The beginnings of Auschwitz

Transcript of the podcast

The Auschwitz camp was established by the SS in the occupied city of Oswiecim on the Polish territory annexed by the Third Reich at the beginning of World War II. I spoke to Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz, head of the Museum’s Research Center, about the details of the decision-making process which led to the creation of the camp and about its first prisoners.

When we look at the beginning of the functioning of Auschwitz, we look at the date of arrival of the first Poles, political prisoners from Tarnów from June 14, 1940. And therefore, the question is, “why the camp was established here?”

Well, most people believe that Auschwitz was established from the very beginning as a plan for mass annihilation of Jews. I mean, people who think that railway junctions were crucial in the process of selecting a place for the concentration camp, some other things that the location of Oswiecim or Auschwitz in the middle of Europe played its role. But actually, that’s not the point. The history of the decision-making process was long and originated in the fall, beginning of winter of 1939, when SS authorities in Silesia came to the conclusion that the existing prisons, jails in the province were overcrowded and there is a need to do something with them because the others, hundreds of thousands of Polish patriots who were being arrested at this time, they’re waiting to be deported to the other camps. And these camps, in the Old Reich, the old Germany, the borders before 1939, Dachau, Sachsenhausen, others, were partly overcrowded and we must remember that Dachau concentration camp had been closed, temporarily, because SS need space and the training center for newly established SS front units. Therefore, the Poles who had been arrested by the German police in Silesia had to wait, nobody knows when these camps in Germany open again, for accommodation of these people. That was in the December of 1939 when Richard Glücks was Inspector of the Nazi concentration camps, raised an idea to establish somewhere in occupied Polish territory large camp for prisoners. Then, was in January 1940, Heinrich Himmler decided that there is a need to establish a state-run concentration camp somewhere in Germany and some places were initially selected for this purpose. One of them were military barracks on the outskirts of Oswiecim, the reason why this place was chosen seems to be simple. Because they were here, the process of transformation of these buildings into the concentration camp will be cheap and quick and these plans were associated somehow with the ideas raised in Breslau, or Wrocław, in the office of the higher SS police leader von dem Bach Zelewski, who believed that the Auschwitz would be suitable for this purpose. For setting up a camp subordinated to the structures of the inspectorative concentration camps, namely that was to be a regular SS concentration camp, but it served for a particular role: to be sort of a quarantine camp in which prisoners from Silesia were to wait for deportation to old concentration camps in Germany. Now this was an idea that originated in beginning of January 1940, these plans were initially accepted but the scale of Auschwitz in these plans was submitted to 10,000 inmates. More or less the same time Richard Glücks found another solution. Completely new, large camp which was to be situated in the village of Sztutowo or Stutthof near Gdańsk on the coast of the Baltic Sea. He believed that this site is favorable for many reasons. First of all, because the local police had already organized there a camp for Poles from Pomerania. Secondly, there was a large, brick structure in the village which could be easily transformed into the headquarters of the SS. The third point that this site was isolated from the rest of the country, it was in the middle of the forest. The only problem was with the communication because Glücks believed the prisoners should be delivered to Gdańsk at the beginning, then transported by buses to the bunk of the Vistula River and from Vistula to the village of Sztutowo by narrow gauge tracks. So, it seemed to be a bit complicated. Nevertheless, he was very enthusiastic, and he found the support from other leading SS officers including Heydrich and Oswald Pohl. But, as far as we can observe in the next weeks, Glücks was not treated very seriously on this proposal by Heinrich Himmler, most probably because these problems with communication, with transportation of prisoners to Sztutowo. We don’t know exactly when it happened, but most probably at the end of March 1940, decision was taken to develop a new plan for Auschwitz to establish this camp, perhaps not larger, but to place it in the structure of concentration camps in Germany, the same level as older concentration camps and to make there regular Nazi concentration camp. So, the beginning of April and late March 1940, we have first documents in which the name of Auschwitz had been mentioned as a concentration camp. Then there was a problem with some legal issues. Because, from the former point of view, the area of Auschwitz and the Polish military base belonged to the Wehrmacht, to the German army. A solution was found in this way that the barracks should be hired by the Wehrmacht for the needs of the concentration camp in the period of a year only at the beginning. So, as we may see the scope of construction works should be limited because legal status of Auschwitz had been settled and SS could not be sure that this place belonged to the SS organization in the future. Nevertheless, was the beginning of April some construction works was initiated. Then in the middle of the month, the formal agreement was reached between the SS and Wehrmacht. Wehrmacht agreed to hire the site of Auschwitz barracks from the SS and more or less at the same time the SS received first branch of two million of Reichsmarks for the needs of the necessary construction works in Auschwitz. So, that was the beginning, the initial point of the history of Auschwitz where all the legal issues were solved and the SS officers who were responsible for construction works within the structure of this organization begin initial works and planning of Auschwitz.

