Gloomy afternoon XXI century. Concentration camps in Poland

As you know, the UN chose this particular date because it was on January 27, 1945 that Soviet troops liberated Hitler’s Auschwitz death camp. Now it’s just 70 years since that day. Auschwitz is located in Poland. Russia and Poland have their own trail of historical contradictions. And even though both sides have, it seems, already agreed a thousand times to leave in the past everything that belongs to the past, official Warsaw will break through with another anti-Moscow attack. So last week a bad incident arose with Vladimir Putin not being invited to anniversary events at the Auschwitz Memorial.

This became an occasion to turn to the seemingly foreign topic for Russia of pre-war (and during the war) Polish-Jewish relations. It’s strange that it was Auschwitz that became a reason for PR for Warsaw officials. It is better for the Polish side to observe maximum tact when talking about the Holocaust.

Extermination camps

Auschwitz is one of six extermination camps organized by the Germans as part of the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” program. In addition - Majdanek, Chelmno, Sobibor, Treblinka, Belzec. Auschwitz is the largest.

Let us emphasize that these are precisely extermination camps. On this score, the Nazis had their own gradation. As you can see, they were all located in Poland. Why? Convenient location in terms of, so to speak, transportation? Yes, absolutely – especially when it comes to the extermination of Jews from other European countries. It was somehow inconvenient and noticeable for the Nazis to locate an object for conveyor killing in some Holland. And Poland - well...

But there was one more circumstance that the Nazis probably took into account - fortunately, it was Polish Jewry that was to become the first victim of the “final solution.” The occupation here had lasted for more than three years, at that time about 2 million Polish Jews were languishing in the ghetto. Over the years, it became clear to the Germans: the majority of the local population does not want to help them, and is not even particularly sympathetic.

Not a spoonful of shit

In saying this, we are not opening America. Jewish researchers openly write about Polish anti-Semitism, which clearly manifested itself precisely during the war years (read the multi-page, extremely well-reasoned articles in the “Holocaust Encyclopedia”). And many Poles themselves today painfully admit this fact. The impetus for a new understanding of the topic was the publication in 2000 in Poland itself of facts about the extermination of Jews in the town of Jedwabno near Bialystok. It turned out that it was not the Germans there, but Polish peasants who brutally massacred 1,600 of their Jewish neighbors on July 10, 1941.

Moreover, as usually happens, for every argument there is a counter-argument. You can talk about Jedwabno - but you can remember about the organization “Zhegota”, cite the names of Polish “righteous men” of whom Poland is proud: Zofia Kossak, Jan Karski, Irena Sandler, dozens of others. In general, the title “Righteous Among the Nations” (those who during the war, risking their lives, saved Jews) was awarded by the Israeli Yad Vashem Institute to 6,554 Poles. In fact, there were much more of them (new ones are constantly popping up, lists are being replenished). So every nation has its good people and its scoundrels. And who can argue that a spoonful of crap spoils a barrel of honey?

They are not going to argue. It’s just that the Polish specificity is that we are not talking about a spoon here. Another question is what was more - crap or honey.

Two nations over the Vistula

Jews have lived in Poland since the 11th century. You can’t say that we are in perfect harmony with the Poles – there were different situations and different periods. But let’s not delve into hoary antiquity. Let's start with the pre-war, before 1939, period.

Of course, on paper, the then Polish official authorities declared “Europeanness” and “civilization.” But if we talk about, so to speak, the vector... Even before the First World War, the slogan “Two nations cannot be above the Vistula!” was formulated among Polish nationalists. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the authorities followed him. Of course, they didn’t commit genocide, but they tried to force them out of the country. Economic methods, turning a blind eye to the antics of local fascists, various kinds of restrictions, sometimes demonstrative humiliations. For example, in educational institutions, Jewish students had to either stand or sit on a separate “Jewish” bench. At the same time, for example, Zionism was encouraged - go to your Palestine, and the more of you who leave, the better! Therefore, the mass of future prominent Israeli politicians - Sh. Peres, I. Shamir and others - are those who, as young men, left there from Poland or its then “eastern territories” (Western Belarus and Ukraine).

