Transformation of Auschwitz concentration camp

Transcript of the podcast

While planning the construction of Auschwitz, the Germans assumed that in the future, the camp would hold up to 30,000 prisoners. As late as the beginning of 1941. There was nothing to indicate that over the next few months, both the plans for the number of prisoners and the usage of their slave labor, as well as the functions of the camp itself would change dramatically. Why the Auschwitz concentration camp expanded and why at the same time, it become an extermination center I discussed with Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz the head of the Memorial research center.

The Auschwitz camp, which was planned at the very beginning as the some sort of quarantine camp before sending prisoners to other concentration camps in Germany was very quickly turned into a regular concentration camp in the plans of the SS. And from June 14th, 1940 Germans began regular transports of prisoners to the camp and prisoners had to work. And this is very clear. Every prisoner had to do slave labor. What kind of work the prisoners were doing at the beginning and how this slave labor system influence the development of the camp?

At the very beginning of existence of Auschwitz, that was obvious that prisoners must work by expansion of the Auschwitz camp. Namely, they build the fence, they repair the blocks, all necessary installations in the camp and so on and so on. So nevertheless it became clear for the commander of Auschwitz Rudolf Hoess, that after completing of these works, it would be necessary to find a suitable kind of labor for the prisoners as it, was the case of Mauthausen or Groß-Rosen concentration camps, where prisoners were employed in the stone quarries. So because Oświęcim before the war was where the, the town, with the majory size, the industry was limited to the few small factories. So in the eyes of Hoess, the future of Auschwitz life in agriculture, namely the prisoners have to work in, agriculture farms that belong to the SS. And in order to facilitate these plans, Hoess believe that it would be possible to expel the local Polish farmers who lived in eight villages nearby between two rivers, Sola, and Vistula, and after confiscation of the land and the buildings he thought that it would be possible to organize this sort of, of network of agriculture farms run by the SS.
So that was the only case in the history of German concentration camps, where it was possible suddenly in such camps Dachau, Sachsenhausen and the others. That was not possible. The mass expulsion of local German farmers, but in occupied Poland, it was relatively easy and practical terms. It had been done by the single administrative decision by Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler. So that was a plan, for the future of Auschwitz, at the end of 1940. Nevertheless, the beginning of the next year, the situation completely changed with the arrival of German specialists from the large company called IG Farben industry

It is very interesting because in the beginning we can see this farming development very far away, like on the other side, from the dense industry that IG Farben represented. And here we have a crucial turning point in the history of Auschwitz, with the arrival of this huge industry.

If we assume how many prisoners could be employed in all these agricultural farms, the number of prisoners in Auschwitz that would be necessary for copings with the tasks was limited to say 5,000 people only, but with the arrival of German industry and the people from IG Farben and the needs for slave labor of prisoners, most of them had to work directly on, on this construction side of the new factory. That was a crucial point in the planning of Auschwitz in the history of the camp. Because from this time on the number of prisoners necessary for this kind of work increased dramatically. IG Farben estimated that they will need approximately 4,000 people for work. Then the needs rise to eight up to even 12,000 prisoners. So Auschwitz, at this point was much smaller and assuming that some people had to be employed inside the camp for different kind of work in the kitchen, for instance, than many of them also had to work in this agricultural form. So at this point, it became clear for the commander and higher SS officers that Auschwitz should be expand.

Let's take a step back and explain why IG Farben is interested in the surrounding area of Auschwitz, and why are they coming here?

