The history of the Second World War keeps many unsightly pages, but the German concentration camps are one of the most terrible. The events of those days clearly show that the cruelty of people towards each other really knows no bounds.
Especially in this regard, “Auschwitz” “became famous”. Not the best glory is about Buchenwald or Dachau. This is where the death camps were located. The Soviet soldiers who liberated "Auschwitz" were for a long time under the impression of the atrocities that were committed within its walls by the Nazis. What was this place and for what purposes did the Germans create it? This article is devoted to this topic.
Basic information
It was the largest and most "technological" concentration camp ever created by the Nazis. More precisely, it was a whole complex consisting of an ordinary camp, an institution for forced labor and a special territory in which people were massacred. This is what Auschwitz is known for. Where is this place located? It is located near the Polish Krakow.
Those who liberated "Auschwitz",were able to save part of the “bookkeeping” of this terrible place. From these documents, the command of the Red Army learned that during the entire existence of the camp, about one million three hundred thousand people were tortured within its walls. About a million of them are Jews. Auschwitz had four huge gas chambers, each of which housed 200 people at once.
So how many people were killed there?
Alas, but there is every reason to believe that there were much more victims. One of the commandants of this terrible place, Rudolf Hess, said at the trial in Nuremberg that the total number of people killed could well reach 2.5 million. In addition, it is unlikely that this criminal named the true figure. In any case, he constantly fidgeted in court, claiming that he never knew the exact number of prisoners killed.
Given the huge capacity of the gas chambers, it can be logically concluded that there were indeed many more dead than indicated in official reports. Some researchers think that about four million (!) innocent people found their end in these terrible walls.
It was a bitter irony that the gates of Auschwitz were decorated with an inscription that read: "ARBEIT MACHT FREI". Translated into Russian, this means: "Work makes you free." Alas, in reality, there was not even a smell of freedom there. On the contrary, labor turned from a necessary and useful occupation in the hands of the Nazis into an effective means of exterminating people, which almost never failed.
When was this death complex created?
Construction began in 1940 on the territory previously occupied by the Polish military garrison. Soldiers' barracks were used as the first barracks. Of course, the builders were Jews and prisoners of war. They were fed badly, killed for every offense - real or imaginary. So I gathered my first "harvest" "Auschwitz" (where this place is, you already know).
Gradually the camp grew, turning into a huge complex designed to supply cheap labor that could work for the benefit of the Third Reich.
Now little is said about this, but the labor of prisoners was intensively used by all (!) Large German companies. In particular, the famous BMV corporation actively exploited slaves, the need for which grew every year, as Germany threw more and more divisions into the meat grinder of the Eastern Front, being forced to equip them with new equipment.
Conditions of prisoners
The conditions were horrendous. At first, people were settled in barracks, in which there was nothing. Nothing at all, except for a small armful of rotten straw on several tens of square meters of the floor. Over time, they began to issue mattresses, at the rate of one for five or six people. The most preferred option for the prisoners were bunks. Although they stood three stories high, only two prisoners were placed in each cell. In this case, it was not so cold, since at least we had to sleep not on the floor.
In anycase, it wasn't good. In a room that could accommodate a maximum of fifty people in a standing position, one and a half to two hundred prisoners huddled. Unbearable stench, humidity, lice and typhoid fever… People died by the thousands from all this.
Zyklon-B gas killing chambers worked around the clock, with a break of three hours. In the crematoriums of this concentration camp, the bodies of eight thousand people were burned daily.
Medical experiments
As for medical care, the prisoners who managed to survive in "Auschwitz" for at least a month, at the word "doctor" began to turn gray hair. And indeed: if a person was seriously ill, it was better for him to immediately climb into the noose or run in full view of the guards, hoping for a merciful bullet.
And no wonder: given that the notorious Mengele and a number of “healers” of a smaller rank “practiced” in these parts, a trip to the hospital most often ended with the victims of Auschwitz playing the role of a guinea pig. Poisons, dangerous vaccines, exposure to extremely high and low temperatures were tested on prisoners, new methods of transplantation were tried … In a word, death was really a boon (especially considering the tendency of “doctors” to perform operations without anesthesia).
Hitler's murderers had one “pink dream”: to develop a means of quickly and effectively sterilizing people, which would allow them to destroy entire nations, depriving them of the ability to reproduce themselves.
For this purpose, monstrousexperiments: men and women had their genitals removed, and the rate of healing of postoperative wounds was studied. Many experiments were carried out on the topic of radiation deposition. Unfortunate people were irradiated with unrealistic doses of x-rays.
Career of “doctors”
Subsequently, they were also used in the study of numerous oncological diseases, which, after such “therapy”, appeared in almost all irradiated people. In general, only a terrible, painful death awaited all the experimental subjects for the benefit of “science and progress”. It is regrettable to admit it, but many of the “doctors” not only managed to avoid the noose in Nuremberg, but also got a great job in America and Canada, where they were considered almost the luminaries of medicine.
Yes, the data they obtained was indeed priceless, only the price paid for it was disproportionately high. Once again, the question of the ethical component in medicine arises…
Feeding
They were fed accordingly: the whole day's ration was a bowl of translucent “soup” of rotten vegetables and crumbs of “technical” bread, in which there were a lot of rotten potatoes and sawdust, but there was no flour. Almost 90% of the prisoners suffered from a chronic intestinal disorder, which killed them faster than the “caring” Nazis.