But Palestine was under the British “mandate” (control), the British, fearing conflicts with the Arabs, restricted the entry of Jews. Other countries were also in no hurry to accept extra emigrants. So there were no special opportunities to leave somewhere. In addition, the Jewish community of Poland was huge (3.3 million people), and most Jews simply humanly could not imagine themselves without Poland, and Poland could not imagine itself without them. Well, how can you imagine the pre-war landscape there without the great poet J. Tuwim, who said “my fatherland is the Polish language”? Or without the “king of tango” E. Petersburg (later in the USSR he would write “The Blue Handkerchief”)?

Of the many characteristic facts, we present two that seem the most revealing.

During the Spanish Civil War, Polish and Jewish volunteers fought side by side in international brigades. But even here, commanders noted conflicts based on anti-Semitism (for understanding, other equally conflicting groups were Serbs and Croats). And after 1939, already in the Soviet camps for Polish prisoners of war, the Soviet security officers observing the contingent (judging by their surnames - entirely Russian) noted in their reports the eternal clashes between Polish prisoners and Jewish prisoners and the inflamed anti-Semitic sentiments of the Poles. It would seem that a common destiny, a military brotherhood - what could bring people closer together? But look how deep it sat.

Bandera brothers

Among the scandals of last week was the marvelous statement by Polish Foreign Minister G. Schetyna that Auschwitz was “liberated by the Ukrainians.” He blurted out - and ran into indignation, first of all, from the Poles themselves: Auschwitz is their tragedy, their torment and sacrifices, so they remember who exactly liberated the camp. Mr. Minister rushed to explain that he had expressed himself inaccurately (what kind of diplomat are you if you express yourself inaccurately?), to remind that he is a historian by training, to demonstrate his knowledge of the Soviet Ukrainian fronts (probably, he urgently refreshed his memory at home).

But as a historian, Mr. Schetyna should remember why his statement sounded ambiguous.

I was unable to find out the number of Ukrainians held (and killed) in Auschwitz. It is clear that there were many of them - primarily “Soviet” Ukrainians. They are the same martyrs of Auschwitz as the others - and any other words are unnecessary here. But at the same time, among the guards at Auschwitz there was a company of Ukrainian collaborators (they also guarded other death camps, they were called “herbalniks”; one of these was the notorious Ivan Demjanjuk).

In addition, there was one group that stood out among the prisoners at Auschwitz. As you know, at a certain stage of the war, the claims of Ukrainian nationalists to independence angered Hitler - he had his own plans for Ukraine. And the Germans began to arrest their recent allies. So, in the summer of 1942, Stepan Bandera’s two brothers, Vasily and Alexander, ended up in Auschwitz. According to recollections, they arrived here “confident in the benefits and privileges promised to them by the SS” - but they only encountered those with whom they should not have. The Poles-prisoners had their own account to settle with the Ukrainian nationalists - both for the pre-war terrorist attacks and for the massacre of the Polish population in Volyn. And the Polish prisoners simply beat both brothers to death. Why were they shot by the Germans? So, when they say that Bandera’s brothers died in Auschwitz, yes, that’s true. The question is, how exactly did they die?

After 1939

How these Polish prisoners of war ended up with us is known: in September 1939, Nazi Germany struck Poland, and Soviet troops occupied Western Ukraine and Belarus. Then the legend of the “Jewish commune” was born in the mass Polish consciousness - they say that the Jews very joyfully welcomed the “Bolsheviks”. In reality there were not so many such cases. In addition, we note that just then, many thousands of Jewish soldiers and officers died in the ranks of the Polish army, fighting against the Nazis. But after the defeat of Poland they immediately forgot about it. But they talked about the “liquid commune” at every opportunity.

However, sometimes myths were not required. In the already mentioned Jedwabne, it was enough for the Germans to simply make it clear that they would not interfere with the massacre.

Around Jedwabno

An American historian, a Pole by origin, Professor Jan Tomas Gross, first spoke about the tragedy in Jedwabne in 2000 - and received a full tub of accusations of “denigration” in his homeland. The decision on how to treat the facts he made public was made at the level of the country's top leadership and the Polish Catholic Church. In 2001, the then President of Poland A. Kwasniewski made an official apology “on his own behalf and on behalf of those Poles whose conscience is tormented by this crime.” The story that happened in Jedwabne formed the basis of the film “Spikelets” by V. Pasikowski. The picture caused considerable noise in Poland. Now a similar scandal is going on around the film “Ida” by P. Pawlikowski, where the question of how the Poles behaved towards Jews during the Second World War is also very acutely raised.