Well, that was, connected with the general plans of German high command of the army, the Wehrmacht to secure the deliveries of crucial materials products for the German war effort namely that was a primary synthetic rubber and also certain kind of sophisticated petrol for the German Luftwaffe. And because the existing IG Farben factories, were situated mostly in the central or Western part of Germany after the failure of the Luftwaffe air offensive against Britain, it became clear that these factories might be bombed and, because of the kind of production, they might be particularly vulnerable for the air attacks. So the high command of the German army wish to have another source of rubber and petrol, a new factory built somewhere outside the range of the British bombers at this time. The decision was taken to look for such places in Upper Silesia because of the distance from Great Britain. And secondly, because of the local huge deposits of coal, which was the basic raw material for production of synthetic rubber. These specialists appeared for the first time in Upper Silesia in December, 1940. And most probably the final decision was taken in January, 1941. The site of Auschwitz was chosen because of its location, not far from the source of fresh water in the Vistula River, which was necessary for cooling of certain installations of IG Farben, of the factory and the presence of the railway station. But I believe that one of the most important reasons for taking the decision was the fact, that that was a concentration camp, not far from the constructions site, about six, seven kilometers. Because of lack of manpower, many German workers were conscripted to the army and local Poles were sent to perform slave labor in Germany. The Auschwitz camp was in practical terms, the most promising source of labor for the factory.

That was probably the reason why on the very eldest stage of the planning of this factory in Auschwitz, the representatives of IG Farben initiated negotiations with the concentration camp, with leadership of the camp, with the representatives of the officers from Berlin. And they found this agreement very promising because, the labor of concentration camp prisoners was very cheap and they could be delivered to, to the construction side by foot or later on by train. So that was not the problem in logistical terms to, organize the delivery of prisoners to IG Farben. On the one hand that was very profitable for the company on the other, also concentration camp was interested in such kind of cooperation for propaganda reasons. And this way the Himmler could explain that the SS played important role in the process of development of German armed industry. The IG Farben promised to donate to SS a certain amount of construction materials: bricks, cement, reinforcement, steel, everything that was needed for the future expansion of Auschwitz. So in this way, the SS could easily update the material for construction of new barracks, new blocks in Auschwitz, and also to sell certain products that could be make in the workshops that belong to the SS, SS could produce in this way, certain prefabricated elements of barracks, furniture, wooden boxes, whatever that was necessary for IG Farben in this early stage of construction of the factory. So the both sides were very satisfy as they stressed many times in official documents.

However there is one major problem of this agreement. The demand for slave labor from the IG Farben part is very large. They need a lot of workers. The camp is of course, happy to expand, but at that time they do not have sufficient number of prisoners that they can simply give to the IG Farben.

That's what's the point underlined during the one of the meetings between people from IG Farben and the officers from Auschwitz. One of these participants asked directly the commander, what he think about it. First answer was yes, that is a problem but he had just talked to Obergruppenfuhrer Kruger, who was the head of all SS in police forces in central part of occupied Poland. And he promised him that all prisoners necessary for Auschwitz will be available in the nearest future. So the the SS in Poland will guarantee that by the transfer of prisoners from different jails in the country as well, perhaps also by arresting people, simply on treats of Polish cities, the SS will provide sufficient number of Poles for Auschwitz, and then for IG Farben. So that was the promise and we believe that Krugger, really, wish to do so. If you observed the piece of deportations of Polish prisoners to Auschwitz, the late spring, the beginning of the summer of 1941, that's clear that the number of new prisons for Auschwitz rapidly increased. However, more or less at the same time we can observe in the camp statistics growth in the number of prisoners who perished in Auschwitz, most probably because after spending a couple of months in Auschwitz after this time of performing heavy manual work and hunger, all these things resulted in the very high mortality rate in Auschwitz. So assuming this, you can see that the daily count of Auschwitz remains still more or less the same. And the number of prisoners for IG Farben could not be covered despite the all the efforts of officers from the concentration camp. So that was the problem that was seriously considered by not only by the people from Auschwitz, but also by Heinrich Himmler himself.

