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120-492: Khust was the capital of the short-lived republic of Carpatho-Ukraine . The name is most possibly related to the name of the stream Hustets or Husztica, which means "kerchief". It is also conceivable that the name of the city comes from a Romanian traditional food ingredient – husti. There are several alternative names used for this city: Ukrainian /: Хуст, Romanian : Hust , Hungarian : Huszt , Czech / Slovak : Chust , Yiddish : כוסט / Khist , German : Chust . There

240-605: A Hungarian takeover of Carpatho-Ukraine on the same day. The Chief of General Staff of Hungary Henrik Werth was asking for at least a week to prepare for the invasion, instead the Royal Council gave him only 12 hours to occupy Carpathian Ruthenia before declaration of Slovak independence. Responsible for preparation to the assault was appointed chief of Munkacs garrison Lajos Béldi who commanded 1st Mountain Brigade, while Lieutenant General Ferenc Szombathelyi (commander of

360-578: A car with a Red Cross symbol that carried the Zyklon B, as well as an SS doctor in case officers were poisoned by mistake. Inmates arriving at night, or who were too weak to walk, were taken by truck. Work on a new railway line and ramp (right) between sectors BI and BII in Auschwitz II, was completed in May 1944 for the arrival of Hungarian Jews between May and early July 1944. The rails led directly to

480-571: A crisis involving two factions, pro-Rusyn and pro-Ukrainian, leading to the resignation of Bródy's government on 26 October. The new regional government, headed by Avgustyn Voloshyn , adopted a pro-Ukrainian orientation and changed the region's name from "Subcarpathian Rus'" to "Carpathian Ukraine". On 22 November 1938 the Second Czechoslovak Republic adopted a "Constitutional Law on the Autonomy of Subcarpathian Rus'" (in

600-565: A finger into the water of the washbasin. Under the first is written: " So bist du rein " (like this you are clean), and under the second, " So gehst du ein " (like this you come to a bad end); and lower down, in doubtful French but in Gothic script: " La propreté, c'est la santé " [cleanliness is health]. Prisoners received half a litre of coffee substitute or a herbal tea in the morning, but no food. A second gong heralded roll call, when inmates lined up outside in rows of ten to be counted. No matter

720-606: A gas chamber in bunker 2, and a tour of the building site of Auschwitz III, the new IG Farben plant being constructed at Monowitz . Use of bunkers I and 2 stopped in spring 1943 when the new crematoria were built, although bunker 2 became operational again in May 1944 for the murder of the Hungarian Jews. Bunker I was demolished in 1943 and bunker 2 in November 1944. Plans for crematoria II and III show that both had an oven room 30 by 11.24 m (98.4 by 36.9 ft) on

840-409: A gassing facility; the windows had been bricked up and its four rooms converted into two insulated rooms, the doors of which said " Zur Desinfektion " ("to disinfection"). A second brick cottage, the "little white house" or bunker 2, was converted and operational by June 1942. When Himmler visited the camp on 17 and 18 July 1942, he was given a demonstration of a selection of Dutch Jews, a mass-murder in

960-591: A group of Soviet prisoners of war—took place around August 1941. By the end of that year, during what most historians regard as the first phase of the Holocaust, 500,000–800,000 Soviet Jews had been murdered in mass shootings by a combination of German Einsatzgruppen , ordinary German soldiers, and local collaborators. At the Wannsee Conference in Berlin on 20 January 1942, Reinhard Heydrich outlined

1080-549: A group of male prisoners arrived to set up an infirmary in October 1942, their first task, according to researchers from the Auschwitz Museum, was to distinguish the corpses from the women who were still alive. Gisella Perl , a Romanian-Jewish gynecologist and inmate of the women's camp, wrote in 1948: There was one latrine for thirty to thirty-two thousand women and we were permitted to use it only at certain hours of

1200-572: A letter on 12 July 1940, Höss told Glücks that the local population was "fanatically Polish, ready to undertake any sort of operation against the hated SS men". By the end of 1940, the SS had confiscated land around the camp to create a 40-square-kilometer (15 sq mi) "zone of interest" ( Interessengebiet ) patrolled by the SS, Gestapo and local police. By March 1941, 10,900 were imprisoned in the camp, most of them Poles. An inmate's first encounter with Auschwitz, if they were registered and not sent straight to

1320-550: A new women's camp ( Frauenkonzentrationslager or FKL) in Auschwitz II. This consisted at first of 15 brick and 15 wooden barracks in sector ( Bauabschnitt ) BIa; it was later extended into BIb, and by October 1943 it held 32,066 women. In 1943–1944, about 11,000 women were also housed in the Gypsy family camp , as were several thousand in the Theresienstadt family camp . Conditions in the women's camp were so poor that when

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1440-490: A provisional decree changing the region's name to "Carpathian Ukraine". That led to a peculiar terminological duality: in the Second Czechoslovak Republic's constitutional system, the region continued to be known as Subcarpathian Rus', whereas the region itself used the name "Carpathian Ukraine". In late September 1938, Hungary was ready to mobilize between 200,000 and 350,000 men on the Czechoslovak borders in case

1560-485: A railway station or at one of several dedicated trackside ramps, including one next to Auschwitz I. The Altejudenrampe (old Jewish ramp), part of the Oświęcim freight railway station, was used from 1942 to 1944 for Jewish transports. Located between Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II, arriving at this ramp meant a 2.5 km journey to Auschwitz II and the gas chambers. Most deportees were forced to walk, accompanied by SS men and

1680-492: A serial number, on their left breast for Soviet prisoners of war and on the left arm for civilians. Categories of prisoner were distinguishable by triangular pieces of cloth (German: Winkel ) sewn onto on their jackets below their prisoner number. Political prisoners (Schutzhäftlinge or Sch), mostly Poles, had a red triangle, while criminals ( Berufsverbrecher or BV) were mostly German and wore green. Asocial prisoners ( Asoziale or Aso), which included vagrants, prostitutes and

1800-478: A series of political reforms were initiated, leading to the creation of a Second Czechoslovak Republic , comprising three autonomous political entities, including an autonomous Slovakia and an autonomous Subcarpathian Rus' (in the Rusyn language , Підкарпатьска Русь ). The first local government of autonomous Subcarpathian Rus', appointed on 11 October 1938, was headed by Prime Minister Andrej Bródy . There ensued