Prisoners could only envy the dogs that were kept in neighboring barracks: there was heating in the kennels, and the quality of feeding was not even worth comparing…
Death Conveyor
The Auschwitz gas chambers have become a terrible legend today. The killing of people was put on stream (in the truest sense of the word). Immediately after arriving at the camp, prisoners were sorted into two categories: fit and unfit for work. Children, the elderly, women and the disabled were sent directly from the platforms to the Auschwitz gas chambers. Unsuspecting captives were first sent to the “dressing room.”
What did they do with the bodies?
There they undressed, they were given soap and taken “to the shower”. Of course, the victims ended up in the gas chambers, which were indeed disguised as showers (there were even water dispensers on the ceiling). Immediately after the batch was accepted, the hermetic doors were closed, the Zyklon-B gas cylinders were activated, after which the contents of the containers rushed into the “shower room”. People were dying within 15-20 minutes.
After that, their bodies were sent to the crematoria, which worked non-stop for days on end. The resulting ash was used to fertilize agricultural land. The hair that the captives sometimes shaved off was used to stuff pillows and mattresses. When the cremation ovens broke down, and their pipes burned through from constant use, the bodies of the unfortunate were burned in a huge pit dug in the camp.
Today, the Auschwitz Museum was erected on that site. An eerie, oppressive feeling still embraces all who visit this territory of death.
About how the camp managers got rich
You need to understand that the same Jews were brought to Poland from Greece and other distant countries. They were promised “relocation to Eastern Europe” and evenworkplaces. Simply put, people came to the place of their murder not only voluntarily, but also taking all their valuables with them.
Do not consider them too naive: in the 30s of the XX century, Jews were indeed evicted from Germany to the East. It’s just that people didn’t take into account that times have changed, and from now on it was much more profitable for the Reich to destroy the Untermensch that he didn’t like.
Where do you think all the gold and silver things, good clothes and shoes seized from the dead went? For the most part, they were appropriated by the commandants, their wives (who were not at all embarrassed that the new earrings were on a dead person a couple of hours ago), the camp guards. Especially "distinguished" the Poles, moonlighting here. They called the warehouses with the looted things "Canada". In their view, it was a wonderful, rich country. Many of these “dreamers” not only enriched themselves by selling the things of the murdered, but also managed to escape to that same Canada.
How effective was prisoner slave labor?
Paradoxical as it may seem, but the economic efficiency of the slave labor of the prisoners who were “sheltered” by the Auschwitz camp was scanty. People (and women) were harnessed to wagons on agricultural land, more or less strong men were used as low-skilled labor in metallurgical, chemical and military enterprises, they paved and repaired roads destroyed by Allied bombing attacks…
But the management of the enterprises where the Auschwitz camp supplied labor force was not indelighted: people performed a maximum of 40-50% of the norm, even with the constant threat of death for the slightest misconduct. And surprisingly, there is nothing here: many of them could hardly stand on their feet, what kind of efficiency is there?
Whatever the Nazi non-humans said at the trial in Nuremberg, their only goal was the physical destruction of people. Even their effectiveness as a labor force was of no serious interest to anyone.
Easing the regime
Almost 90% of the survivors of that hell thank God that they were brought to the Auschwitz concentration camp in mid-1943. At that time, the regime of the institution was significantly softened.
Firstly, from now on, the guards did not have the right to kill any prisoner who they did not like without trial and investigation. Secondly, in the local medical assistant's stations they really began to treat, not kill. Thirdly, they began to feed significantly better.
Do Germans have a conscience? No, everything is much more prosaic: it became finally clear that Germany was losing this war. The “Great Reich” urgently needed workers, not raw materials to fertilize the fields. As a result, the life of prisoners grew a little in the eyes of even complete monsters.
Besides, from now on, not all newborn babies were killed. Yes, yes, until that time, all women who arrived at this place pregnant lost their children: babies were simply drowned in a bucket of water, and then their bodies were thrown away. Often right behind the barracks where the mothers lived. How many unfortunate women have gone mad, we will never know. The 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz was recently celebrated, but timedoes not heal such wounds.
So. During the “thaw”, all babies began to be examined: if at least something “Aryan” slipped into the features of their faces, the child was sent for “assimilation” to Germany. So the Nazis hoped to solve the monstrous demographic problem, which rose to its full height after huge losses on the Eastern Front. It is difficult to say how many descendants of the Slavs who were captured and sent to Auschwitz live in Germany today. History is silent about this, and documents (for obvious reasons) have not been preserved.
Liberation
Everything in the world comes to an end. This concentration camp was no exception. So who liberated Auschwitz, and when did it happen?
And the Soviet soldiers did it. The soldiers of the First Ukrainian Front liberated the prisoners of this terrifying place on January 25, 1945. The SS units guarding the camp fought to the death: they received an order at all costs to give other Nazis time to destroy both all prisoners and documents that would shed light on their monstrous crimes. But our guys did their duty.
That's who liberated "Auschwitz". Despite all the streams of mud that are pouring in their direction today, our soldiers, at the cost of their lives, managed to save many people. Don't forget about it. On the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, almost the same words were heard from the lips of the current leadership of Germany, which honored the memory of the Soviet soldiers who died forthe freedom of others. Only in 1947 a museum was opened on the territory of the camp. Its creators tried to keep everything as it was seen by the unfortunate people arriving here.