And finally, in September, 1941, he believed that he found a solution after the beginning of war with the Soviet Russia The German Wehrmacht had at his disposal hundreds of thousands of his prisoners of war. They were kept in POW camps in horrible conditions. The mortality among them was extremely high. So Himmler made an agreement with the generals. They promised him to sent to concentration camps in the beginning 100,000 and even 200,000 Soviet prisoners of war. So in the end of September, we may see that that was a stream of urgent telegrams and letters from Berlin to the Auschwitz Kommandantur to the SS headquarters with urgent tasks to find a way for accommodating this Soviet prisoners of war. And that was clear at this point that Soviets could not be mixed together with regular Auschwitz concentration camp person. So that was the need to build a separate camp. On the very beginning of this process, the plan for such a camp was proposed by the German architects from Berlin and that was only the case of selecting the place, which should be situated not far from the old camp or the base camp, and initially the decision was taken to build a new camp for the Soviets between the concentration camp and the railway line led from Auschwitz to Vienna.
After a few days, people who were involved in the decision making process, they concluded that no, that there is not space enough there. Why not to move this camp to the large meadow on the other side of the railway line. And few days later Rudolf Hoess visited the site. And he said, no, the soil is very valuable for the needs of the agriculture, so that would be perhaps better to move this concentration camp for the Soviets about 700 meters away, more closer to the village of Brzezinka or Birkenau. That was the way how the SS finally decided up on the, making a new camp by Auschwitz, the camp for Soviet prisoners of war was officially called as a the POW camp. But in practical terms that was administered and run by the commitment tour, by the headquarters of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

The Soviet soldiers start arriving. First, they stay in a separated part in Auschwitz one, and then they of course building the camp in Birkenau. What can we tell about the SS plans for Birkenau and their imagination of the situation of prisoners and the treatment of prisoners when we look at those early blueprints of Birkenau

That's very clear if we look at this early proper proposals, early drawings of the new camp that were many times changed and adapted for the certain needs of the SS, that the main principle for planning of Birkenau was to accommodate as many people as possible on the lowest costs. For example, on this early plans of two major parts of Birkenau with over hundred of barracks, we may see that there were only two of them were intended to be used as a hospital for prisoners. So for example, there were very primitive sanitary installations for this camp on these drawings. There are two major parts of Birkenau, smaller, which was to be sort of a quarantine camp and the main camp on the other side of the platform. Installations like sanitary barracks were limited, very primitive, that was probably resulted first of all, because of the problems with construction materials, when people from the Bauleitung from the construction office of Auschwitz learned for the first time that they were be responsible for preparing the plans and the construction of the new camp that was told to them that they have to hear about the materials for the barracks about everything, about the wooden pillars and what was most important at this moment, barbed wire fence, which is not a available. So it was a lot of problems. Bauleiter Bischoff decided that probably the best way to build the barracks in Birkenau might have been the making use of the bricks, which became available after destruction of the Polish villages nearby. So everything was done practically in a very improvised way without taking care about providing prisoners with the most basic sanitary installations for Birkenau.

I believe that at this point, the SS probably did not understand what's going to happen in this new camp. And what kind of Russian prisoners would arrived only after deportation of the first transport of Soviets prisoners of war. It became clear that they were very weak after spending months, the army POW’s camps, they were extremely exhausted, many of them were sick and perhaps only half of them could be used for any sort of productive labor. The result of this, this is horrible living conditions because of very limited amount of food, which was given to them, the mortality among the Soviet prisoners proved to be very high, and in order to cope with this problems we may see on this construction drawings that SS added more and more mungs in Birkenau than they replaced a couple of these mungs with two primitive in conservation ovens that were ordered in the company called Topf und Sohne from Ehrfurt. Full improvisation. I believe that nobody at this time heard about situation that might occur in Birkenau in terms of sanitary conditions and potential threat of epidemics.

