Today marks the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Located in southern Poland, some 40 miles west of the cultural center of Krakow, 1.1 million people were murdered there. Birkenau, the death camp, is a haunting, vast space where you can smell vague wafts of burning (fittingly enough) and where, at least in the back, you can convince yourself that you're taking a stroll in some pleasant park. From the rear of the camp, the infamous gatehouse is barely visible - it nearly vanishes into the horizon. Rows upon rows of the ruins of barracks line your vision. If you go at dusk (or dawn, I presume), it's quiet and disturbing. If you go at more regular hours, expect hordes of tourists, at least at the ramp and the crematoria ruins.
The main camp, the Stammlager, also known as Auschwitz I, lies some 2 plus miles down the road. If one didn't know any better, it could almost be a college campus. There are neat, orderly rows of brick buildings. Today they house a variety of exhibits (including mountains of human hair, suitcases, children's clothing, shoes) as well as the administrative offices of the museum. This was the first concentration camp established by the Nazis in Poland, in 1940 (although, at the time, it was technically annexed to the Reich and not part of Nazi-occupied Poland, otherwise known as the General Government). This is the location of the Arbeit Macht Frei gate, which many inaccurately believe was one of the last sights many of the Jews of Europe saw before they were murdered. This is not so. The vast majority of the Jews were killed down the road, in Birkenau, and never saw the Arbeit Macht Frei gate. Unfortunately, I don't think the museum does the best job in the world of differentiating between the two camps.
What was the origin of the camp? The Stammlager, which was the site of an unused army base, was established to concentrate Polish labor. The Nazis, having annexed Upper Silesia (the region in which Auschwitz is located) wanted to simply deport all of the Poles and move ethnic Germans in. However, they soon realized that they would need the Poles for their skilled manual labor. In order to imprison these Poles should they become rowdy, a camp was necessary: this would be Auschwitz. Auschwitz was deadly for non-Jewish Poles: some 80,000 died there. It became a watchword of terror among the Poles. But it had not yet attained its fully notorious status.
I must briefly rewind and dive a bit into Nazi Lebensraumpolitik. I hinted at it in the previous paragraph. The Nazis wanted Poland and the Soviet territories of the time for Lebensraum (living space). In order to have the space, the Poles and the Jews were to be kicked out of their homes. It was the intention of Heinrich Himmler, in his capacity as head of the SS and Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germandom, to establish a series of fortress-cities in which SS warrior-farmers would reside to till the soil and, if need be, fight the "hordes" of the East. Auschwitz (Oswiecim in Polish) was to be one such site. An entire SS city was planned. This also combined with two other important factors: Himmler's agricultural obsessions and German war industry. Himmler wanted the land around Auschwitz as a "Zone of Interest", to be completely controlled by the SS for experimental agricultural purposes. German industry, specifically the chemicals firm I.G. Farben, also expressed interest in the site, and a deal was struck between industry and the SS. An I.G. Farben plant, which was to produce Buna (synthetic rubber) for the war effort, was established in nearby Monowice.
In the meantime, Himmler ordered that Soviet prisoners of war were to work the agricultural and industrial areas in and around Auschwitz. He ordered the creation of a huge POW camp at a Polish village called Brzezinka, known to history as Birkenau. However, while the POWs were indeed sent to Birkenau, there were not enough of them, as the German army was systematically starving them on the Eastern Front (over three million Soviet POWs were killed, either summarily or by starvation, during the war). Someone needed to man the new camp built at Birkenau. Himmler decided that they would be Jews. In addition to the industry and agriculture, they would be set to work on the ideal SS-town which Auschwitz was meant to become. When Hitler's Operation Typhoon stalled before Moscow, and the German offensive with it (at least for the winter of 1941-42), Himmler's dream of deporting the Jews somewhere to the East died with it. So did his dream of the SS-town of Auschwitz. He lost interest. Auschwitz-Birkenau was to become the dumping ground of Jews and, eventually (although Himmler could not have foreseen it himself), the graveyard of European Jewry.
Two peasant cottages at the back of Birkenau were converted into provisional gas chambers. Jews from Upper Silesia and Slovakia became its victims. As the brief for the camp widened, huge crematoria/gas chambers (Crematoria II-V) were constructed. The Jews of the Reich (including what is now Austria and the Czech Republic), Slovakia, Upper Silesia, and France were the first victims. Most Polish Jews were actually murdered further east, in the camps of Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. When the Final Solution exploded into its final iteration, and was fed by a systematized operation of trains that covered the breadth of Europe, Auschwitz was ideally located. The Jews of Greece, Italy, and Yugoslavia were sent there. In 1944, there was only one last major population of Jews remaining: in Hungary. After the German occupation of Hungary, in March 1944, Adolf Eichmann swept into Budapest and orchestrated the mass deportation of the Jews of provincial Hungary. Some 400,000 were murdered in several weeks in the summer of 1944. It is Hungarian Jews that can be seen in the notorious Auschwitz Album, which shows Jews arriving in Birkenau, being unloaded from the trains, selected either for a brief, miserable life or death, and marched to the gas chambers, and finally awaiting their deaths right outside of the death houses themselves. (Also, conversely, one can see the Höcker Album, which shows SS officers, including Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and camp doctor Josef Mengele, at exactly the same historical moment, enjoying themselves at a resort not far from the camp). So many Jews were sent to Birkenau in the summer of 1944 that the crematoria could not keep up, and bodies had to be burned in an open field behind Crematorium V.
