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German Assistance for the Auschwitz Museum. Original camp documents to be preserved
The ceremonial signing of a contract with representatives of the German Federal Land of North Rhine-Westphalia will take place on July 1, 2007 at the Museum Preservation Workshop. It covers the conservation of the documents of the SS Hygiene Institute at Auschwiotz, held in the Museum Archives. The records cover the period from April 10, 1943 to January 12, 1945.
For the most part, the Institute carried out bacteriological tests on SS men and, to a lesser extent, on Auschwitz prisoners. Some of the records contain personal information about the research subjects. Josef Mengele benefited from the services of the Institute; he sent the head of a 12-year-old child there in June 1944 for testing.
Polish and German conservationists will carry out the preservation of the records in 2008-2011, gradually restoring all 39 thousand documents in the collection. The German partner will cover the cost of the entire operation, estimated at around 2 million zlotych.
The Museum Preservation Workshop
Opened in 2002 and employing eight highly qualified specialists, the Preservation Workshop is one of the most modern and best equipped facilities of its kind in Poland. It has already completed several important tasks: the cleaning and preservation of over 80 thousand shoes confiscated by the SS from the people deported to Auschwitz; the conservation of metal crematorium parts from Birkenau; and the conservation of deportees’ suitcases and original camp drawings, prints, and paintings.
Preservation Departments also conserve original documents from the Museum Archives on an ongoing basis. The conservation of the SS Hygiene Institute documents is the largest undertaking of its kind to date by the Workshop.
The Records of the SS Hygiene Institute in Auschwitz
The Waffen-SS and Police Hygiene Institute in Auschwitz, Upper Silesia (Hygiene Institut der Waffen-SS und Polizei Auschwitz O/S) was founded in the autumn of 1942. It was a branch of the Main SS Hygiene Bureau, which in turn was subordinated to the Main SS Sanitary Bureau (SS-Hauptsanitäramt) in Berlin. The exact story of the way this unit was founded within Auschwitz Concentration Camp is not known. It seems, however, that it may have been connected with the expansion of the camp and with the typhus epidemic that swept Auschwitz in 1942, threatening the health of the SS men and their families.
Until the spring of 1943, the SS Hygiene Institute was located in the Auschwitz I-Main Camp. Then it was transferred to nearby Rajsko, where it functioned until evacuation in January 1945.
The Institute was headed by a director, who was an SS officer and had two assistants dealing with general office tasks and bookkeeping. SS-Hauptsturmführer Bruno Nikolaus Maria Weber stood at the head of the SS Hygiene Institute in Auschwitz throughout its existence. His assistants were Hans Delmotte and Hans Muench.
The tasks of the Hygiene Institute included carrying out hygiene and laboratory tests for SS, Wehrmacht, and police units, as well as for the concentration camps—not only the entire Auschwitz-Birkenau complex with its sub-camps, but also, for instance, Gross-Rosen Concentration Camp. The basic materials analyzed in the Institute were samples of blood and bodily excretions taken from concentration camp prisoners, members of the SS garrison and their families, and also members of armed SS and Wehrmacht formations stationed in the vicinity of Oświęcim.
The main testing interests were typhus, malaria, and syphilis. Prisoners assigned to labor details that served the Auschwitz SS garrison—in the SS kitchen and the SS uniform and equipment departments—were tested particularly frequently.
The SS Hygiene Institute had specialized bacteriological, chemical, biological, histological, serological, and Wassermann laboratories, as well as a laboratory located in Block no. 20 in Auschwitz I, a section that produced nutrients for laboratory cell cultures, and a climatology section. Each of these units kept its own records, parts of which have survived and now form part of the Museum archival holdings.
The core part of the SS Hygiene Institute document collection consists of:
- the main record books (Hauptbüchern) – 9 volumes;
- the auuxiliary record books (Nebenbüchern) – 8 volumes;
- orders for conducting various kinds of tests on blood and other samples, and the results – 62 volumes.
All the tests carried out by the SS Hygiene Institute were entered in the main record books. The auxiliary record books were kept by the various laboratories enumerated above, and reflect the various analytical tests that they carried out.
Material covering the orders for tests and the results is the most extensive. From this documentation, we learn about the many tests conducted on blood, urine, stool, saliva, and spinal fluid samples, as well as serological and bacteriological tests for the presence of typhus and dysentery. These documents also contain the results of microscopic, histopathological, and chemical analyses of human tissue samples.
Above all, the material in the records of the SS Hygiene Institute provides a picture of the specific work of the Institute. They also contain personal information about the persons on whom tests were performed, including members of the Auschwitz garrison and prisoners of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp complex and the sub-camps, as well as data on the SS personnel at the Institute and the prisoners assigned as helpers there. Data connected with orders for equipment and material needed by the Hygiene Institute for its functioning are also important.