When we analyze the picture in this moment, so this is late 1941, early 1942. We can see several elements coming together on one hand demand of the IG Farben for slave labor, that the, that Auschwitz tries to meet with the deportation of first Poles and later the Soviet prisoners of war. On the other hand, when the Soviet started coming and these huge plans for the new camp were created, their physical condition do not really meet the needs of the IG Farben and the numbers of the Soviet prisoners of war didn't turn out to be as high as expected. And then there's a third element appearing in Auschwitz, which is the, the first experiments of killing people with poisonous gas. So from Autumn of 1941, Auschwitz is able to use gas chambers to kill people. And so these things which are not precisely connected, then turn out to be a very important in the future development of what Auschwitz become.

Yeah, because apart from the needs of the concentration camp for the slave labor of Soviet prisoners of war in the fall of 1941, Auschwitz also became the site of mass killings of Soviet prisoners of war that were brought to Auschwitz in order to kill them simply, they were the members of the Soviet communist party, so called commissars. So for these people, the SS introduced for the first time in the history of Auschwitz, the killing of them with the gas Cyklon B in the room of the crematorium building temporary gas chamber was organized for this purpose. So this moment in time, the only temporary solution, but it had very, very important impact on the future and fate of prisoners of the camp, because in January, 1942 Heinrich Himmler took probably the most important decision, which had very serious, very important consequences for the future of Auschwitz namely.

He said that because the Soviet prisoners of war would probably not be available in the nearest future in sufficient numbers. So these Soviets should be replaced with Jews who had just began to be evacuated from Western Europe, from Germany to the East, to the extermination sites, like Sobibor or Belżec. So in the eyes of Himmler way of treating these particular group of Jews will be as follows. They should be selected out for the deportation in the transit camps, somewhere in the countries, when they lived in the case of Auschwitz only strong and healthy prisoners, 100,000 men and 50,000 women should be sent to Auschwitz, perform slave labor to company with very important economical task of the SS as is stressed. So that was the moment when first Jews, large numbers should be sent to Auschwitz, such decision was taken, but as it such only for those who were fit for work.

And that was the case of the first initial few transports that arrived to Auschwitz mostly from Slovakia and also from France. These people, well, they were all registered in the camp. They were sent to the labor barracks and they had to work, however, after four Slovak transports something completely different happened because the transport was stopped. And after a couple of weeks, new groups of Slovak prisoners begun to come to Auschwitz. But in this case, there were so-called family transports, not only young and healthy people, but also mothers, children, but also eldery. And the siblings so it was probably easier in terms of logistic for the SS to bring them all to Auschwitz and to cope with the problem of those who are not able to work on the side. Namely that resulted in the first selections in Auschwitz and the making use of the gas chambers to kill those who are not necessary for the camp. Because the only existing gas chamber in Auschwitz at this time was not large enough to cope with the large number of Jews who were to be killed, a new temporary gas chamber, so called bunker number one, or a little red house was open in Birkenau on the edge of the forest.

Now, that was the moment when a became a camp with each combined, two functions: the function of the ordinary, regular German concentration camp, and the death camp as much as other camps of Action Reinhart in Eastern Poland. And then I believe we should answer for the question why the SS needed so many people in Auschwitz. Well, the, the needs of IG Farben were large. However, the camp for 100,000 people was definitely too large for the needs of the single German company. Most probably as we believe the Himmler had before his eyes a vision. The vision of the large SS camp in the heart of the industrial center. The thought that perhaps other German, big companies, other German industrialists would follow the example of IG Farben and to – will also try to move at least a part of the production potential from the Western part of Germany to the east.

And in this situation the SS will have this privilege to have a 100,000 workers at the disposal. In this way the SS would repeat the same pattern that prove to be very effective and profitable for the SS. But already in spring of 1942, it became clear that it doesn't work despite of the SS efforts practically no one was interested in such complicated transfer of technology, people, machines from Western Germany to Auschwitz. So he began the negotiations with army, and army was from this time on, was responsible for looking for the potential investors in Auschwitz. Himmler believed that, that would work in this way the SS will build their own factories and the buildings, the equipment would be secured by the state. And the role of these companies would be limited only to giving a number of engineers, skilled workers, knowhow, and technology.

