Polish and Jewish prisoners in the camp

The transcript of the podcast

During its entire existence, slightly over 400.000 people were registered in Auschwitz as prisoners, including 131.000 women. The two largest groups of prisoners were Jews, about 200.000 people and Poles, about 140.000 people. Since Germans had established the camp with the members of Polish resistance and intelligentsia in mind, Poles dominated in the camp at first. This situation began to change in March 1942, when mass deportations of Jews for extermination to Auschwitz began. Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz, the head of the Auschwitz Memorial Research Center talks about of situation of Polish and Jewish prisoners in the camp.

What can we say about reasons of arrest of Poles and Jews? Are there similarities and what were the differences?

There were some similarities, however most of the Polish political prisoners were brought to Auschwitz, particularly in the initial period of existence of the camp after the series of interrogations, because they were members of resistance movement, because they took part in different forms of patriotic activity and because they belong to the classes of educated people in Poland, the elites who were academic professors, who were teachers, officials, officers of the army, so all those people who were considered by Nazi authorities as a potential threat for the new regime. And, until 1942, among the Polish prisoners who were brought to Auschwitz, there were some Jews, approximately about 2.000 Jewish prisoners were deported to Auschwitz until March of this year, and they were arrested because of their participation in certain form of Polish national life, because they belong to the group of Polish intelligentsia, Polish elites, these were also teachers, professors and so on. And in some cases, they were arrested because they tried to collect some food outside the limits of the ghettos, or they refused to wear the Jewish badges with the Star of David and so on. However, these were still actual reasons for their arrest, but in the course of time, particularly after the beginning of Final Solution, when the first mass transports of Jews, which were organized by the Main Security Office of the Reich, so the Jews were arrested and sent to Auschwitz, because they were Jews, so this was practically the only reason of the deportation and when we look at registration documents, forms, cards, when there was usually field among many others, the “Grund”, the reason of the arrest, so this field was left empty. In the case of Polish prisoners in later years, sometimes also happened that they were arrested not because of their political activity, but because of certain deeds they committed against the German law of the occupied Polish territories. For instance, there were those who were singing patriotic songs, those who expressed in certain situations the wish that in years future, the Allies would come and war would be over or that Germany will never win this war. These are the quotations from the documents of the Gestapo and from the police records of the camp. And among the Polish prisoners, there was also large group of those who were arrested during different actions by the German police. The round-ups in the streets of major cities, there were hostages, there were Polish farmers from the Zamość region who were arrested and sent to Auschwitz because Heinrich Himmler’s wished to establish this kind of Germanic island in the middle of the Polish territory from where the Polish citizens were removed and replaced with the German settlers. And finally, in the summer of 1944, during the uprising in Warsaw, many thousand Polish civilians: men, women and children were brought to Auschwitz, of course without any particular reason.

In some quite distorted narrations about Auschwitz, some people say that Auschwitz I was this concentration camp created for Poles and the Birkenau is this camp that was established for the Jews, which is of course false. But when we look at the living conditions in the camp in its development, do we see differences of the conditions for the Polish and Jewish prisoners, or they are the same with tiny differences, depending on the place where the people were kept in the whole camp system?

I must say that I do not particularly like these kind of expressions, definitions given for different parts of the Auschwitz camp as Auschwitz-I, the base camp, the concentration camp, then Birkenau, the extermination site, primarily for the Jews and the Auschwitz-III this ordinary labor camp. All these parts of Auschwitz constitute into one unit and every single prisoner, whether it was in the Auschwitz-I or in one of the sub camps was subjected to identical regulations, the living conditions were very similar and if such prisoner fell ill, he might be sent to the gas chambers, regardless the place where he was at the certain moment in time. If we consider the living conditions in different parts of Auschwitz, of course, to certain extant, the conditions in Auschwitz-I were better. Most important thing was the fact that in the brick blocks of Auschwitz-I, prisoners had access to fresh water, the toilet, which were situated on the ground floor of these buildings. In Birkenau, in most cases there were the separate barracks, latrines and the washing rooms, situated at certain distance from the living quarters for the prisoners. In general, particularly in the first period of existence of Birkenau, when these blocks were under construction, living conditions were worse than in Auschwitz, for obvious reasons: that was mud in the blocks, that the heating system was not so effective as it was in the case of the blocks of Auschwitz-I and so on. However, the most important factor, if we wish to determine living conditions in the Auschwitz and the Birkenau, it was the density of population, overcrowding of barracks in Auschwitz and in Birkenau which were virtually the same. Basing on the statistics from the files of Department number III, we can estimate that more-less 1000-1100, or even more people were in the blocks of Auschwitz I in the spring of 1943, for example, while in the same time in Birkenau, we got the density of population in the barracks practically the same. So, if we consider these facts, the living conditions, and the impact of them on the chances of survival for prisoners in these camps, I think we must remember that in Monowitz, the living conditions were slightly better, because there was a central heating installation in the barracks, and the prisoners had access to them, they could dry their wet striped uniforms, that was crucial in many cases. But the average mortality in Monowitz was identical or even higher than in Birkenau. So, I think that the most important factor for the chances of survival was the kind of work the prisoners had performed at these camps. In Monowitz, it was very hard manual labor at the construction site of IG Farben plant.