Two million Reichsmarks seems to be a large number, but it isn’t something spectacular when we talk about construction of such a site.

The problem was that the SS raised this idea in the middle of the budgetary year. It was possible to a certain extent to cover financial needs of the new investments of Auschwitz, two million Reichsmarks was not much, the more—the serious problem was to achieve the construction materials. Bricks, cement, and barbed wire which was crucial for the needs of the concentration camps because buildings, the wooden and brick barracks were still here. That constitute the core of the concentration camp for the future. The twenty brick buildings, the former Polish military base as well as over twenty wooden barracks that were used before the war. The stables, storehouses, and temporary shelters for Polish immigrants from Czechoslovakia. So, these buildings could be taken over by the SS immediately. The only problem was the lack of barbed wire which was of course necessary to build a fence around the camp. We can see that this problem became crucial from the very beginning when dealing with the first visit of the newly nominated commander of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, his two other officers in Auschwitz was 17/18 of April 1940. They discussed about the necessary construction works, one of the officers, Zeidler, proposed to build a long fence. A long fence around all these wooden and brick barracks to accommodate 10,000 people. The problem was that the barbed wire was not available but in one hand, on the other such a long fence, over two kilometers could be a problem for the SS. First of all because of lack of guards. We can see that probably within the next couple of weeks these initial plans changed in order to simplify the construction of the camp and to shorten the length of the fence.

Can we trace a decision-making process? Because we are talking at first about Auschwitz as a quarantine camp and the numbers given are 10,000 prisoners and then these prisoners are going to be transferred to other concentration camps and we reach to the decision that Auschwitz is a concentration camp and the number suddenly skyrockets to 30,000 prisoners. So, can we trace in sources the decision-making process why such a decision was made?

Existing documents, existing sources, we may see in April or May, the number of times when the name of concentration camp Auschwitz was used in correspondence between various agencies of the SS. But it is difficult to say if Auschwitz was considered by the leading offices of the Himmler or himself, as a concentration camp inside the structures of all concentration camps in Germany as a quarantine camp for them. Or, something happened, a certain new decision was taken more or less in late April, beginning of May, to transform the sort of quarantine camp into a regular German concentration camp. I would rather say that around 20-23rd of April such decision could be taken because von dem Bach proposed to send to Germany all criminal prisoners from the jails in the Silesian province but to leave the political prisoners in this prisons, most probably they would wait there for the transfer to the Auschwitz concentration camp. So, perhaps there is a certain argument that more or less at this time, Auschwitz began to be considered a regular concentration camp and this function, this initial function for the quarantine had been abandoned at this time.

What about the number: 10,000 to 30,000?

Well, the number is still 10,000. But in the end of April, the head of SS, Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, he visited Warsaw and he said to one of his conferences, that those necessary to initiate the new waves of mass arrest of Polish intelligentsia, Polish elites, some of them would be executed on the spot, while the others transported to concentration camps. He believed at this moment in time that about 20,000 Polish intellectuals should be sent to the concentration camp. Two weeks later, we may see in the correspondence of the Gestapo authorities of the 1930s that for the first time they mentioned Auschwitz as a large concentration camp with a plan of capacity of about 30,000 people. So, something happened in the meantime. And most probably these 20,000 Poles from the General Government from the central part of occupied Poland, were added to the number of 10,000 Polish political prisoners from the Silesian province. This way the number of 30,000 people planned for Auschwitz was reached and the formal order was issued by Richard Glücks on the first of June 1940, when he explained that the new camp in Auschwitz should be considered in this capacity as to be 30,000 prisoners. He also said that barracks should be built there for six central companies and so on and so on. Interestingly enough, this plan capacity of Auschwitz was much higher than capacity of any other concentration camp in Germany including Dachau, Sachsenhausen, and others. So, from the very beginning Auschwitz was planned as the largest camp and the function was concentrated on the question of combatting the threat of Polish resistance.

