Hanging

Gallows and a boot...

Execution by hanging took place sporadically. Hangings took place in public, usually during roll call, in order to intimidate the other prisoners. One of the most notorious episodes was the hanging of 12 prisoners from the surveyors’ labor detail on July 19, 1943, in reprisal for the escape of three others from the same group. The last hangings came shortly before the liquidation of Auschwitz. Five participants in an unsuccessful escape attempt two months earlier (three Austrians and two Poles) were hanged in the main camp on December 30, 1944, and four Jewish women were hanged on January 6 for supplying Sonderkommando prisoners with explosives that they used during their mutiny.