1920-519: A telegraph wire, so close together that we could not help soiling one another. Langefeld was succeeded as Lagerführerin in October 1942 by SS Oberaufseherin Maria Mandl , who developed a reputation for cruelty. Höss hired men to oversee the female supervisors, first SS Obersturmführer Paul Müller, then SS Hauptsturmführer Franz Hössler . Mandl and Hössler were executed after the war. Sterilisation experiments were carried out in barracks 30 by

2040-440: A thousand people were crammed into the superimposed compartments of each barracks. Unable to stretch out completely, they slept there both lengthwise and crosswise, with one man's feet on another's head, neck, or chest. Stripped of all human dignity, they pushed and shoved and bit and kicked each other in an effort to get a few more inches' space on which to sleep a little more comfortably. For they did not have long to sleep. Sunday

2160-733: A time, the Sonderkommando were able to burn some 8,000 bodies a day. This maximum capacity was rarely needed; the average between 1942 and 1944 was 1,000 bodies burned every day. After examining several sites for a new plant to manufacture Buna-N , a type of synthetic rubber essential to the war effort, the German chemical conglomerate IG Farben chose a site near the towns of Dwory and Monowice (Monowitz in German), about 7 km (4.3 mi) east of Auschwitz I. Tax exemptions were available to corporations prepared to develop industries in

2280-476: A transport of Polish Jews from Silesia and Zagłębie Dąbrowskie was taken straight from the station to the Auschwitz II gas chamber, which had just come into operation. On 26 and 28 March, two transports of Slovakian Jews were registered as prisoners in the women's camp , where they were kept for slave labour; these were the first transports organized by Adolf Eichmann 's department IV B4 (the Jewish office) in

2400-598: A well-organized and centralized resistance. The Hungarian Army also had the advantage of the First Vienna Award , which made it possible for the Hungarians to take possession of the area where the Czechs built their permanent fortifications against Hungary. On 16 March 1939, Hungary formally annexed the territory. Prime Minister Yulian Révaý had resisted the Hungarians until then. In the night to 17 March,

2520-550: Is also a fairy tale about the town's name: Once a chort (demon) was walking around the town and then a mountain appeared. A moment later, it fell on his tail. He shouted, Hvust (Transcarpathian dialect, "Хвіст" in Ukrainian, tail in English). Another chort heard "Khust"... In that way, the name of the town was formed. The settlement was first mentioned as terra Huzth , in 1324. Its castle , supposed to be built in 1090 by

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2640-435: Is not drinkable; it has a revolting smell and often fails for many hours. The walls are covered by curious didactic frescoes : for example, there is the good Häftling [prisoner], portrayed stripped to the waist, about to diligently soap his sheared and rosy cranium, and the bad Häftling, with a strong Semitic nose and a greenish colour, bundled up in his ostentatiously stained clothes with a beret on his head, who cautiously dips

2760-508: Is to be rebuilt to hold approximately 30,000." Construction of Auschwitz II-Birkenau—called a Kriegsgefangenenlager (prisoner-of-war camp) on blueprints—began in October 1941 in Brzezinka , about three kilometers from Auschwitz I. The initial plan was that Auschwitz II would consist of four sectors (Bauabschnitte I–IV), each consisting of six subcamps (BIIa–BIIf) with their own gates and fences. The first two sectors were completed (sector BI

2880-528: The Schutzstaffel (SS) converted Auschwitz I, an army barracks, into a prisoner-of-war camp . The initial transport of political detainees to Auschwitz consisted almost solely of Poles (for whom the camp was initially established). For the first two years, the majority of inmates were Polish. In May 1940, German criminals brought to the camp as functionaries established the camp's reputation for sadism. Prisoners were beaten, tortured, and executed for

3000-606: The 1st Ukrainian Front of the Red Army . Several other German industrial enterprises, such as Krupp and Siemens-Schuckert , built factories with their own subcamps. There were around 28 camps near industrial plants, each camp holding hundreds or thousands of prisoners. Designated as Aussenlager (external camp), Nebenlager (extension camp), Arbeitslager (labor camp), or Aussenkommando (external work detail), camps were built at Blechhammer , Jawiszowice , Jaworzno , Lagisze , Mysłowice , Trzebinia , and as far afield as

3120-602: The Carpathian Sich , without additional support, were quickly routed. The greatest battle between the Hungarian army and several hundreds Ukrainian soldiers (armed with light machine guns, rifles, hand grenades and pistols) took place near Khust . About 230 Ukrainians died in the battle. Czecho-Slovak resistance in Carpatho-Ukraine was negligible, and the advancing Hungarian troops did not have to face

3240-474: The Czech language , Ústavní zákon o autonomii Podkarpatské Rusi ), officially reaffirming the self-determination rights of the " Rusyn people " ( preamble ) and confirming the full administrative and political autonomy of Subcarpathian Rus', with its own assembly and government. This was seen as showing the central government's support for the pro-Rusyn faction. On 30 December 1938 the regional government issued

3360-658: The Final Solution to the Jewish Question to senior Nazis, and from early 1942 freight trains delivered Jews from all over occupied Europe to German extermination camps in Poland: Auschwitz, Bełżec , Chełmno , Majdanek , Sobibór , and Treblinka . Most prisoners were gassed on arrival. A former World War I camp for transient workers and later a Polish army barracks, Auschwitz I was the main camp ( Stammlager ) and administrative headquarters of

3480-624: The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in Czechoslovakia. Industries with satellite camps included coal mines, foundries and other metal works, and chemical plants. Prisoners were also made to work in forestry and farming. For example, Wirtschaftshof Budy , in the Polish village of Budy near Brzeszcze , was a farming subcamp where prisoners worked 12-hour days in the fields, tending animals, and making compost by mixing human ashes from

3600-673: The Red Army and the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs started to obstruct the delegation's work and finally a puppet "National Committee of Transcarpatho-Ukraine" was set up in Mukachevo under the protection of the Red Army. On 26 November this committee, led by Ivan Ivanovich Turyanitsa, a Rusyn who had deserted from the Czechoslovak army , proclaimed the "will of Ukrainian people" to separate from Czechoslovakia and to join

