"No extermination took place at Auschwitz as the camp had an orchestra or swimming pool"

Holocaust deniers claim that living conditions in Auschwitz, while being difficult, were sufficient to survive. As arguments, they give the existence of water and sanitary facilities in the camp, as well as hospital and even an orchestra. Moreover, they indicate the ordered and aesthetic aspects of the camp.

The facts:

Auschwitz was built as a permanent concentration camp and was to continue to serve as a place of confinement for the so-called enemies of the Reich in the future, ‘after victory’. With time, the camp’s role as a centre of mass extermination should be reduced, therefore, within the projects for its expansion emphasis was placed on the construction of reliable water and sanitary facilities in prisoners’ living quarters, as was the case with other concentration camps in German territory.

Due to the fire hazard, in 1944, construction began on 10 firewater reservoirs (out of a total of 17 planned) within the Auschwitz camp complex. One of these, measuring 25 x 5 meters, was built inside the Auschwitz I camp fence, near the so-called Birkenallee. It is likely that during the final stages of construction, the reservoir was equipped with swimming pool elements: starting blocks, a diving board, and a ladder. Survivors’ testimonies provide different interpretations of the reasons for this modification. One theory suggests that camp functionaries (block leaders, kapos) initiated the addition of these swimming pool features. Allegedly, camp physician Eduard Wirths approved the idea under the pretext that swimming would improve prisoners' physical condition and thus increase their ability to work. This theory seems plausible since such modifications could not have been made without the approval of the SS authorities, as they required scarce materials—bricks, iron, and mortar. One survivor, Adam Jerzy Brandhuber, recalled in his memoirs that shortly after the construction was completed, SS officers selected prisoners who appeared healthy, had them change into bathing suits taken from the "Canada" warehouses, and took several photographs near the pool, likely for propaganda purposes. However, due to the camp commandant's opposition, the pool was not actually used by camp functionaries. The denier's argument—that the presence of a swimming pool in Auschwitz proves that prisoners enjoyed excellent living conditions and therefore the high mortality rate was impossible—is entirely false.

Basin—fire reservoir, Auschwitz I. Source: Auschwitz Museum

The Birkenau camp, in turn, was not intended to be a permanent detention centre. It was built in a hurry without regard for suitable sanitary conditions. This led to a massive typhus epidemic outbreak in the summer of 1942. Consequently, the decision was taken to build facilities for the supply of water, a sewage system and a modern sewage treatment plant.

A sanitary barrack in Birkenau. Source: Archives of Auschwitz Museum

The winter of 1943/1944 in Birkenau. The purpose of constructing a mechanical biological treatment plant in Birkenau was to improve hygienic and sanitary conditions in general and to prevent the outbreak of epidemics, which also threatened the SS personnel and the local German civilian population. Source: Archives of Auschwitz Museum

An excerpt from Rachel Bernheim-Friedman’s account:

‘Arranged in fives, we were led out to the washroom in the morning. A block just like ours, but instead of bunkbeds, pipes ran through its entire length with taps at each end. Each of us ran to a tap. Unwashed for many days, we waited impatiently for contact with water. To my great joy, the first droplets dripped from the tap. The water had the consistency of mud and a yellowish colour due to excess rust. Ignoring this, I splattered it on my hands and face. Such a wonderful feeling of moisture! Next to every tap lay a bar of soap. […] The bar was too big to fit in my tiny hand. I tried to rub the soap bar over my face and body, but it would not foam at all. Too bad, I should just have done without the foam. The important thing was to wash the dirt off. ‘Soaped up’, I turned the tap, but nothing happened. I turned it one way, then the other, I tried and tried, but the tap remained dry. … The acrid smell of the soap was choking me, it hurt my throat. […] And the tap was still dry. Suddenly, there was a rush around the barracks. The whistles summoned us to roll call. I had no choice and ran with everyone else to roll call square. When I returned to the block, to my bunk, I was quite devastated. My irritated skin was burning, and I still stank. Somewhere deep in my heart, however, there lingered a hope that, despite everything, there would be water in the taps next time! After all, wasn’t that what the taps were made for? …’

Source: Rachel Bernheim-Friedman, ASMA-B, Wspomnienia [Testimonies], vol. 221, p. 108.

The existence of a camp orchestra had a strictly practical dimension: it played military marching music, which was assumed to make the prisoner Kommandos march to and from work more efficiently.

An excerpt from Stanisław Tomaszewski’s report:

… Lined up in fives, hassled by dogs, pushed and shoved, we were marched up to the camp gate. The camp was still asleep. We stand and wait, no one is allowed to sit. […] I read the inscription on the camp gate, ‘Arbeit macht frei‘, once, twice, for the tenth time, and alternately the thought, how to get away from here. The gong is struck, the wake-up call for the camp. …

I can’t believe my ears: an orchestra is playing a marching melody.

In front of the gate, next to which we had been standing for a few hours, an SS unit approaches, armed with submachine guns, ready to shoot, some with dogs. The gate opens and I see my future fellows-in-suffering. A terrible sight. Emaciated human figures, skeletons dressed in striped uniforms, most of them wearing wooden clogs, shaven heads, caps removed, hands pressed against the thighs, a bowl or a cup fastened by a piece of string. Some of the faces are bruised, and swollen, I notice some are limping, they can’t keep up the pace of the march. Prisoner functionaries run up and beat them with whatever is at hand, a stick or a bare fist. Some of the prisoners stagger, they’re unable to go on. Standing at the gate, the camp commandant orders them to be removed from the column and stand between the barbed wire fences. They are no longer fit for work, their fate is sealed, they’ll get spiked with phenol or petrol, or the prisoner functionaries will beat them to death on the way back to the block. They’ll go to the Himmelkommando (to heaven); their fate is certain death. Column after column marched on, several thousand people, and the orchestra kept playing …’

Source: Stanisław Tomaszewski, ASMA-B, Zespół Oświadczenia [Testimonies], vol. 117, pp. 161-162.

An excerpt from Marian Kołodziej’s account:

‘… Members of the orchestra were of the-in some cases not entirely unfounded - opinion that their music edified and gave some relief and hope to the prisoners who listened to it. But for me, it was a curse. When under the command we passed through the gate in the winter, in the snow, the snow stuck to our wooden clogs, we could not keep up with the marching rhythm that the orchestra played and fell. We had to remove our wooden clogs and march barefoot on the snow. Passing through the gate, we would be subjected to beatings, and then we didn’t listen to the melody – usually German marches – and only focused on keeping to the marching rhythm and avoiding a beating. […] Day in and day out, the orchestra was an utter terror for us prisoners, […] I could not keep up with the rhythm of the marches, and yet I had to listen to the marches, and death could occur in a few minutes. …’

Source: Marian Kołodziej, ASMA-B, Zespół Oświadczenia [Testimonies], vol. 160, pp. 27–28.
 

A drawing entitled Powrót z pracy (Return from work) by the former prisoner Mieczysław Kościelniak, 1950. Source: Collections of Auschwitz Museum

The maintaining of an aesthetic appearance in a death camp was not unique to the SS of KL Auschwitz. A similar standard was also upheld in Sobibor, as can be seen in the recently discovered and published photographs of this camp:

Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.