Some survivors, especially from the first period of camp operation, remembered speeches given by the SS, namely the camp commander Karl Fritzsch, who welcomed them when they arrived, and one of the things that they remember is that he said: „If there are Jews among you, they have one week of life, if there are priests, they have a month, all the rest - three months”, so it seems there was, from the ideological stand in the SS, difference for treating Jewish and non-Jewish prisoners. Is it something that is visible in the documents, or this is something that we can only guess from things that can help us understand the situation in the camp?

There is, indeed, such possibility. We can try to check it in the surviving documents, the average time of life of prisoners of different nationalities or categories in the camp. In the case of Jewish inmates in the summer of 1941, those who were sent to the punishment company, and it was the case of the majority of Jewish prisoners at that time, they could practically survive fifteen, fourteen days, that was the average time of life for Jews at this period. In the case of Polish prisoners, it is difficult to say, what was the main reason why in some cases, prisoners from certain transport had more chances for survival, while the others were murdered within few months after their arrival to Auschwitz. For example, the prisoners from the first transport, they arrived to the camp, and it was probably crucial for their chances for survival, when the camp was still being organized and the SS needed workers for certain commandos which were considered good ones, in the camp workshops. Those Polish prisoners, who arrived later, they in most cases were being directed to the hardest kinds of labor at the construction works, and the mortality rate among them was the highest. In some cases of transports, we can only find few survivors from among 200 or 300 people. But in average, all those Polish prisoners who were brought to Auschwitz until the spring of 1942, half of them had the chance to survive. So, that was of course, the obvious tendency, which could be seen in the group of Polish or Jewish prisoners, and it is difficult to explain, actually, why this happened, because in the German documents, the orders issued by the commander of Auschwitz Rudolf Höss, there is no indication about it why the SS is to treat Jewish prisoners in this way, that resulted in very high mortality among them. I think that such an order, an official order or instruction had never been issued for the SS-men, however, they understood simply that the Jews, as being situated on the lowest place in the Nazi racial hierarchy, should be treated worse than the other prisoners, including Poles. That resulted from their own personal initiatives, rather than from the official orders, that might be given to them by the officers. We must remember, that at the beginning of Final Solution in Auschwitz and the mass deportation of Jews to Auschwitz, so together with all those procedures of selections and the killing people in gas chambers, began with the opening of the camp of Birkenau, and if these people arrived to Auschwitz at this time, so in most cases they were taken to the barracks where there was free space for them, mainly in Birkenau. There is such a tendency, visible in files, documents, which confirmed that the very high mortality rate among the Jewish prisoners at that time was still higher than the Polish prisoners. Then, we have got another group of documents that refer to the period of second half of 1942, when there was huge typhus epidemic in the Auschwitz and mortality was extremely high among the Polish prisoners as well as the Jews. Then, there were also numerous selections inside the camp, in the hospitals, and if we look at the statistics, as well as for example reports by the Polish resistance movement, they clearly demonstrated the criteria applied to the Jewish patients of the hospitals, who were more strict than it was the case of Polish prisoners. So, the Jewish patient of the hospital had more chances to be selected and killed in the gas chamber than the Polish prisoner in average. That resulted again in the fall of the year with a relatively higher number of Polish prisoners who stayed in the concentration camp than the Jews, who in most cases died or were killed. Then, in 1943, another breakdown, another turning point in the history of Auschwitz, when the SS began to express certain concern, that the number of prisoners who were able for work, because with the changing of military situations in fronts of the Second World War, German Reich need to have more workers to be used in the German armament industry, and from this time on, the situation slightly changed and affected both Jews and Poles. It was already in October 1942, when Himmler for the first time agreed that the food packs would be sent to the prisoners of the concentration camps. That might have important impact on the chances of survival, and it was really in 1943 one of these very important factors, that helped many prisoners to survive. The problem was that these food parcels would be delivered to prisoners of the Auschwitz only by the families who had access to these goods, to the food. In the case of the Jewish prisoners, whose families had already been killed or were still living in the ghettos, that was not the case, that the Jewish prisoners of Auschwitz cannot be supplied with food in such a way. So, practically until the end of the existence of Auschwitz, the situation was, to certain extent, different. The Polish prisoners had, in statistical terms, more chances for survival. In most cases they had more food, bread, fat, and such articles that were completely not available for Jewish prisoners in the camp. All these factors, undoubtedly had certain role for the chances for survival. I think the decisive, in the case of particularly Jewish prisoners, was the time when they were brought to the Auschwitz, when they arrived to the camp. The highest number of survivors, we can find among those who were brought to the Auschwitz in 1944, who spent only a couple of months, in some cases, in Auschwitz, while at the same time, those Jews, who arrived to Auschwitz in 1942, they were murdered in 90 percent or more, we have got perhaps only few survivors, who were brought to Auschwitz in early period of this camp, probably none of Jewish prisoners survived among those, who were deported to Auschwitz in the first two years of the existence of Auschwitz.