3720-739: The Reich Security Head Office (RSHA). On 30 March the first RHSA transport arrived from France. "Selection", where new arrivals were chosen for work or the gas chamber, began in April 1942 and was conducted regularly from July. Piper writes that this reflected Germany's increasing need for labour. Those selected as unfit for work were gassed without being registered as prisoners. There is also disagreement about how many were gassed in Auschwitz I. Perry Broad , an SS-Unterscharführer , wrote that "transport after transport vanished in

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3840-935: The Reichstag passed the Nuremberg Laws . One, the Reich Citizenship Law , defined as citizens those of "German or related blood who demonstrate by their behaviour that they are willing and suitable to serve the German People and Reich faithfully", and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor prohibited marriage and extramarital relations between those with "German or related blood" and Jews. When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, triggering World War II, Hitler ordered that

3960-582: The Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg , Germany, to inspect it. Around 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) long and 400 metres (1,300 ft) wide, Auschwitz consisted at the time of 22 brick buildings, eight of them two-story. A second story was added to the others in 1943 and eight new blocks were built. Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler , head of the SS , approved the site in April 1940 on

4080-707: The Slovak proclamation of independence on March 14 and the Nazis' seizure of Czech lands on 15 March, Carpatho-Ukraine declared its independence as the Republic of Carpatho-Ukraine, with the Reverend Avgustyn Voloshyn as head of state. . Voloshin was now supported by the population of Subcarpathia. The First Constitutional Law of Carpatho-Ukraine of 15 March 1939 defined the new country as follows: The proclaimed Carpatho-Ukrainian government

4200-490: The Star of David , overlaid by a second triangle if they also belonged to a second category. The nationality of the inmate was indicated by a letter stitched onto the cloth. A racial hierarchy existed, with German prisoners at the top. Next were non-Jewish prisoners from other countries. Jewish prisoners were at the bottom. Deportees were brought to Auschwitz crammed in wretched conditions into goods or cattle wagons, arriving near

4320-673: The Treaty of Trianon and the restoration of her historical borders. On 2 November 1938 the First Vienna Award separated territories from Czechoslovakia , including southern Carpathian Rus' , that were mostly Hungarian -populated and returned them to Hungary . After the breakup of the Second Czechoslovak Republic , Carpatho-Ukraine on 15 March 1939 proclaimed itself an independent republic, headed by President Avgustyn Voloshyn , who appealed to Hitler for recognition and support. Nazi Germany did not reply, and

4440-517: The Ukrainian SSR . Oblast of Ukraine . Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( German : Konzentrationslager Auschwitz , pronounced [kɔntsɛntʁaˈtsi̯oːnsˌlaːɡɐ ˈʔaʊʃvɪts] ; also KL Auschwitz or KZ Auschwitz ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and

4560-559: The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic . After two months of conflict and unsuccessful negotiations the Czechoslovak government delegation departed Khust on 1 February 1945 , leaving Carpatho-Ukraine under Soviet control. The Soviet Union exerted pressure on Czechoslovakia, and on 29 June 1945, the two countries signed a treaty, officially ceding Carpatho-Ruthenia to the USSR. In 1946, the area became part of

4680-603: The " Jewish question ". Both during and immediately after the Nazi seizure of power in Germany in 1933, acts of violence against German Jews became ubiquitous, and legislation was passed excluding them from certain professions, including the civil service and the law. Harassment and economic pressure encouraged Jews to leave Germany ; their businesses were denied access to markets, forbidden from advertising in newspapers, and deprived of government contracts. On 15 September 1935,

4800-681: The 1920 constitution . Annexed by Nazi Germany . ČSR; included the autonomous regions of Slovakia and Subcarpathian Ruthenia. Annexed by Hungary (1939–1945). ČSR; declared a "people's democracy" (without a formal name change) under the Ninth-of-May Constitution following the 1948 coup . ČSSR; from 1969, after the Prague Spring , consisted of the Czech Socialist Republic (ČSR) and Slovak Socialist Republic (SSR). Oblast of

4920-693: The 8th Corps in Kassa) was placed in charge of the Carpathian Group as an expeditionary force. The available Hungarian forces consisted of an infantry regiment, two cavalry regiments, three infantry battalions on bicycles, one motorized battalion, two border guard battalions, one artillery battalion and two armored trains. These forces were counting for more than two World War II divisions. They were supported by Fiat CR.32 fighter aircraft amounting to one regiment. In addition to regular units, Hungarians were also aided by several irregular formations such as

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5040-725: The Auschwitz II Sonderkommando , who had been forced to dig up and burn the remains of that camp's mass graves, thought to hold over 100,000 corpses. After visiting Auschwitz I in March 1941, it appears that Himmler ordered that the camp be expanded, although Peter Hayes notes that, on 10 January 1941, the Polish underground told the Polish government-in-exile in London: "the Auschwitz concentration camp ...can accommodate approximately 7,000 prisoners at present, and

5160-520: The Auschwitz [I] crematorium." In the view of Filip Müller , one of the Auschwitz I Sonderkommando , tens of thousands of Jews were murdered there from France, Holland, Slovakia, Upper Silesia, and Yugoslavia, and from the Theresienstadt , Ciechanow , and Grodno ghettos. Against this, Jean-Claude Pressac estimated that up to 10,000 people had been murdered in Auschwitz I. The last inmates gassed there, in December 1942, were around 400 members of

5280-637: The Czechoslovak question could not be solved on diplomatic level, in favor of the Hungarian territorial claims. After the Munich Agreement the Hungarian Army had remained poised threateningly on the Czechoslovak border. They reportedly had artillery ammunition for only 36 hours of operations, and were clearly engaged in a bluff, but it was a bluff the Germans had encouraged, and one that they would have been obliged to support militarily if

5400-609: The Holocaust . It consisted of Auschwitz I , the main camp ( Stammlager ) in Oświęcim ; Auschwitz II-Birkenau , a concentration and extermination camp with gas chambers ; Auschwitz III-Monowitz , a labour camp for the chemical conglomerate IG Farben ; and dozens of subcamps . The camps became a major site of the Nazis' Final Solution to the Jewish question . After Germany initiated World War II by invading Poland in September 1939,

5520-609: The Hungarian ambassador in Berlin transferred a message to the German government in case of the German occupation of the Czech lands and the declaration of Slovak independence Hungary will occupy the rest of Carpathian Ruthenia, regardless of German approval. On March 11, the German ambassador in Budapest outlined in the German Government's response if Hungary will maintain and uphold the economic contracts with Germany, respect