Before the first Poles arrive at Auschwitz on June 14, the SS brought on 20th May 1940, 30 criminal prisoners from Sachsenhausen, which seems to be a typical procedure in creating a functionality of a concentration camp. And then on June 14 we have those 728 Poles. How those days looked like and where the first prisons were finally chosen by the SS to start the operation of the camp?

I personally believe that the SS expected to open the Auschwitz concentration camp more or less around the 20th of May 1940. Shortly after the arrival of the 30 German criminal prisoners who were selected in Sachsenhausen to be the kapos, block seniors and as a functionary prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp it was a typical arrival procedure in setting up most of the German concentration camps. This including the parts of Auschwitz for example, Monowitz, the first group of German criminal prisoners and German kapos were sent to the newly open camp in order to prepare themselves for the arrival of the regular political prisoners. There is one argument that these 30 German criminals arrived to Auschwitz on the 20th of May and they did literally nothing for the next couple of weeks. On the other hand, we may see that action of arresting the Polish prisoners was in progress, was initiated in the end of April. Many Polish patriots were arrested, particularly in eastern part of Little Poland, Małopolska. These were the jails in Zakopane, in Jasło, in Sanok, in Rzeszów, many such places and after a couple of days or weeks, these people were being transferred to the central German prison in Tarnów. We may observe the progress of transportation of people from these local jails to Tarnów, in the first half of May 1940, and this action ended up around 23rd of May and nothing happened. These people spent next three weeks in the jail waiting for something. And we don’t know actually what happened, when they were not transferred to Auschwitz, where these criminals, the kapos were waiting and when the SS central company is already been established. So, what happened, why the arrival of these political prisoners did not happen in the end of May. So, I believe that was because lack of construction material, lack of barbed wire. It was only on June 9th when the first time, Rudolf Höss received a letter in which the Wehrmacht army promised him a certain amount of barbed wire from camps for Polish POWs that had already been liquidated so that was only the moment in time when at least as Gauleiter, head of construction office, and workers from the German construction company could begin the work in Auschwitz and to build the fence.

You asked about the first deputies, who they were. Well, we can see this simply on the basis of the testimonies of the survivors on the one hand, on the other if you like to analyze surviving German documents you can easily find out that there were many young people among them, among the first deputies. Secondary school students who were arrested couple of days before the third of May which was a Polish national holiday before the war. So, most probably Germans did it because they believed that these young boys could take part in certain form of patriotic manifestations. Second group, which constitute mostly in larger cities in eastern Małopolska, they were the members of the local elites: teachers, lawyers, those people who were to be the main target of the AB-Aktion against the Polish intelligence. So, they were Poles as well as some Jews were brought to Auschwitz, mostly from Tarnów. And the third large group, these were so-called tourists, the young people who wished to join the Polish army in France which was organized by the General Sikorski in France, and they wished to get there through Slovakia, Hungary, and the Yugoslavia to fight against Germans in France. How we know it? Because most of these people did not live in Małopolska before they were arrested. They were born and lived in Warsaw, in Łódz, in many places in central Poland rather. So, the question is why those suddenly arrested in Małopolska, very close to the border with Slovakia? So, because they were touched by Germans or the Slovak gendarmes on the border then sent to Zakopane to local jail, from Zakopane to Tarnów and finally they ended up in Auschwitz. So, these three groups constitute the majority of prisoners from the first transport to Auschwitz.

And when we talk about their first days in the camp, this is a slightly different experience than many of the transports that arrived days and weeks later because they actually arrive not to a ready camp, I mean ready in terms of the functionality and the space that we know of, because the camp actually isn’t ready when they arrive on June 14, 1940. Everything with these transports was the first one. There were many people in the transport who believed, in Tarnów jail, that they probably will be sent to performance like labor or something in Germany. Nobody heard about Auschwitz. Interestingly enough there were two people among the deportees who were born in Oswiecim. So perhaps they knew more or less where they are going when they are passing by various stations on the way to Oswiecim.

And thanks to the surviving schedule, we know exactly what time they arrived?

