The SS Hygiene Institute

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In the archives of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, partial documents have been preserved from an institution called the Hygiene Institut der Waffen-SS. What kind of institution was this, and how do we know about it?

In scholarly works and articles published almost immediately after the end of the war - particularly those concerning the history of the Auschwitz camp - the name of the Hygiene Institut was mentioned by survivors. Among these articles, we can note those published in the journal Przegląd Lekarski – the Medical Review, issued mainly by physicians who were survivors and devoted to medical topics. In 1969, Stanisław Kłodziński wrote an article specifically about the events that took place in this Institute, and a few years later Mieczysław Kieta, also a survivor who had worked in the Hygiene Institute labor group, wrote an extensive article on the same subject. In addition, the memoirs of survivors published over many years also provide information about the activities of this institution. For example, we can mention Leon Landau’s memoirs published in 1963 and Louis Michaelis’s memoirs published in 1989 - both of whom had also been employed in this work detail. The literature devoted to the history of Auschwitz, which continues to appear, further illuminates the experiences of survivors. For instance, in 2025, a book by Maria Ciesielska and Anna Wacławik titled Fleck Saved by Science was published, devoted entirely to the prisoner Ludwik Fleck, who was also a member of this labor group. We know about the Hygiene Institute from this literature, but also because our archivists and historians, throughout their entire careers, have made extensive use of documents from the Hygiene Institut collection. It is known that an enormous portion of Auschwitz’s camp documentation - over 90 percent - was destroyed. However, in the case of the Hygiene Institut, individual orders, occasional name lists, and other materials have survived. In many cases, these were the only preserved records confirming a prisoner’s presence in the camp. For that reason, in correspondence sent to the Museum over many decades by families of survivors - or by the survivors themselves - there are frequent mentions that the Hygiene Institut is the sole source of documentation about a prisoner’s time in the camp. This, of course, raises a question: does the existence of such documents, recording laboratory tests or research concerning prisoners, suggest that the camp cared about the lives or health of the inmates? Nothing could be further from the truth. It turns out that the Hygiene Institute was part of something much larger, and the fact that so many prisoners were held in the camp provided opportunities for various types of experimentation and research.

So what kind of institution was this? What was the Hygiene Institut, and where and when was it established?

The Hygiene Institut der Waffen-SS und Polizei Auschwitz Oberschlesien was established in February 1943 as a branch of the Main Hygiene Office of the SS, which in turn was subordinate to the SS Main Sanitary Office in Berlin. The purpose of this institution was to conduct research aimed at preventing the spread of infectious diseases among SS units. The head of this central Berlin institution was SS-Oberführer Joachim Mrugowski, who held the title Der Oberster Hygieniker der Waffen-SS. This main institute oversaw field laboratories of SS units dealing with hygiene issues, down to the level of individual SS divisions. In addition, there were laboratories for special purposes - and one of these was the laboratory established at the Auschwitz concentration camp. The creation of this facility in the camp was connected with the expansion of the camp and the fact that the microclimate of the valley favored the spread of various diseases. As a result, the SS units stationed there were exposed to infection, especially since such diseases did indeed break out within the camp. At the beginning of the Institute it was located in Block 10 of the main Auschwitz camp. As one of the first prisoners employed in the Institute, Mieczysław Kieta, recalled, at the end of 1942 the block underwent partial reconstruction. However, this was not done for the Institute’s needs, but in connection with the start of sterilization experiments conducted by German doctors Carl Clauberg and Horst Schumann. Several rooms on the ground floor of this building were allocated to the Institute’s staff. Additionally, in Block 20 - which was a hospital block - a separate room was prepared for prisoners who were members of this labor detachment. The opening of these laboratories, at least in part, is dated to April 1943.

Who were the leaders of this Institute in Auschwitz, and to whom was the unit subordinate?