Mortality rate among the Polish and Jewish prisoners differ in different periods. Overall, it is more or less fifty percent. How does that compare with other large groups, separately categorized in Auschwitz and incarcerated by Germans?

There are two other major groups among the prisoners of Auschwitz. First of them were Soviet prisoners of war, who were brought to the camp in the fall of 1941. About 10.000 of them stayed in separate sector of Auschwitz-I camp, after about five months of existence of this quasi-prisoner of war camp, only 600 of them were still alive, so the mortality was the highest in this group, in the entire history of concentration camp, so the Soviets already arrived to Auschwitz in very poor physical condition. They stayed for many months in German POW camps, hungry, brutally treated, so these were the reasons of their extremely high mortality. They were also treated in Auschwitz by the Kapos, by the SS, with extraordinary brutality, so that was the reasons of these 94 percent mortality among them. Another group, there were Roma prisoners, who stayed, most of them in separate sector of the Birkenau camp. Despite they were brought to work in low numbers, the conditions in this camp, the hunger, the diseases resulted in the end very high mortality, so most of Roma prisoners were not murdered, were not killed by the SS but they died in result of hunger, starvation, diseases, epidemics at the camp.

And also, the percentage: over 90 percent.

Yes, because those who were still alive in Auschwitz in August of 1944, only small group of them were selected for work, all the others during the liquidation, the final liquidation of Roma camp were murdered in the gas chambers.

We discussed the living conditions for Polish and Jewish prisoners, and they were similar in the different parts of the camp. What about their position in the camp hierarchy, and the camp social structure, that is of course created by the SS. We know that SS-men could not be everywhere all the time, and they appointed functionaries in the camp system, so we have block masters, room masters, and other functionaries, with Kapos in work groups. So what are the similarities and differences between these two groups of prisoners in the system?