Someday they will make a film about how vilely Polish bosses behave towards Russians today.

A few quotes

Barely - this is, let's say, the level of a village, a town. Some of the Jews living in such places immediately found death at the hands of the Nazis, who were often helped by local collaborators, simply informers. (Although we note that there are several villages in Poland where Polish neighbors saved Jewish neighbors. There are quite a lot of cases when Polish peasants hid Jewish children - this is how, for example, the boy Raimund Liebling survived, who later became the famous film director Roman Polanski and directed, in in particular, the famous film “The Pianist” about the tragedy of Polish Jews during the war.) But the bulk of the Jewish population was herded into ghettos created near the cities. The largest are Warsaw (up to 500 thousand people), Lodz, Krakow.

Polish Jews were kept in the ghetto until the “final solution.” Hunger, epidemics, “outlaw” status - the Nazis did everything to ensure that as many of them as possible died. And if we talk specifically about Polish-Jewish relations...

Of course, the Germans did everything to drive a wedge between the two peoples as deeply as possible. At the same time, as the Polish sociologist A. Smolyar noted, anti-Semitism was already sufficiently developed in Poland to associate its outbreak only with the arrival of the Nazis. Therefore, for example, even if, with the help of Polish friends, a Jew managed to escape from the ghetto, there were many who were willing to hand him over. This was done by the “dark blues” (Polish police), who simply wanted to. There were even more “shmaltsovniks” - those who, having discovered a person in hiding, began, under the threat of extradition, to extort from him everything that was of interest: the rest of his money, pitiful valuables, just clothes. A whole business arose. As a result, there are a huge number of cases where a fugitive was forced to return behind barbed wire.

I will give two quotes that do not need comment. They recreate the atmosphere of those years best of all.

From the diary of the historian E. Ringelblum (kept a secret archive of the Warsaw ghetto, then hid with the Polish Volski family in a cache bunker, but was betrayed by their neighbor and shot): “Statements that the entire population of Poland joyfully accepts the extermination of the Jews are far from the truth ( ...) Thousands of idealists, both among the intelligentsia and the working class, selflessly help Jews at the risk of their lives.”

From a report from Warsaw to London to the “Polish Government in Exile” by the chief commandant (commander) of the underground AK (Home Army), General S. Rowecki-“Grot”: “I report that all the statements of the government (...) regarding the Jews are producing the most terrible things in the country impression and facilitate propaganda against the government. Please accept as a fact that the overwhelming majority of the population is anti-Semitic. (…) The only difference is how to treat the Jews. Almost no one approves of German methods. However, even (the following is a list of underground socialist organizations - author) they accept the postulate of emigration as a solution to the Jewish problem."

Auschwitz and its victims

Auschwitz (German name Auschwitz) was a terrible place for prisoners of all categories and nationalities. But it became a death camp after the Nazi “Wansee Conference” (01/20/1942), at which, in pursuance of the instructions of the top leadership of the Reich, a program and methods for the “final solution of the Jewish question” were developed.

There was no record of victims in the camp. Today, the figures of Polish historians F. Peiper and D. Cech are considered the most reliable: 1.3 million people were deported to Auschwitz, of which 1.1 million were Jews. Over 1 million Jews, 75 thousand Poles (according to other calculations, up to 90 thousand), more than 20 thousand Gypsies, about 15 thousand Soviet prisoners of war, over 10 thousand prisoners of other nationalities died here.

You need to understand that Auschwitz was a huge complex (total area - more than 40 sq. km) of several dozen subcamps, there were several factories, a number of other industries, and many different services. Being a death camp, Auschwitz was also a place of detention for a dozen categories of prisoners - from political prisoners and members of the Resistance movement from different countries to German and Austrian criminals, homosexuals, members of the Jehovah's Witnesses sect. There were a variety of nationalities (more than 30 in total), there were even Persians and Chinese.