At the head of the Hygiene Institute branch in Auschwitz stood an SS officer and physician, Obersturmführer Bruno Weber. His deputy was also an SS officer and physician, Untersturmführer Hans Münch. At certain times, another SS doctor, Obersturmführer Hans Delmotte, also served as deputy. Under them operated the Institute’s general office and accounting department. The leadership of the facility and all SS personnel assigned to it were subordinate to the commander of the SS garrison - that is, the camp commandant - as well as to the chief physician of the Auschwitz camp. Thus, they had many additional duties, including responsibilities related to conducting selections on the unloading ramp. They also performed other medical tasks, though often with criminal purposes, in the camp hospital. The Institute was also assigned a motor pool with drivers. As for the SS men who belonged to this group, they generally had only basic or vocational education - one was a confectioner, another a painter. Some had undergone brief sanitary training before being transferred to Auschwitz, and only on that basis did they draw blood or perform other medical tasks. In general, however, their professions and education had nothing to do with medicine.

What were the Institute’s tasks? What did it actually do?

The main material examined in the Institute consisted of various secretions and blood samples. These were taken from prisoners, SS personnel from the camp garrison and their families, as well as from other soldiers - for example, members of the German army stationed near Auschwitz. Looking more closely at the Institute’s specific duties within the camp, we can distinguish the following main areas of activity: it provided laboratory services for SS and police hospitals within its operational area. In the case of Auschwitz, this was quite a large territory - extending from Poznań to Prague in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and eastward as far as Kyiv. It served the entire Auschwitz complex, particularly through mass testing of blood, urine, and feces in connection with research on malaria, typhoid fever, and other infectious diseases. Another area involved tests connected with civilian workers assigned to labor, for example in Monowice. Further, the Institute carried out specialized analyses related to food, water, and chemical preparations, as well as the study of diseases in humans and animals. It also cooperated with doctors conducting various experiments in the Auschwitz camp. Another important area included research into the effectiveness of medicines, simplified methods of blood group determination, and the efficacy of chemical preparations. The Institute also conducted extensive studies on noma, a gangrenous disease that appeared on a large scale in the camp for Sinti and Roma prisoners. However, it must be remembered that in collecting blood and performing other laboratory analyses from prisoners, the Hygiene Institute was not guided by any concern for the health of the prisoners or for the conditions in the camp. Rather, there was a need to obtain a relatively large number of research samples to create statistical documentation that SS personnel could then present to their superiors in Berlin. An example of such extremely peculiar - and indeed criminal - research methods was the use of broth made from human flesh, brought from the crematoria in Auschwitz, as a culture medium for growing microorganisms.

Who worked in the Hygiene Institut?

As Mieczysław Kieta recalled, the first prisoners assigned to work in the Institute were inmates who had already spent some time in the camp, arrested under various circumstances and for different reasons. Kieta mentioned Jan Reyman from Cracow, Janusz Mąkowski, a histopathologist from Poznań, Professor Antoni Jakubowski, head of the Department of Hydrobiology at the University of Poznań, Professor Wacław Tomaszek from Brno, a bacteriologist, and Jakub Lewin from Paris, a serologist from the Pasteur Institute. He also mentioned Nikole Korn from Slovakia, Dawid Freyman, and Paul Reichel. In February 1943, a special group of prisoners was brought to Auschwitz from Lviv. They were employees of Rudolf Weigl’s Institute - a well-known research institute working on a typhus vaccine. Among them were Jewish prisoners who had worked at that institute and were now deported to Auschwitz. This group included Ludwik Fleck, Bernard Umschweif, Jakub Seemann, Owsiej Abramowicz, and their wives - Ernestyna Fleck, Natalia Umschweif, and Anna Seemann - as well as their teenage children: Ryszard Fleck, Bruno Seemann, and Karol Umschweif. All of them were placed in the camp and issued prisoner numbers, which was very unusual, especially in the case of children. Initially, the men were sent to the Auschwitz main camp, while the women and children were placed in Birkenau. Their living conditions - especially in terms of hygiene and sanitation - were no better than those of the other prisoners. They endured the same heavy labor and hardships. Only later, when the Institute began its activities in Block 10, were they transferred: the men were housed in Block 20, while the women were quartered in Block 10, in a room designated for nurses. Before being assigned to the Institute, some of these prisoners - including Ludwik Fleck - had fallen ill with typhus, having contracted it in the camp during the widespread epidemic. It turned out that the vaccine Fleck had received earlier in Lwów worked effectively, and he suffered only a mild course of the disease. He also experienced the brutal reality of camp life firsthand - in particular, the cruelty of prisoner functionaries. One of them beat him severely, breaking his ribs, and in this serious condition he was taken to the camp hospital. There, thanks to the help of fellow prisoner-doctors - Polish physicians Dr. Fejkel and Ławkowicz - his health improved sufficiently for him to be transferred to Block 10, where he began his work. This group started working in the serological laboratory. However, not all members of the group from Lviv had laboratory training, so Jakub Seemann and Abramowicz were assigned to maintain cleanliness in the laboratory, washing test tubes, while the others performed research work. By that time, the laboratories were well equipped with the instruments needed to conduct experiments. The histopathological laboratory also began its operations, under the direction of Professor Janina Kowalczykowa, an anatomopathologist.