The Jews at Auschwitz-Birkenau were liberated by the Soviet Army on January 27, 1945, the date that later became Holocaust Memorial Day. As this 70th anniversary is commemorated, it behooves us to briefly reflect upon the context and sordid history of the place.
The main camp, the Stammlager, also known as Auschwitz I, lies some 2 plus miles down the road. If one didn't know any better, it could almost be a college campus. There are neat, orderly rows of brick buildings. Today they house a variety of exhibits (including mountains of human hair, suitcases, children's clothing, shoes) as well as the administrative offices of the museum. This was the first concentration camp established by the Nazis in Poland, in 1940 (although, at the time, it was technically annexed to the Reich and not part of Nazi-occupied Poland, otherwise known as the General Government). This is the location of the Arbeit Macht Frei gate, which many inaccurately believe was one of the last sights many of the Jews of Europe saw before they were murdered. This is not so. The vast majority of the Jews were killed down the road, in Birkenau, and never saw the Arbeit Macht Frei gate. Unfortunately, I don't think the museum does the best job in the world of differentiating between the two camps.
What was the origin of the camp? The Stammlager, which was the site of an unused army base, was established to concentrate Polish labor. The Nazis, having annexed Upper Silesia (the region in which Auschwitz is located) wanted to simply deport all of the Poles and move ethnic Germans in. However, they soon realized that they would need the Poles for their skilled manual labor. In order to imprison these Poles should they become rowdy, a camp was necessary: this would be Auschwitz. Auschwitz was deadly for non-Jewish Poles: some 80,000 died there. It became a watchword of terror among the Poles. But it had not yet attained its fully notorious status.
I must briefly rewind and dive a bit into Nazi Lebensraumpolitik. I hinted at it in the previous paragraph. The Nazis wanted Poland and the Soviet territories of the time for Lebensraum (living space). In order to have the space, the Poles and the Jews were to be kicked out of their homes. It was the intention of Heinrich Himmler, in his capacity as head of the SS and Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germandom, to establish a series of fortress-cities in which SS warrior-farmers would reside to till the soil and, if need be, fight the "hordes" of the East. Auschwitz (Oswiecim in Polish) was to be one such site. An entire SS city was planned. This also combined with two other important factors: Himmler's agricultural obsessions and German war industry. Himmler wanted the land around Auschwitz as a "Zone of Interest", to be completely controlled by the SS for experimental agricultural purposes. German industry, specifically the chemicals firm I.G. Farben, also expressed interest in the site, and a deal was struck between industry and the SS. An I.G. Farben plant, which was to produce Buna (synthetic rubber) for the war effort, was established in nearby Monowice.
In the meantime, Himmler ordered that Soviet prisoners of war were to work the agricultural and industrial areas in and around Auschwitz. He ordered the creation of a huge POW camp at a Polish village called Brzezinka, known to history as Birkenau. However, while the POWs were indeed sent to Birkenau, there were not enough of them, as the German army was systematically starving them on the Eastern Front (over three million Soviet POWs were killed, either summarily or by starvation, during the war). Someone needed to man the new camp built at Birkenau. Himmler decided that they would be Jews. In addition to the industry and agriculture, they would be set to work on the ideal SS-town which Auschwitz was meant to become. When Hitler's Operation Typhoon stalled before Moscow, and the German offensive with it (at least for the winter of 1941-42), Himmler's dream of deporting the Jews somewhere to the East died with it. So did his dream of the SS-town of Auschwitz. He lost interest. Auschwitz-Birkenau was to become the dumping ground of Jews and, eventually (although Himmler could not have foreseen it himself), the graveyard of European Jewry.
Two peasant cottages at the back of Birkenau were converted into provisional gas chambers. Jews from Upper Silesia and Slovakia became its victims. As the brief for the camp widened, huge crematoria/gas chambers (Crematoria II-V) were constructed. The Jews of the Reich (including what is now Austria and the Czech Republic), Slovakia, Upper Silesia, and France were the first victims. Most Polish Jews were actually murdered further east, in the camps of Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. When the Final Solution exploded into its final iteration, and was fed by a systematized operation of trains that covered the breadth of Europe, Auschwitz was ideally located. The Jews of Greece, Italy, and Yugoslavia were sent there. In 1944, there was only one last major population of Jews remaining: in Hungary. After the German occupation of Hungary, in March 1944, Adolf Eichmann swept into Budapest and orchestrated the mass deportation of the Jews of provincial Hungary. Some 400,000 were murdered in several weeks in the summer of 1944. It is Hungarian Jews that can be seen in the notorious Auschwitz Album, which shows Jews arriving in Birkenau, being unloaded from the trains, selected either for a brief, miserable life or death, and marched to the gas chambers, and finally awaiting their deaths right outside of the death houses themselves. (Also, conversely, one can see the Höcker Album, which shows SS officers, including Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and camp doctor Josef Mengele, at exactly the same historical moment, enjoying themselves at a resort not far from the camp). So many Jews were sent to Birkenau in the summer of 1944 that the crematoria could not keep up, and bodies had to be burned in an open field behind Crematorium V.
The Jews at Auschwitz-Birkenau were liberated by the Soviet Army on January 27, 1945, the date that later became Holocaust Memorial Day. As this 70th anniversary is commemorated, it behooves us to briefly reflect upon the context and sordid history of the place.