So in this way, these factory buildings would be higher by the SS and to this companies, of course, in this way, the SS would obtain more money as additional source of financing. So again, that seems to be very promising for the future. Nevertheless, the army actually were able to find only one investor company Krupp, which promised to build a factory to be engaged in the production of anti-aircraft guns in Auschwitz. However, Himmler’s plans were still larger and larger, and in the middle of the year, it came to conclusion that because of the problems with the industry, though, it would be possible to take over a number of large factories, not definitely near to the Auschwitz concentration camp, perhaps maybe a little bit further in the central part of Silesian industrial region. And these workers who had worked in these factories should be moved somewhere else and all replaced by Auschwitz prisoners.

So he estimated that about 50,000 Auschwitz prisoners could be sent to this kind of work and perhaps, 100,000 more should who stayed in Birkenau to be treated as sort of the replacement in case of the possible high number of deaths in these camps. So that was absolutely new and unrealistic idea during his negotiations with the ministry of arm and ammunition led by minister Albert Speer SS met with strong opposition from business circles. And they probably did not care, but everything has been changed with the outbreak of the huge epidemics of typhus Birkenau. From this time on, it became clear that it would be not possible to concentrate so many prisoners on this very small area without providing them with a very basic sanitary provisions and this epidemics change the attitude of not only the business but also local authorities. They become to treat the Auschwitz, the concentration camp as a potential threat for the civilian population of Silesia. That was also a very serious problem for IG Farben because from July 1942 deliveries of prisoners on the construction site was stopped and IG Farben proposed on their side to redirect the way of deliveries of prisoners to the construction site, namely, they offered to build their own camp.

This is very important because well, today the Memorial preserves to two parts of Auschwitz, Auschwitz I and Birkenau. And somehow when people look at it, this is Auschwitz system for them. While we need to remember that the development in this period led to the creation of the third part of Auschwitz that created the entire system.

Yes, but at this time that was purely private initiative of IG Farben. I don't think that they had in mind a future development or rather that they would rather were thinking about their own problems and they will stick in the ways how to solve them. So the, at this time that was the, the initiatives that was focused on the isolation of prisoners from the rest of the camp. This new camp, and in one of its should be of course, a part of the Auschwitz system, nevertheless, in order to avoid the risk of the epidemics of Monowitz IG Farben expected to receive prisoners directly to Monowitz without spending even a day in an Auschwitz or Birkenau that was stilled a risk for infection.
The IG Farben paid for this camp. That was very disappointing that SS explained that it is not possible in terms of bureaucracy to direct the persons to Monowitz, that they had to arrive to Auschwitz first and after a couple of days only to move to Monowitz. Nevertheless, after three months of the break, at least in the end of October, the first Auschwitz prisoners began to arrive to concentration camps of Auschwitz III Buna or Monowitz, but it took next four months to encourage other German companies that this sort of cooperation was as possible, that SS would be ready to send the, Auschwitz prisoners to the factories that companies would be responsible for selecting suitable places for accommodation for the prisoners, and to sign an agreement with the SS, agreements were bit complicated. Nevertheless, the both sides promised that on the one hand the SS would be responsible for keeping the number of prisoners on a certain level, and the other that the companies promised to secure certain provisions for the prisoners to build or to organize the cultures for them, and so on. Nevertheless, that was practically beginning of the new chapter in the history of Auschwitz when Birkenau and to a certain extent Auschwitz I became a center for distribution of labor force for the German industry. When the German businessman began to trust the SS that the concentration camp is able to provide them with the sufficient number of war prisoners on one hand, and on the other, that SS would constantly exchanged those who were losing the ability to work with new ones. And the companies, of course the directors, they did not care what might have happened with those sick prisoners would be send back to Birkenau. I don't think that they may have any doubt about their future faith.