We are talking about block 10, where at that time women prisoners were held and used in experiments by other German doctor as well, such as Carl Clauberg and Horst Schumann…

Yes, it turns out that German Doctors from the Hygiene Institute used the fact that so many women prisoners were there. Women’s blood was taken in large quantities to be examined in the serological laboratory and, as Hans Münch claimed, that blood was meant to replenish reserves needed for the production of serum required by the army. As the prisoners explained, it was believed that by injecting a certain amount of blood from different blood groups, it would be possible to increase the natural titer, just as happens with all active immunizations in infectious diseases. For this purpose, prisoners had small amounts of blood taken. The large extractions were used for other purposes, namely, to replenish those serum reserves. That method was developed by Dr. Lewin’s team, although, as one might expect, Bruno Weber took advantage of it and claimed the success as his own.

What did the new headquarters of the Institute look like after its relocation to Rajsko? Why was the Institute moved, and what kind of research was conducted by its various departments?

The Hygiene Institute was located in Block 10 only temporarily, as at the same time, SS men from the camp office, from the Bauleitung, were looking for a suitable building in Rajsko or in the surrounding villages. They eventually found one in a nearby town, outside of The Zone of Interest. It was a private, brick-built, two-story house whose owner, Tomasz Kamiński, was displaced. Since he had planned to expand the house, construction materials had already been gathered, and these were later used to complete and extend the building. As Mieczysław Kieta recalls: “in the first weeks of May 1943, we were transferred to Rajsko. When we arrived, the final finishing works were still in progress – the electricians’ commando was working by the hydro-pump in the basement of the building, the carpenters were finishing the woodwork in the building intended for Weber’s apartment and the SS office, and the bricklayers were completing the construction of the stoves that were to heat the autoclaves. But all rooms were more or less furnished, and in their arrangement they resembled well-equipped laboratories of a large scientific institute. End of the quote.