Yes, we can precisely say when the first group of political prisoners arrived to Auschwitz. It was ten past three p.m. on the fourteenth of June when they arrived to Auschwitz, but they were not taken to the regular blocks of the concentration camps because they were still on the construction. So, the temporary solutions the SS used large building of a former Polish Tobacco Monopoly, situated very close the barracks of the concentration camp, and they spent their, the next almost three weeks in these buildings. Of course, they were registered there. But they did nothing except from the so-called sport or physical exercises. That was the way how the SS wish to broke the morale of the prisoners and to prepare them to react immediately on all possible orders that they might have received from the SS. So, that was very traumatic, very hard experience for prisoners. Most of them were simply shocked observing the German brutality. Constantly beating, the attitude of SS soldiers, particularly towards those people who were old, who could not simply cope with such long and exhaustive series of these exercises. They could also see how the SS used to treat the people priests or who by making the certain gestures pray to the God. So that met with immediate reaction from the SS men or the kapos. And very brutal of course. And they could also see the first killings. We don’t know exactly who was the first victim of Auschwitz. Mostly probably that was an old Jewish prisoner who was brought to Auschwitz in the first transport and died after perhaps two or three days after arrival. Then everything was the first in Auschwitz with these people and they were the first ones who had the chance to learn what the Auschwitz is and is to be in the future.

On the other hand, some of them at least had a slightly better chance for survival. Ironically, the other prisoners who came to Auschwitz after the first transport, in the next weeks or months, they were mostly immediately put to work. Heavy, manual work by construction of the barracks, leveling the ground, construction of the fence and so on. But these few of this prisoners from the first transport they had the chance to take certain, better posts, or the works of better commandos. For instance, some of them were sent to newly established hospital to be nurses, some others had to be clerks, to register the other prisoners, so few of them had the chance to survive the entire period of existence of Auschwitz. They were from the very beginning till the very end. But those who were old, who could not understand German orders, who not speak German, they usually were directed to the hardest kind of labor, and they were dying gradually within the next couple of months.

I think when we try to get to some kind of conclusion when we look at those first weeks of the camp but also everything that proceeded the formation of Auschwitz, it’s somehow goes against the myth that many people believe, because they look how Auschwitz developed later, that everything was made according to some kind of a plan and very strict schedule and there was already an idea of what Auschwitz would be. When in fact when we look at this, it’s the story of chaos. And very different set of thinking when we look at the SS decision making that finally formed something and then the development of Auschwitz is another story of finding solutions to different problems and different policies that happened to push the story of Auschwitz into different directions.

Exactly, when we are looking at the decision-making process, lack of consequence in these decisions. Perhaps from the very beginning idea to build a new large camp in Stutthof and suddenly somebody, perhaps Heinrich Himmler, took another decision, “no, the Sztutowo cannot be taken into account for the future. Auschwitz seems to be more suitable place for a large camp.” Two months later, Glucks is sending a letter to Himmler that, “sorry, Reichsführer, I was wrong. After the careful rethinking of all these arguments I believe that now Stutthof is not necessary. I think that Auschwitz will meet all of our requirements for the future.” Then, when the SS finally take this decision that was the problem how to put it into the practice, because as I said it was lack of construction materials and I don’t believe that SS Auschwitz garrison was the favorite for the managers of the SS who in the fall of the year, finally decided to send Auschwitz the first shipments of bricks. Some of them from Germany, some others from France. So that was practically the moment when Rudolf Höss could begin the serious construction of new barracks or the second stories of the existing ones to rebuild in Auschwitz. So, I believe that was because first of all, many people who were involved in this process of planning of Auschwitz, they were not trained bureaucrats, they were officers of the SS who had no experience with the paperwork. Secondly, Auschwitz, until the beginning of 1941, there was not treated by the German planners as important one. Something that should have a priority over other concentration camps. So that was the reason why if somebody in Poland have heard about Auschwitz in 1940, he probably would think that Auschwitz, it was just another German concentration camp. Perhaps Dachau and others are more horrible. The situation dramatically changed with the new decisions which were taken in the spring of 1941, that led to the Auschwitz in its form that was in 1943, 44.

And I’m sure this is something we also will be able to discuss later when we talk about those key moments in shaping and developing Auschwitz. Thank you very much.
Thank you.