5640-497: The Monowitz concentration camp, it was the first concentration camp to be financed and built by private industry. Measuring 270 m × 490 m (890 ft × 1,610 ft), the camp was larger than Auschwitz I. By the end of 1944, it housed 60 barracks measuring 17.5 m × 8 m (57 ft × 26 ft), each with a day room and a sleeping room containing 56 three-tiered wooden bunks. IG Farben paid

5760-546: The Polish leadership and intelligentsia be destroyed. The area around Auschwitz was annexed to the German Reich , as part of first Gau Silesia and from 1941 Gau Upper Silesia . The camp at Auschwitz was established in April 1940, at first as a quarantine camp for Polish political prisoners. On 22 June 1941, in an attempt to obtain new territory, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union . The first gassing at Auschwitz—of

5880-524: The Prague government in protecting their interests stirred Slovak and Ukrainian nationalism further. On 6 January 1939 Czechoslovak troops ordered by general Lev Prchala performed a surprise attack on the city of Munkács (now Mukacheve ), in which the Carpathian Sich were as well involved, but the Rongyos Gárda with the help of the local police pushed them back. After this incident Döme Sztójay ,

6000-626: The Reich, or he would allow the Hungarians to take over the country – whom Ribbentrop reported were massing at the border. During the afternoon and night of 14 March, the Slovak parliament proclaimed independence from Czecho-Slovakia, and at 05:00 on 15 March 1939, Hitler declared the unrest in Czecho-Slovakia to be a threat to German national security. He sent his troops into Bohemia and Moravia , meeting virtually no resistance. Following

6120-406: The Roma, wore black. Purple was for Jehovah's Witnesses ( Internationale Bibelforscher-Vereinigung or IBV)'s and pink for gay men, who were mostly German. An estimated 5,000–15,000 gay men prosecuted under German Penal Code Section 175 (proscribing sexual acts between men) were detained in concentration camps, of whom an unknown number were sent to Auschwitz. Jews wore a yellow badge , the shape of

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6240-523: The Rongyos Gárda and black-shirt guards of István Fenczik , who has been accused earlier as a Magyaron by the Volosin-cabinet. The Hungarian Border Guard units stationed around Munkács, after throwing back the attacking Czecho-Slovak units on 14 March 1939 , pressed forward in turn, and took the town of Őrhegyalja (today Pidhoriany as part of Mukachevo ). On 15 March 1939, the Hungarian Army regular troops invaded Carpatho-Ukraine and by nightfall reached Szolyva. The Carpatho-Ukrainian irregular troops,

6360-404: The SS ordered that the site be evacuated, sending 9,000 inmates, most of them Jews, on a death march to another Auschwitz subcamp at Gliwice . From Gliwice, prisoners were taken by rail in open freight wagons to the Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration camps. The 800 inmates who had been left behind in the Monowitz hospital were liberated along with the rest of the camp on 27 January 1945 by

6480-850: The SS personnel, were members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände ( death's head units). Other SS staff worked in the medical or political departments, or in the economic administration, which was responsible for clothing and other supplies, including the property of dead prisoners. The SS viewed Auschwitz as a comfortable posting; being there meant they had avoided the front and had access to the victims' property. Certain prisoners, at first non-Jewish Germans but later Jews and non-Jewish Poles, were assigned positions of authority as Funktionshäftlinge (functionaries), which gave them access to better housing and food. The Lagerprominenz (camp elite) included Blockschreiber (barracks clerk), Kapo (overseer), Stubendienst (barracks orderly), and Kommandierte (trusties). Wielding tremendous power over other prisoners,

6600-408: The SS three or four Reichsmark for nine- to eleven-hour shifts from each worker. In 1943–1944, about 35,000 inmates worked at the plant; 23,000 (32 a day on average) were killed through malnutrition, disease, and the workload. Within three to four months at the camp, Peter Hayes writes, the inmates were "reduced to walking skeletons". Deaths and transfers to the gas chambers at Auschwitz II reduced

6720-584: The Slovak votes, and a one-party state was instituted. Slovak autonomy was formalized by the Prague parliament on 19 November, and to symbolize this new Slovak assertiveness, the country's name was then altered to Czecho-Slovakia. Carpatho-Ukraine was also given autonomy. The Arbitration of Vienna fully satisfied nobody, and there followed 22 border clashes between 2 November 1938 and 12 January 1939 , during which five Czechoslovaks were killed and six were wounded. The Slovak national militia Hlinka Guard participated in these clashes. The ineffectiveness of

6840-414: The Ukrainian SSR as the Zakarpattia Oblast . The Soim of Carpatho-Ukraine was established on 12 February 1939 by the Czechoslovakian constitutional act of 22 November 1938 . It consisted of 32 representatives with 29 Ukrainians and three of national minorities. There was only a single session of the parliament that took place on 15 March 1939 in Khust. At the session the parliament approved

6960-399: The United Kingdom rejected participation of no interest. This led to the First Vienna Award . The agreed border line returned 11,927 square km to Hungary. A census in mid-December found 1,041,401 inhabitants in the reannexed territory, of whom 879,0007 (84.4%) were Hungarians and 123,864 (11.9%) were Slovaks. On 8 November 1938, the Slovak National Unity Party received 97.5 percent of

7080-464: The absentee was found or the reason for the absence discovered, even if it took hours. On 6 July 1940, roll call lasted 19 hours because a Polish prisoner, Tadeusz Wiejowski , had escaped; following an escape in 1941, a group of prisoners was picked out from the escapee's barracks and sent to block 11 to be starved to death. After roll call, prisoners retired to their blocks for the night and received their bread rations. Then they had some free time to use

7200-541: The area around the gas chambers. The day began at 4:30 am for the men (an hour later in winter), and earlier for the women, when the block supervisor sounded a gong and started beating inmates with sticks to make them wash and use the latrines quickly. There were few latrines and there was a lack of clean water. Each washhouse had to service thousands of prisoners. In sectors BIa and BIb in Auschwitz II, two buildings containing latrines and washrooms were installed in 1943. These contained troughs for washing and 90 faucets;

7320-425: The border, while some 500-600 were executed by Polish soldiers. The last resistance in the Carpathian mountains was taken out on 18 March. The invasion campaign was a success, but it also proved that the Hungarian Army was not yet ready for full war. The handicaps imposed by the Trianon Treaty were clearly visible, but the morale and nationalist spirit of the soldiers and the civilian populations were high , which