The prisoners began preparing the equipment. Mieczysław Kieta, together with Dawid Freyman and Nikolas Korn, prepared lists including flasks, test tubes, bottles, chemicals, and various kinds of laboratory instruments. Freyman handled the technical and office matters, while Korn explained the purpose and names of specific items and instruments. The gathered equipment consisted of products made by well-known European firms such as Bergman, Altman, as well as Merck, Schering, Bayer, and also the French company Jouan from Paris. Its labels could be seen on many instruments. The Hygiene Institut also had quite a large library. There were books in various languages, and on many of them there were seals of the Medical Faculty of the Jagiellonian University, which proved that they had been stolen from those institutions. The grounds of the Institute were surrounded by barbed wire and it resembled a triangle. In addition to the buildings, there were also watchtowers, on which SS men stood guard. The prisoners who worked at the Institute were accommodated in the camp, so they were escorted to work every day. For this reason, it was necessary to assign some SS men to that duty. One of the buildings was used as an office. It contained offices, a safe, and various kinds of documents. There were also apartments in the building. The head of the Institute, Weber, lived in one of them, while his deputy, Hans Münch, lived on the ground floor in another. The kapo of this Commando changed several times, and the first one was Paul Reichel. The core of the whole facility consisted of eight laboratories, located in the largest building. These were bacteriological, chemical, biological, histological, and three serological laboratories. There was also the Wassermann reaction laboratory, the laboratory in block number 20, as well as a section for the production of bacterial media and a climatological station. This diversity resulted from the research profile conducted there. Each department and laboratory kept separate documentation, which was recorded in the main registers. In addition, there were auxiliary units, including a washing room and a room for sterilizing all materials. There was also a gardening station and an animal station, where animals were used in various ways for experiments. Moreover, there were garages, warehouses, and a commando of cleaners, tailors, and carpenters. One of the larger laboratories was the bacteriological laboratory, headed by Professor Wacław Tomaszek. It contained incubators, dryers, refrigerators, centrifuges, microscopes, and shelves with reagents, dyes, and laboratory glassware. On the ground floor, there were also two rooms, where, among others, Professor Antoni Jakubski worked. He managed the entomological station and carried out biological research on water. A very surprising thing for the prisoners was the so-called “nutrient kitchen.” There, culture media for bacterial growth were prepared for the bacteriological laboratory. Most often, various yeast extracts were used, as well as meat extracts. Under normal laboratory conditions, animal meat would be used – but in Auschwitz, it was different. The meat was brought from the Auschwitz camp and taken from the victims of executions in block 11 or from those shot in Crematorium I. Most often it came from the thigh and abdominal muscles of executed women. It was brought in almost every week. One of the SS men covered the distance by motorcycle with a small trailer. The meat, with skin removed, was always loaded into several enamel buckets. The prisoners eventually became suspicious about this meat. They conducted some research on their own, and it turned out that it was not animal meat but human flesh. Unfortunately, it happened that hungry prisoners, who were unaware of the meat’s origin, ate it. After this discovery, the SS men wrote on the glass containers with a colored chalk “Menschbouillon” – meaning “human meat broth.” Another very shocking and well-remembered view for the prisoners, which could be seen in the histopathology laboratory, was the heads of Roma children whose faces had been infected with noma – water cancer. As Professor Tomaszek recalled, at first the children were brought there, and their heads were then cut off and processed. Later, however, the SS men from the Birkenau camp were bringing only the heads. Professor Tomaszek remembered that horrifying sight of the children’s open eyes, staring through the layer of formalin and glass at the prisoners moving around the room. Apart from the laboratories connected with various kinds of research, in the same building there was also a sewing workshop, where two polish Jews, the Kujawski brothers, were employed in repairing the uniforms of the SS men as well as the clothing of the prisoners working in the laboratories. In another building, there was a serological laboratory where experiments were carried out on blood groups and on obtaining dry globulin for quick blood type identification – this was precisely the scientific achievement of Dr. Lewin and his team. There was also a technical building filled with equipment, laboratory glassware, chemical reagents, and a storeroom for garden tools. The complex also included a carpentry and car workshop, a small climatological station, and an animal breeding facility where guinea pigs, rabbits, and rams. Overall, it was a rather extensive complex – not just the main laboratory buildings, but also a number of smaller ones added later, added to meet the growing needs of the Institute

As for the prisoners working at the Institute of Hygiene, they were different from the rest of the Auschwitz inmates?