We must remember that the Poles, Jews, and actually most of the prisoners of other categories, they stayed together, they lived together in the same blocks, the same overcrowded barracks, rooms and so on. The living conditions were practically identical, as well as the work conditions, they had to work together in the same commandos, under the supervision of the same functionary prisoners, SS-men and the piece of their work must be identical. So, if there was a commando, which might have been composed of 200-300 prisoners, supervised by five, four or sometimes even more Kapos, so the piece of work of all prisoners, digging foundations of the building or the drainage ditch had to be identical. So, regardless of the position in the camp, nationality, the color of the triangle, the prisoners had to work the same way and they were beaten by the Kapos without making any difference among the Poles, Jews and the others. However, there were some characteristic features inside the hierarchy of the functionary prisoners, that might be an illustration of the attitude of SS guards toward the prisoners as such, because if we look at them, at this hierarchy of functionary prisoners we can clearly see that, well of course, most prominent positions in the camp were occupied by the Germans, that was clear for everybody. For example, the Blockältester, the block senior, that was usually German criminal prisoner, particularly in the first two to three years of the existence of Auschwitz, while on the same time that might be a Pole, who received the function of the room leader, the room senior or Stubendienst. Then, in the hierarchy of the Kapos, those functionary prisoners who supervised commandos during the work. All Oberkapos, those who supervised a number of commandos were Germans. Then, one step lower, we’ve got the Kapos, and in this category the Germans still were represented by the highest number of functionaries, however, we can find among the Kapos some Poles and some Jews, a little bit more Polish prisoners than Jews. Then, in the lower ranks in this hierarchy, Unterkapo and Vorarbeiter, the number of German prisoners was relatively low, because this post was probably not so attractive for the German prisoners than the other ones. In the case of the Polish prisoners, they constituted the majority, and there was a substantial number of Jewish prisoners in this category. So, again it is visible there, if we look at this in terms of statistics, that the Polish prisoners had more chances to be nominated for this post than the Jews. That was applied to Auschwitz and to Birkenau. We haven’t got, unfortunately, statistics for the sub-camps in which Jewish prisoners constituted majority among the prisoners. From the testimonies by survivors, we can assume that the number of Jews, the Kapos, was the highest in the terms of statistics. If we like to find the explanation why this happened, why the number of Polish prisoners was relatively higher than the Jews, so the answer is simple, I believe it resulted from Nazi prejudice and the practical adopting by SS-man racial hierarchy that existed in the Third Reich. So, the Poles were considered more valuable than Jews, perhaps there was also another factor, the fact that the Poles came to Auschwitz as the first ones, in 1940, 1941 or 1942 and those, at least who were lucky, survived this first, hardest period in Auschwitz, they were considered by others, including in some cases by the SS-men as veterans, as „low numbers”, and then they may have more friends in the offices of the Employment Division, therefore, more chances to occupy such positions than newly arriving Jews to Auschwitz. That was probably another important reason.

Auschwitz Kommandant Rudolf Höss in his memoirs, presents a picture that the SS can also control the camp by using different nationalities against each other, some kind of „command and conquer” view - we will have Jews and non-Jews, we will have different nationalities that may not like each other, but it seems that this is a little bit over-colored situation that he presents. The SS could control everything by themselves.

I don’t think that was necessary. If we take out of the statistics the number of German guards, that was not necessary for Rudolf Höss and his officers to control the camp in the way that they tried to bait some prisoners against the others. The SS had enough guards and weapons to control the camp anyway. I cannot see many such examples in the practical organization of the commandos in Auschwitz. Well, that was certain sub-camp or a piece of the camp in Monowitz, made for mostly Polish, so-called „re-education prisoners”, Erziehungshäftlinge, and the Lagerälteste, the head of the camp was always Jewish, I mean, there was three such prisoners, who occupied this post. But I cannot see any practical consequences of this fact. These Jews, they behaved well towards the prisoners from this sector of the camp, and were considered “good ones” among the Poles. Sometimes happened that, if there was a polish Kapo on a certain place, which was considered as good, “good commando”, under the roofs, a good-sitting job, for example. So, he tried to collect more Polish prisoners in this commando, than the others. That may have been a question of the same language, perhaps, he believes that he could trust more his compatriots, while in some other commandos, when the Kapo was Jewish, and these were the offices of the Politische Abteilung, the different forms of bureaucratic jobs, so in these commandos, we can see that they were almost entirely Jewish, most of the clerks were Jewish prisoners. That depends on many such factors, many such conditions, and I don’t think it resulted from the policy of the Kommendantur, the headquarters of the camp.

Discussing the deportees, Polish and Jewish, of course we very often use very general words. Poles were brought mainly from the occupied Polish territory, Jews were brought from all around occupied Europe. Can we try to break it into more details?