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7440-409: The camp be established. Living with his wife and children in a two-story stucco house near the commandant's and administration building, he served as commandant until 11 November 1943, with Josef Kramer as his deputy. Succeeded as commandant by Arthur Liebehenschel , Höss joined the SS Business and Administration Head Office in Oranienburg as director of Amt DI, a post that made him deputy of

7560-520: The camp became a dominant symbol of the Holocaust. In 1947, Poland founded the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum on the site of Auschwitz I and II, and in 1979 it was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO . Auschwitz is the site of the largest mass murder in a single location in history. The ideology of Nazism combined elements of " racial hygiene ", eugenics , antisemitism , pan-Germanism , and territorial expansionism, Richard J. Evans writes. Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party became obsessed by

7680-439: The camp complex. Fifty kilometres (31 mi) southwest of Kraków , the site was first suggested in February 1940 as a quarantine camp for Polish prisoners by Arpad Wigand , the inspector of the Sicherheitspolizei (security police) and deputy of Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski , the Higher SS and Police Leader for Silesia. Richard Glücks , head of the Concentration Camps Inspectorate , sent Walter Eisfeld , former commandant of

7800-459: The camp, including with the SS. Nevertheless, their life expectancy was short; they were regularly murdered and replaced. About 100 survived to the camp's liquidation. They were forced on a death march and by train to the camp at Mauthausen , where three days later they were asked to step forward during roll call. No one did, and because the SS did not have their records, several of them survived. Uniquely at Auschwitz, prisoners were tattooed with

7920-477: The camp. Only two Jewish calendars made in Auschwitz survived to the end of the war. Prisoners kept track of the days in other ways, such as obtaining information from newcomers. About 30 percent of the registered inmates were female. The first mass transport of women, 999 non-Jewish German women from the Ravensbrück concentration camp , arrived on 26 March 1942. Classified as criminal, asocial and political, they were brought to Auschwitz as founder functionaries of

8040-447: The camps inspectorate. Richard Baer became commandant of Auschwitz I on 11 May 1944 and Fritz Hartjenstein of Auschwitz II from 22 November 1943, followed by Josef Kramer from 15 May 1944 until the camp's liquidation in January 1945. Heinrich Schwarz was commandant of Auschwitz III from the point at which it became an autonomous camp in November 1943 until its liquidation. Höss returned to Auschwitz between 8 May and 29 July 1944 as

8160-412: The ceiling to resemble showerheads. The daily capacity of the crematoria (how many bodies could be burned in a 24-hour period) was 340 corpses in crematorium I; 1,440 each in crematoria II and III; and 768 each in IV and V. By June 1943 all four crematoria were operational, but crematorium I was not used after July 1943. This made the total daily capacity 4,416, although by loading three to five corpses at

8280-455: The ceiling. Historians have disagreed about the date the all-Jewish transports began arriving in Auschwitz. At the Wannsee Conference in Berlin on 20 January 1942, the Nazi leadership outlined, in euphemistic language, its plans for the Final Solution . According to Franciszek Piper , the Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss offered inconsistent accounts after the war, suggesting the extermination began in December 1941, January 1942, or before

8400-557: The city, and annexed it into the Soviet Union. The Soviet government deported much of the city's German and Hungarian populations. Prior to 1939, Jews thrived in Khust and owned many businesses. When the city became part of Hungary in March 1939 again, many Jewish citizens were forced into labor camps. A ghetto was established, and Jews from other regions were forced to live there. Additional ghettos were established nearby in Iza and Szeklence (now Sokyrnytsia, Ukraine ). By April 1944, most Jewish residents were killed at Auschwitz . Prior to

8520-576: The city, as part of newly formed Podkarpatsko ("under the Carpathians") region (Subcarpathia). Czechoslovakia had to provide the region a wide autonomy, but autonomy was realised only in 1938. In Autumn 1938 an autonomous government was organised. The day after the collapse of Czechoslovakia on 14 March 1939, the Khust city government proclaimed, by the will of the local population, independence as Carpathian Ukraine on 15 March 1939. The next day, 16 March 1939, Hungarian troops invaded Khust and claimed it as part of Hungary. On 24 October 1944 Soviet troops occupied

8640-477: The crematoria with sod and manure. Incidents of sabotage to decrease production took place in several subcamps, including Charlottengrube, Gleiwitz II , and Rajsko . Living conditions in some of the camps were so poor that they were regarded as punishment subcamps. Rudolf Höss , born in Baden-Baden in 1900, was named the first commandant of Auschwitz when Heinrich Himmler ordered on 27 April 1940 that

8760-465: The day. We stood in line to get in to this tiny building, knee-deep in human excrement. As we all suffered from dysentry, we could barely wait until our turn came, and soiled our ragged clothes, which never came off our bodies, thus adding to the horror of our existence by the terrible smell that surrounded us like a cloud. The latrine consisted of a deep ditch with planks thrown across it at certain intervals. We squatted on those planks like birds perched on

8880-499: The end of June or beginning of July 1940. Initially intended not for mass murder but for prisoners who had been executed or had otherwise died in the camp, the crematorium was in operation from August 1940 until July 1943, by which time the crematoria at Auschwitz II had taken over. By May 1942 three ovens had been installed in crematorium I, which together could burn 340 bodies in 24 hours. The first experimental gassing took place around August 1941, when Lagerführer Karl Fritzsch , at

9000-404: The end of the war, the SS sent most of the camp's population west on a death march to camps inside Germany and Austria. Soviet troops entered the camp on 27 January 1945, a day commemorated since 2005 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day . In the decades after the war, survivors such as Primo Levi , Viktor Frankl , Elie Wiesel , and Edith Eger wrote memoirs of their experiences, and

9120-422: The establishment of the women's camp in March 1942. In Kommandant in Auschwitz , he wrote: "In the spring of 1942 the first transports of Jews, all earmarked for extermination, arrived from Upper Silesia." On 15 February 1942, according to Danuta Czech , a transport of Jews from Beuthen, Upper Silesia ( Bytom , Poland), arrived at Auschwitz I and was sent straight to the gas chamber. In 1998 an eyewitness said