Prisoners assigned to this Commando had the status of special prisoners. On the left sleeve of their striped uniforms, they wore a black patch with the letters HKB painted or embroidered on it, Häftlingskrankenbau – meaning “prisoners’ hospital.” The kapos and vorarbeiters wore yellow armbands on their left sleeves with the handwritten words Laboratorium Rajsko. The official name of the Commando changed several times and finally became Hygienische und Bakteriologische Untersuchungsstelle der Waffen und Polizei Südost Auschwitz-Oberschlesien. One interesting feature of this group was the language they used. The scientists assigned there came from different countries, they were: Poles, Hungarians, Frenchmen, Czechs, and, in the final months, more Hungarians. For that reason, French was chosen as their common language. Indeed, they spoke French among themselves, which led to many punishments. They were deprived of extra food rations and even beaten. At one point, the Germans put up a sign on the wall saying: “Hier wird nur Deutsch gesprochen” – meaning “Only German may be spoken here.” But the prisoners ignored it and continued to use French. Another unusual privilege was that two of the prisoners, namely: Ludwik Fleck and Jakub Seemann were allowed to wear watches. This was said to be “for work purposes,” such as measuring time during experiments or while sterilizing instruments in the autoclaves.

What did the prisoners’ work look like? What was a day like for a prisoner in the Hygiene Institut?

We know about it mainly from the memoirs published by survivors. Luis Israel Michaelis was brought to Auschwitz in April 1943. He was a young Dutch doctor, a Jew from Amsterdam. At first, he was assigned to work details connected with the expansion of the camp, a very hard and exhausting period, and he tried to find a way to be transferred to another commando. At that time, he met another Dutchman, a chemist, who helped him get accepted into this group. As a test of his skills, Michaelis was asked to draw scientific charts. In the following months, he was involved in more advanced work. He described his workplace in the following way: “My room was large, neat, and clean. It was upstairs, at the back. Big windows looked out over the fields. All the glassware and dishes were kept in a locked cupboard. The cabinets were black and spotless, as was the red floor. My colleague was a young Czechoslovak who had already been working there for six months and could teach me most of the routine tasks. The group of working prisoners was very cosmopolitan – a mixture of Jews and non-Jews from Poland, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, the Netherlands, and France – about thirty or forty people in total. Most of us had an academic education, and I felt we had much in common.” However, even work in this commando did not protect the prisoners from hunger. Food rations were small and insufficient, and the possibility of obtaining additional food, just as prisoners leaving the camp could sometimes get something, more often from the local population, was practically impossible at that moment. Therefore, the prisoners tried all possible methods, and so in the summer season, when they were going from the camp to their place of work in Rajsko, they passed by farms and simply picked vegetables such as onions, garlic, tomatoes and corn grains, then they roasted the corn grains and ground them into flour. Another method, which is unofficial and somewhat humorous, is the case involving the dog of one of the SS men. It was a German Shepherd for whom the SS man had dry food, which the prisoners called cookies. He kept these cookies in a drawer. Pretty soon the prisoners realized where they were kept and they stole the cookies from him and ate them themselves. As they recall, they tried to take every opportunity to preserve their strength and stay in good health. For example, prisoners' shoes proved to be a problem. During the marches they wore out very quickly. The possibility of replacing it with a new one was not so easy. The prisoners must have arranged it somehow. Another prisoner, Leon Landau, mentions very absurd ideas of the SS men. So one day Bruno Weber brought the prisoners a three-day-old dead rabbit and ordered the prisoners to determine the cause of the animal's death and write a comprehensive report about it. The prisoners, of course, carried out this order. Another even more absurd event was an injured magpie that Weber brought because he liked to shoot any birds that came by. He ordered the prisoners to do everything they could to keep the bird alive. The prisoners actually took care of the bird, and it was necessary to cut off the injured wing, but after some time the magpie's condition improved. They then reported this to Weber. He said he didn’t care anymore, you could kill the bird. Prisoners also mention other SS men. When speaking about Dr. Münch, they point out that many of his studies were completely senseless and pointless. For example, he wanted to obtain some information on the induction of fever. The method he used involves drilling into the grey matter of the rabbits' brains in order to induce a fever. When the fever could not be induced, the rabbits were simply thrown away. And for the prisoners, these rabbits that died in this way could simply be food. That's what happened. Moreover, they also shared this rabbit meat with the prisoners who were in the nearby botanical laboratory. They were political prisoners, and also French prisoners.

