only the reason why the factory did not blow absolutely. So, nevertheless, the bombings resulted in many casualties, many people were killed, including the officers and prisoners. These bombings had a certain impact on the piece of work on the construction side of Monowitz and finally at the end of the year, the IG Farben people believed that they will be able to begin the production of basic product, the synthetic rubber, in the end of January and to reach the highest output in in December 1945. Ironically, the factory was to be opened precisely at the moment when the Russian troops approached to Auschwitz at the end of January ‘45. So practically the IG Farben wasted about a half of a billion of Reichmark in vain and the factory did not produce anything at all.

A side effect of the bombardments was the reconnaissance documentation and thanks to the photographs taken from the air that was supposed to analyse the location of the plant and analyse the results of the bombardment, we also have unique photographs of the Auschwitz system, discovered after the war, but for us it's a very important source of information.

Yeah, because each time it was necessary to first of all, to take a series of good quality photographs of the area before the bombing to point out the particular targets for the pilots of bombers. And after each bombing again it was necessary to estimate the scale of damages on the construction site. So, there were many such missions and thanks to them we've got many photographs not only of the factory, but also all these camps located around it. The city of Oświęcim and the concentration camps in Auschwitz and in Birkenau. Why? Because the technique used at this time of filming the target required a certain time, namely, the pilot switch on the camera slightly before he reached the the target, and he switched it off after he took the photographs of the factory. So, in this way we've got very detailed photographs of Birkenau, even including such once with trains on the ramp in the middle of the Birkenau camp and including very important photographs of burning X38:39? and the clouds of smoke over northern sector of Birkenau which are very important for many reasons. First of all, to combat declines by deniers, for example. The problem was that during the second bombing, the Luftwaffe began to use a certain smoke generators that make possible to cover, to obscure the entire territory of the factory with clouds of the smoke, so pilots, or some cases they had to drop the bombs on the basis of the estimations and some bombs hit the city and some bombs even explode on the other side of the of the Soła river, very close to the concentration camp.

The fate of the prisoners of Monowitz at the end of the camps functioning is very similar to all the system. We have evacuation marches, the death marches, and finally, the Soviet army liberated the camp, and of course when we talk about the Auschwitz system, the people responsible for the crime are the SS. But is in the situation of Monowitz and the cooperation between the SS and the IG Farben, to what extent can we say that IG Farben is also responsible for the mistreatment and death of the prisoners of the concentration camp?

That was a subject of numerous discussions, and after the war, and some people claim that was only because of the support from the big industry in in Germany before the war, Hitler was able to initiate aggressive wars, perhaps to some extents that is true because thanks to the new technologies that developed in Germany before the war, it was possible to produce a synthetic petrol, for example – that was essential for the German armed divisions Luftwaffe and so on. In case of Auschwitz, that was another factor, namely the fact that the IG Farben hired a large number of Auschwitz inmates, over 20,000 people all together and some people said that the owner of the factory is responsible for his workers. In this case, people from the management of IG Farben should be responsible for the death of Auschwitz inmates. Of course, that is true in many respects. First of all, the leaders of the IG Farben, the directors and chief engineers did not protest while they could see the beatings of prisoners on the construction sites – not only by the Kapos or SS men, but also by their own men, by the foremen. Secondly, there was a number of initiatives raised by IG Farben which led to the physical exhaustion of the prisoners and to their death because with the arrival of first prisoners to the newly constructed camp in Monowitz, very quickly the people of IG Farben began to realise that there is a large number of prisoners who were so exhausted after spending some time on the construction site of the factory, that they could not work any longer and that was for the people of the IG Farben, these sick prisoners were presented as a burden only, and they did not care about a proper treatment – they did not want to sacrifice more barracks for the needs of the hospital and instead they complained that so many prisoners brought to Monowitz cannot be used for the productive work, so in order to find a solution they met with Gerhard Maurer, who was at the site responsible for employment of prisoners, and they concluded that all those sick prisoners who could not be taken into account as potential workers, they should be regularly be brought to Birkenau for treatment or to the main camp, and immediately replaced with the new ones healthy and strong. So, that had to be clear for these IG Farben representatives, the members of the staff, the directors of the company, what does it mean, this transfer to Birkenau for the prisoners. But they did not protest it because for them more important was the cheap labour of concentration camp inmates. So, that was probably the reason why during the trial of IG Farben directors after the war, before the American Military Tribunal, among all IG Farben managers, those who were in touch somehow with IG Farben work in Oświęcim, they received the highest sentences, up to eight years. However, unfortunately, with the beginning of the Cold War, all these people were released from jails and they continued their career because they were highly specialist professionals in the chemical industry even after the war. There was only one unpleasant situation for them, when the press at the beginning of 60s, with the beginning of the rising interest of the German public opinion with the stories of war criminals, the press began to publish these photographs from the visit of Heinrich Himmler in Monowitz in 1942. And it was a group of engineers from IG Farben visible on this picture together with Maximilian Faust. Faust war, he explained that, well, this was not his guilt, because at this time the director of the factory Mr. Dürrfeld was not present there, so he had to be the guide for Heinrich Himmler. Nevertheless, in most cases they simply were retired, and they have never been punished in Germany after the war.