9240-421: The factory; and that Auschwitz prisoners be used in the construction work. Auschwitz inmates began working at the plant, known as Buna Werke and IG-Auschwitz, in April 1941, demolishing houses in Monowitz to make way for it. By May, because of a shortage of trucks, several hundred of them were rising at 3 am to walk there twice a day from Auschwitz I. Because a long line of exhausted inmates walking through

9360-509: The frontier regions under the Eastern Fiscal Assistance Law, passed in December 1940. In addition to its proximity to the concentration camp, a source of cheap labour, the site had good railway connections and access to raw materials. In February 1941, Himmler ordered that the Jewish population of Oświęcim be expelled to make way for skilled laborers; that all Poles able to work remain in the town and work on building

9480-524: The functionaries developed a reputation as sadists. Very few were prosecuted after the war, because of the difficulty of determining which atrocities had been performed by order of the SS. Although the SS oversaw the murders at each gas chamber, the forced labor portion of the work was done by prisoners known from 1942 as the Sonderkommando (special squad). These were mostly Jews but they included groups such as Soviet POWs. In 1940–1941 when there

9600-620: The gas chamber, was at the prisoner reception centre near the gate with the Arbeit macht frei sign, where they were tattooed, shaved, disinfected, and given a striped prison uniform. Built between 1942 and 1944, the center contained a bathhouse, laundry, and 19 gas chambers for delousing clothing. The prisoner reception center of Auschwitz I became the visitor reception center of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum . Construction of crematorium I began at Auschwitz I at

9720-535: The gas chambers, launched an unsuccessful uprising. After the Holocaust ended, only 789 Schutzstaffel personnel (no more than 15 percent) ever stood trial. Several were executed, including camp commandant Rudolf Höss . The Allies ' failure to act on early reports of mass murder by bombing the camp or its railways remains controversial. As the Soviet Red Army approached Auschwitz in January 1945, toward

9840-434: The ground floor, and an underground dressing room 49.43 by 7.93 m (162.2 by 26.0 ft) and gas chamber 30 by 7 m (98 by 23 ft). The dressing rooms had wooden benches along the walls and numbered pegs for clothing. Victims would be led from these rooms to a five-yard-long narrow corridor, which in turn led to a space from which the gas chamber door opened. The chambers were white inside, and nozzles were fixed to

9960-574: The higher number is probably attributable to the logistics of evacuating the camp. Female guards were known as SS supervisors ( SS-Aufseherinnen ). Most of the staff were from Germany or Austria, but as the war progressed, increasing numbers of Volksdeutsche from other countries, including Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, and the Baltic states, joined the SS at Auschwitz. Not all were ethnically German. Guards were also recruited from Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. Camp guards, around three quarters of

10080-569: The independence of Transylvania was proclaimed here. It was the last castle the Habsburgs occupied when suppressing the freedom fight of the Kurucs, in 1711. The seriously damaged castle was struck by lightning and burnt down on 3 July 1766; a storm brought down its tower in 1798, it has been in ruins ever since then. Khust was renamed as Csebreny in 1882 during Magyarization process. In 1861, Rabbi Moshe Schick , established what was, at that time,

10200-416: The instruction of Rudolf Höss, murdered a group of Soviet prisoners of war by throwing Zyklon B crystals into their basement cell in block 11 of Auschwitz I. A second group of 600 Soviet prisoners of war and around 250 sick Polish prisoners were gassed on 3–5 September. The morgue was later converted to a gas chamber able to hold at least 700–800 people. Zyklon B was dropped into the room through slits in

10320-550: The king St. Ladislaus of Hungary as a defence against the Cumans and destroyed during the Mongol invasion of Hungary, was mentioned in 1353. The town got privileges in 1329. In 1458 King Matthias imprisoned his uncle, the rebellious Mihály Szilágyi in the castle. In 1514, during György Dózsa 's peasant revolt local peasants captured the castle. In 1526 the area became a part of Transylvania . The army of Ferdinand I captured

10440-570: The largest yeshiva in the world, with over 800 students. In 1910 Khust had 10,292 citizens, 5,230 Ukrainians, 3,505 Hungarians and 1,535 Germans . Until the Treaty of Trianon it belonged to Hungary and was the seat of the Khust district of Máramaros county. After World War I, in summer 1919 the Rumanian troops took over the territory. But according to the St.-Germain treaty Czechoslovakia received

10560-452: The last Czecho-Slovak troops left Khust and retreated to Romanian borders. They and the one-day president of Carpatho-Ukraine, Voloshyn, fled to Romania. The Royal Hungarian Army continued their advance, pushing forward at top speed, and reached the Polish border on 17 March. Those Sich members who came from the province of Galicia as Polish citizens were captured by the Hungarians and handed over to Polish soldiers for illegally crossing

10680-697: The local SS garrison commander ( Standortältester ) to oversee the arrival of Hungary's Jews, which made him the superior officer of all the commandants of the Auschwitz camps. According to Aleksander Lasik , about 6,335 people (6,161 of them men) worked for the SS at Auschwitz over the course of the camp's existence; 4.2 percent were officers, 26.1 percent non-commissioned officers, and 69.7 percent rank and file. In March 1941, there were 700 SS guards; in June 1942, 2,000; and in August 1944, 3,342. At its peak in January 1945, 4,480 SS men and 71 SS women worked in Auschwitz;

10800-627: The minimum space needed to exist". The prisoners were forced to live in the barracks as they were building them; in addition to working, they faced long roll calls at night. As a result, most prisoners in BIb (the men's camp) in the early months died of hypothermia , starvation or exhaustion within a few weeks. Some 10,000 Soviet prisoners of war arrived at Auschwitz I between 7 and 25 October 1941, but by 1 March 1942 only 945 were still registered; they were transferred to Auschwitz II, where most of them had died by May. The first gas chamber at Auschwitz II

10920-892: The most trivial of reasons. The first gassings —of Soviet and Polish prisoners—took place in block 11 of Auschwitz I around August 1941. Construction of Auschwitz II began the following month, and from 1942 until late 1944 freight trains delivered Jews from all over German-occupied Europe to its gas chambers. Of the 1.3 million people sent to Auschwitz, 1.1 million were murdered. The number of victims includes 960,000 Jews (865,000 of whom were gassed on arrival), 74,000 non-Jewish Poles , 21,000 Romani , 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war , and up to 15,000 others. Those not gassed were murdered via starvation, exhaustion, disease, individual executions, or beatings. Others were killed during medical experiments . At least 802 prisoners tried to escape, 144 successfully, and on 7 October 1944 , two Sonderkommando units, consisting of prisoners who operated