What can we say about the medical value of the research conducted there?

For the prisoners themselves, and they were scientists, they were academics, participating in such research was a very big dilemma. But they had previous camp experience. They were in commandos that transported building materials. They saw a huge mortality rate in the camp. Many of them underwent selection immediately upon arrival. Therefore, for them it was also an element of the fight for survival. Some even had family members in the camp. And they realized that such a huge amount of conducted research may not always have any scientific value here. Nevertheless, they tried to find some purpose for themselves in all this. And for example, Ludwik Fleck knew that he would not conduct research on a typhus vaccine. Therefore, he himself began to conduct research on the phenomenon that helped to reliably and relatively easily detect asymptomatic infections. These are studies that also required a certain number of trials and methods used in precisely such laboratory conditions. Professor Tomaszek noted that the prisoners were aware that such a large number of infectious diseases could be dangerous for the prisoners who were sent for tests. And although they tried to avoid positive statements in some way, they could not entirely do so, because it was also dangerous for the entire camp. A very important element, which also demonstrates the demoralized nature of research, was the financial achievements that the Institute enjoyed. Samples were sent to the camp from such distant locations, and each time the test was performed, 15 Reichsmarks were charged. Therefore, it was income for the Institute, and for this reason, both Weber and other SS men tried to maintain these contracts and contacts. These moral dilemmas did not leave doctors, even when they submitted their reports or published their memoirs after the war. But this is a topic typical of many representatives of the medical community who were prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp. These were the incredible choices they had to make. How to save a human life, and in what situations this life really could not be saved, even though they tried, even though their conscience, their entire attitude as a doctor, rebelled against such treatment of others. And in fact, they remain to this day a great challenge for the medical community and also a lesson for doctors, whatever their situation, about what human life is, what research is, what striving to improve conditions, the well-being of others is, and how it can be manipulated, how it can be exploited.

Let us also mention a rather special object that is currently located in the collections of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum: glass plates with samples.

This is a very unique collection that is still a mystery to us. In the boxes, very professional ones, used to store the preparations, there are inscriptions on them: Institute of Hygiene and KL Auschwitz II and the dates: July 18, 1942, July 17, 1942, block 10. Well, we could suspect that this refers to block 10 in the main camp, but at that time the Institute of Hygiene was not operating there, it was founded much later. So it is likely that this large collection of over 200 glass plates with prepared preparations for microscopic examination could have been taken from other prisoners and for some reason sent to Berlin for analysis. We know little about this subject and certainly research on the topic of the Institute of Hygiene and contacts will probably bring here a solution to the mystery of this object in some time.

Finally, what can we say about the testimonies of the SS doctors working at this Institute during the post-war trials?

It turns out that this is another crime that has gone unpunished. Only the head of the Institute, Bruno Weber, appeared in court in 1947 during the trial of camp commandant Rudolf Höss. And let's listen to a fragment of his testimony. Quote: “Although I rarely visited the camp, I did so only to visit my prisoner quarters. About 80-90 concentration camp prisoners worked with me, including doctors, technicians, laboratory workers and several field workers, about half of whom were Poles, mostly of Jewish origin. In February 1944 I was transferred back to Berlin, but occasionally travelled to Rajsko to perform additional supervisory duties there. In doing so, I have never in any way deviated from the principles of humanity. I did not perform any injections or experiments that violated human rights. I have never heard of any criminal injections that could endanger human life. Especially those that could cause harm or even death in connection with the activities of my institute.” End of quote. This is quite a characteristic statement, which again places all the responsibility on others. Perhaps Bruno Weber did not inject himself, but there was a whole group, or at least several SS men, who performed various types of injections and other tests that were certainly not intended to improve the health of the prisoners, and in many cases contributed to the deaths of the prisoners. There remain many issues related to the operation of the institute and let us hope that the prepared studies will be a valuable addition to our knowledge of medicine behind the barbed wire of the concentration camp.