The category of Polish prisoners were, to certain extant, homogenous. I mean they were people who spoke the same language, who had a similar background, and in some cases they knew each other, particularly when they were brought from the same places, same cities in Poland. In case of Jewish prisoners, the situation was different. Of course, at the beginning, there were some Polish Jews among the deportees, however, later on, there were mass transports of Jews from different countries, in some cases, the Jewish prisoners may have some problems even to communicate with each other. If we gather, for instance, Jews from Germany and Jews from Greece.Jews from Greece. in most cases they spoke their own language, the Ladino, and very few of them knew German, and, of course no Polish, no Yiddish. So, there were some differences among the Jewish prisoners, those who, for example, arrived to Auschwitz from Western Europe, and those who were brought to the camp from the eastern part of Poland, particularly from Ciechanów, from Białystok, and other such places. So there are, to certain extent, clearly visible differences among Jewish prisoners, who may have not equally the same chances for survival. If it was the group, for example German Jews who arrived to Auschwitz in the spring of 1943, who were forced laborers in baffling armament industry. So, in most cases, they were skilled workers, they were valuable for the SS, they spoke German, they could understand the orders, in most cases were young and healthy. On average, in the case of Jews from Southern Europe, if we take an example of Jews from Greece, they didn’t understand German, there were many elderly people with children among them, they had obviously less chances for survival.

At some point, the SS starts transferring large groups of prisoners from the camp, and it also changes the situation regarding Jewish and non-Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz.

Well, it was already in fall of 1942, when for the first time, in the documents, we can see certain expressions by Heinrich Himmler, that Auschwitz should became a camp primarily for Jews and Poles must be moved to the other camps in Germany. This idea materialized for the first time in the spring of the next year, when large group of about 5,000 Polish skilled-workers was transferred from Auschwitz, or rather from Birkenau, to Buchenwald, Dachau and other camps in Germany. And in the course of time, this tendency was visible and in the fall of the year 1943, we’ve got another order, that all Polish prisoners who were arrested by the police in the occupied Polish territory, should be brought not to Auschwitz or Majdanek but to Groß-Rosen. The Jews from the other German concentration camps and, of course, from the new arrivals, new deportees should be sent to Auschwitz. So, this order had a practical impact on number of Polish and Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz in 1944, particularly when we can see that number of Polish transports, the transports of Polish prisoners in the spring of the year was relatively small, particularly if we compare it with the number of transports of Jews, who began to arrive from Hungary, particularly after the end of Warsaw uprising. Again, we can see that many transports of Polish and Russian prisoners were moved from Auschwitz, were sent from Auschwitz to other camps in Germany, and practically, in the end of the year, in the eve of the final evacuation of Auschwitz in January 1945, there were only a few Poles among the prisoners in Auschwitz. So, the victims of the evacuation, these were prisoners, who were mostly Jewish.

Are we able to say precisely, to a certain extent, the numbers of Polish and Jewish prisoners in the camp?

Well, in case of Polish prisoners, the situation is more or less clear. All Polish prisoners were officially registered in Auschwitz, there were no selections of Polish transports, so we know exactly how many Poles were in the transports that were brought to the camp from the central prisons in different districts of General Government or from the territories that were incorporated into the Reich. There might be some problems with specifying how many Poles were in so-called “collective transports” or among those prisoners who were transferred from one camp to the other. So, in some transports from Dachau, from Buchenwald, from Mauthausen and other camps to Auschwitz. Nevertheless, in the terms of statistics, yes, we can say that 140.000 Polish prisoners were brought to Auschwitz, including those, who were not registered, there was a certain category of so-called Polizeihäftlinge, “police prisoners” who were practically brought to Auschwitz to be executed. In most cases, they were murdered, they were shot under the Black Wall and number of transports of Polish hostages, again, who were brought to Auschwitz only to be killed. There is a number of testimonies, accounts of the witnesses, who would see these people being driven into Auschwitz, into the gas chambers. There was some testimonies of members of the Sonderkommando, who said that in some cases Polish prisoners were added to the transports of Jewish victims. However, the bulk of the Polish prisoners can’t be recognized among those, who were deported to Auschwitz and killed. In the case of Jewish prisoners, the situation varies, I must say. We have very detailed lists of Jews from the Western countries: from Belgium, from Holland, from France as well as from Germany, in most cases and from Theresienstadt Ghetto Jews from the Czech Republic. Similar lists and names and numbers of those Jews, who were brought to Auschwitz from Slovakia in the first waves of deportations in 1942. There are some gaps in our knowledge about Jews who arrived from Italy, from Yugoslavia, the biggest problem was estimating the number of Jews deported to Auschwitz from Hungary and from Poland. Well, we know more or less the numbers, there is problem with precise data, including the names of the victims.