11040-562: The much larger, better trained and better equipped Czechoslovak Army chose to fight. The Czechoslovak army had built 2,000 small concrete emplacements along the border in places where rivers did not serve as natural obstacles. The Hungarian minister of the interior, Miklós Kozma , had been born in Subcarpathia, and in mid-1938 his ministry armed the Rongyos Gárda ('Ragged Guard'), which began to infiltrate guerillas along

11160-459: The population by nearly a fifth each month. Site managers constantly threatened inmates with the gas chambers, and the smell from the crematoria at Auschwitz I and II hung heavy over the camp. Although the factory had been expected to begin production in 1943, shortages of labour and raw materials meant start-up was postponed repeatedly. The Allies bombed the plant in 1944 on 20 August, 13 September, 18 December, and 26 December. On 19 January 1945,

11280-562: The proclamation of the sovereignty of Carpatho-Ukraine, adopted its Constitution, elected the president, and confirmed the new government of Julian Révaý. The head of the Soim became Augustin Štefan with his deputies, Fedir Révaý and Stepan Rosokha . The presidium of the Soim emigrated out of the country following the invasion of Carpatho-Ukraine by the Hungarian Armed Forces . ČSR; boundaries and government established by

11400-517: The recommendation of SS- Obersturmbannführer Rudolf Höss of the camps inspectorate. Höss oversaw the development of the camp and served as its first commandant. The first 30 prisoners arrived on 20 May 1940 from the Sachsenhausen camp. German "career criminals" ( Berufsverbrecher ), the men were known as "greens" ( Grünen ) after the green triangles on their prison clothing. Brought to the camp as functionaries, this group did much to establish

11520-528: The rest of western Ukraine. Control of Carpathian Ruthenia thus "nominally" reverted to Czechoslovakia. The delegation of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile , led by minister František Němec, arrived in Khust to establish the provisional Czechoslovak administration, according to the treaties between the Soviet and Czechoslovak government that year. However, after just a few weeks, for reasons that remain unclear,

11640-807: The rights of the local Germans and would not persecute the members of the Volosin Cabinet, then in case of the proclamation of an independent Carpatho-Ukraine would be acquiescent regarding the Hungarian plans. Slovak and Ukrainian nationalism grew more intense. On 10 March, the Hlinka Guard and Volksdeutsche demonstrated, demanding independence from Czecho-Slovakia. In the evening of 13 March, Slovak leader Jozef Tiso and Ďurčanský met Adolf Hitler , Joachim von Ribbentrop , and Generals Walther von Brauchitsch and Wilhelm Keitel in Berlin. Hitler made it absolutely clear: Slovakia could either declare independence immediately and associate itself with

11760-514: The sadism of early camp life, which was directed particularly at Polish inmates, until the political prisoners took over their roles. Bruno Brodniewicz , the first prisoner (who was given serial number 1), became Lagerälteste (camp elder). The others were given positions such as kapo and block supervisor. The first mass transport—of 728 Polish male political prisoners, including Catholic priests and Jews—arrived on 14 June 1940 from Tarnów , Poland. They were given serial numbers 31 to 758. In

11880-594: The same day. According to Danuta Czech , this was the first registered transport sent to Auschwitz by the Reich Security Head Office (RSHA) office IV B4, known as the Jewish Office, led by SS Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann . (Office IV was the Gestapo .) A third transport of 798 Jewish women from Bratislava , Slovakia, followed on 28 March. Women were at first held in blocks 1–10 of Auschwitz I, but from 6 August 1942, 13,000 inmates were transferred to

12000-752: The short-lived state was invaded by the Kingdom of Hungary , crushing all local resistance by 18 March 1939. The region remained under Hungarian control until the end of World War II in Europe , after which it was occupied and annexed by the Soviet Union . The territory is now administered as the Ukrainian Zakarpattia Oblast . Soon after the implementation of the Munich Agreement , signed on 30 September 1938, by which Czechoslovakia lost much of its border region to Nazi Germany ,

12120-474: The sound of " Arbeitskommandos formieren " ("form work details"), prisoners walked to their place of work, five abreast, to begin a working day that was normally 11 hours long—longer in summer and shorter in winter. A prison orchestra, such as the Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz , was forced to play cheerful music as the workers left the camp. Kapos were responsible for the prisoners' behaviour while they worked, as

12240-531: The southern borders of Czechoslovakia; into Slovakia and Subcarpathia. The situation was now verging on open war, which might set the whole of Europe ablaze again. The appendix of the Munich Agreement concluded Czechoslovakia and Hungary should arrange their disputes by mutual negotiations, which could not achieve a final agreement, so the Hungarian and the Czechoslovak governments accepted the German-Italian Arbitration of Vienna as France and

12360-526: The toilet facilities were "sewage channels" covered by concrete with 58 holes for seating. There were three barracks with washing facilities or toilets to serve 16 residential barracks in BIIa, and six washrooms/latrines for 32 barracks in BIIb, BIIc, BIId, and BIIe. Primo Levi described a 1944 Auschwitz III washroom: It is badly lighted, full of draughts, with the brick floor covered by a layer of mud. The water

12480-585: The town in 1546. In 1594, the Tartars destroyed the town, but could not take the castle. The castle was besieged in 1644 by the army of George I Rákóczi , in 1657 by the Polish, and in 1661–62 by the Ottoman and Tartar hordes. Count Ferenc Rhédey , the ruling prince of Transylvania and high steward of Máramaros County died in the castle on 13 May 1667. The castle surrendered to the Kurucs on 17 August 1703, and

12600-464: The town of Oświęcim might harm German-Polish relations, the inmates were told to shave daily, make sure they were clean, and sing as they walked. From late July they were taken to the factory by train on freight wagons. Given the difficulty of moving them, including during the winter, IG Farben decided to build a camp at the plant. The first inmates moved there on 30 October 1942. Known as KL Auschwitz III–Aussenlager (Auschwitz III subcamp), and later as

12720-650: The train contained "the women of Beuthen". Saul Friedländer wrote that the Beuthen Jews were from the Organization Schmelt labor camps and had been deemed unfit for work. According to Christopher Browning , transports of Jews unfit for work were sent to the gas chamber at Auschwitz from autumn 1941. The evidence for this and the February 1942 transport was contested in 2015 by Nikolaus Wachsmann . Around 20 March 1942, according to Danuta Czech,

12840-628: The war, there were 8 synagogues in the city. One survives and is in use today. In 2001 it had 31,900 inhabitants, including 28,500 Ukrainians , 1,700 Hungarians , 1,200 Rusyns and 100 Roma . The exact ethnic composition was as follows: Until the 19th century, the city's population also included ethnic Romanians (800 Romanians according to the 1880 census). Khust has an oceanic climate ( Köppen : Cfb ). Carpatho-Ukraine Carpatho-Ukraine or Carpathian Ukraine ( Ukrainian : Карпа́тська Украї́на , romanized :  Karpatska Ukraina , IPA: [kɐrˈpɑtsʲkɐ ʊkrɐˈjinɐ] )

12960-485: The washrooms and receive their mail, unless they were Jews: Jews were not allowed to receive mail. Curfew ("nighttime quiet") was marked by a gong at nine o'clock. Inmates slept in long rows of brick or wooden bunks, or on the floor, lying in and on their clothes and shoes to prevent them from being stolen. The wooden bunks had blankets and paper mattresses filled with wood shavings; in the brick barracks, inmates lay on straw. According to Miklós Nyiszli : Eight hundred to

13080-469: The weather, they had to wait for the SS to arrive for the count; how long they stood there depended on the officers' mood, and whether there had been escapes or other events attracting punishment. Guards might force the prisoners to squat for an hour with their hands above their heads or hand out beatings or detention for infractions such as having a missing button or an improperly cleaned food bowl. The inmates were counted and re-counted. After roll call, to

13200-438: The women's camp. Rudolf Höss wrote of them: "It was easy to predict that these beasts would mistreat the women over whom they exercised power ... Spiritual suffering was completely alien to them." They were given serial numbers 1–999. The women's guard from Ravensbrück, Johanna Langefeld , became the first Auschwitz women's camp Lagerführerin . A second mass transport of women, 999 Jews from Poprad , Slovakia, arrived on

13320-436: Was 300 grams of bread, often moldy, part of which the inmates were expected to keep for breakfast the next day, with a tablespoon of cheese or marmalade, or 25 grams of margarine or sausage. Prisoners engaged in hard labour were given extra rations. A second roll call took place at seven in the evening, in the course of which prisoners might be hanged or flogged. If a prisoner was missing, the others had to remain standing until

13440-573: Was also important in building a strong national army. Following the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944, Adolf Eichmann oversaw the deportation of almost the entire Hungarian Jewish population; few survived the Holocaust . At the conclusion of the Battle of the Dukla Pass on 28 October 1944 , the Soviet Union had driven the Germans and Hungarians back and occupied Carpathian Ruthenia and

13560-500: Was an autonomous region , within the Second Czechoslovak Republic , created in December 1938 and renamed from Subcarpathian Rus' , whose full administrative and political autonomy had been confirmed by constitutional law of 22 November 1938. 20 years earlier, by the 1920 Treaty of Trianon , the region, which had historically belonged to Hungary , had been detached from the Kingdom of Hungary and attached to newly created Czechoslovakia . Subsequently Hungary had sought revision of

13680-461: Was an SS escort. Much of the work took place outdoors at construction sites, gravel pits, and lumber yards. No rest periods were allowed. One prisoner was assigned to the latrines to measure the time the workers took to empty their bladders and bowels. Lunch was three-quarters of a litre of watery soup at midday, reportedly foul-tasting, with meat in the soup four times a week and vegetables (mostly potatoes and rutabaga ) three times. The evening meal

13800-467: Was headed by President Avgustyn Voloshyn , Prime Minister Julian Révaý , Minister of Defence Stepan Klochurak , and Minister of Internal Affairs Yuriy Perevuznyk. The head of the Soim was Avhustyn Shtephan, his deputies were Fedir Révaý and Stepan Rosokha. The Slovak declaration of independence caused law and order to break down immediately. The Hungarians had learned that the Germans would not object to

13920-825: Was initially a quarantine camp), but the construction of BIII began in 1943 and stopped in April 1944, and the plan for BIV was abandoned. SS-Sturmbannführer Karl Bischoff , an architect, was the chief of construction. Based on an initial budget of RM 8.9 million, his plans called for each barracks to hold 550 prisoners, but he later changed this to 744 per barracks, which meant the camp could hold 125,000, rather than 97,000. There were 174 barracks, each measuring 35.4 by 11.0 m (116 by 36 ft), divided into 62 bays of 4 m (43 sq ft). The bays were divided into "roosts", initially for three inmates and later for four. With personal space of 1 m (11 sq ft) to sleep and place whatever belongings they had, inmates were deprived, Robert-Jan van Pelt wrote, "of

14040-484: Was not a workday, but prisoners had to clean the barracks and take their weekly shower, and were allowed to write (in German) to their families, although the SS censored the mail. Inmates who did not speak German would trade bread for help. Observant Jews tried to keep track of the Hebrew calendar and Jewish holidays , including Shabbat , and the weekly Torah portion . No watches, calendars, or clocks were permitted in

14160-467: Was one gas chamber, there were 20 such prisoners, in late 1943 there were 400, and by 1944 during the Holocaust in Hungary the number had risen to 874. The Sonderkommando removed goods and corpses from the incoming trains, guided victims to the dressing rooms and gas chambers, removed their bodies afterwards, and took their jewelry, hair, dental work, and any precious metals from their teeth, all of which

14280-514: Was operational by March 1942. On or around 20 March, a transport of Polish Jews sent by the Gestapo from Silesia and Zagłębie Dąbrowskie was taken straight from the Oświęcim freight station to the Auschwitz II gas chamber, then buried in a nearby meadow. The gas chamber was located in what prisoners called the "little red house" (known as bunker 1 by the SS), a brick cottage that had been turned into

14400-420: Was sent to Germany. Once the bodies were stripped of anything valuable, the Sonderkommando burned them in the crematoria. Because they were witnesses to the mass murder, the Sonderkommando lived separately from the other prisoners, although this rule was not applied to the non-Jews among them. Their quality of life was further improved by their access to the property of new arrivals, which they traded within

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