A separate page is about the terrible experiments carried out in Auschwitz by Nazi doctors (the most famous is Dr. I. Mengele).

When they talk about Auschwitz as an extermination camp, they primarily mean one of the facilities - Auschwitz-2, deployed in the village of Brzezinka (Birkenau) evicted by the Germans. It was located separately. It was here that gas chambers and crematoria were located, and there was a railway line through which trains with Jews from all over Europe arrived. Next - unloading, “selection” (those who could still work were selected; these were destroyed later), for the rest - escort to the gas chambers, undressing and...

Above we have given the statistics of those destroyed. Let's repeat: this is a scary place for everyone. But other categories of prisoners had at least a theoretical chance of survival. But Jews (and Gypsies - they are simply outnumbered, and the Gypsy tragedy remains, as it were, in the shadows) were brought here precisely to die.

According to the residual principle

General “Grot” sent his report in September 1941. Then messages came to London about how exactly the Jewish question was being finally resolved by the Germans in Poland. What was the reaction of the exile government? How did the underground formations subordinate to him in Poland - the same AK - react to the extermination of Jews?

In a nutshell... You know, there is such an expression - “according to the residual principle.” Probably fits. It is impossible to say that the exile government did nothing: there were statements and declarations. But it is clear that the problems of the Poles worried him much more. And the situation with the Polish underground is even tougher. “On the ground” on many issues, what they wanted to hear from London, they heard, and what they didn’t want, they didn’t hear. Here too. In reality, everything depended on specific people. Sometimes it came down to some objective circumstances. For example, there is a long-standing dispute about the extent to which the Home Army helped prisoners of the Warsaw Ghetto during their famous uprising (April-May 1943). It is impossible to say that nothing was done. It is also impossible to say that a lot has been done. The “Akovites” later explained: the ghetto rebelled because it was already doomed to destruction; the Jews had no choice. And we had the task of waiting “at hand” for the order for our own action (indeed, the Polish Warsaw Uprising took place more than a year later, August - October 1944) - well, we will share the scarce supplies of weapons from underground warehouses, and perform before the deadline ?

The “field” commanders of the AK in the forests, with rare exceptions, were completely anti-Semitic - and they did not accept fugitives from the ghetto, and often simply shot them. No, there were many Jews in the ranks of the Polish partisans - but they fought, as a rule, in the detachments of the communist Ludovo Guard.

Here it is necessary to remember the activities of the underground organization “Zhegota” (“Council for Assistance to Jews”). It was a voluntary association of decent people who could not sit idly by, seeing that someone was in trouble. The number of those whom they helped in one way or another runs into the thousands - although the saviors often paid for their activities with their lives and ended up in concentration camps. But interesting words were heard in the Žegota manifesto: “We are Catholics. (...) Our feelings towards Jews have not changed. We continue to view them as economic, political and ideological enemies of Poland. (...) However, while they are being killed, we must help them.” Żegota included people such as, for example, Irena Sandler, who saved 2.5 thousand children from the Warsaw ghetto. It is unlikely that she looked at these children as enemies. Rather, the author of the manifesto, the writer Zofia Kossak, who led the organization, simply selected those words and arguments that would convince other compatriots “not to be Pilates.”

Allied silence

We are not writing a detailed study on the Holocaust in Poland, we are simply recalling some characteristic moments. And among the many bright stories, there is a story that is absolutely amazing. This is the fate of the Polish intelligence officer Jan Karski. He was a liaison between the underground in Poland and the London government, witnessed the destruction of Polish Jewry and was the first to report what was happening to London. When he realized that the reaction to his reports was purely declarative, he began knocking on all doors himself. He reached the British Foreign Minister Eden Eden, and even achieved a meeting with US President Roosevelt. In different offices I heard about the same thing: “You are telling too incredible things...”, “We are doing everything we can, don’t ask for more...”, “What can we do?”

But in fact, something could be done. For example, already at the end of 1944, stopping the death machine in Auschwitz. After all, the Allies knew about what was happening there - both from the Polish underground and from two Jewish prisoners who escaped from the concentration camp (R. Vrbla and A. Wetzler). And all that was required was to bomb Auschwitz 2 (Brzezinka) - the place where the gas chambers and crematoria were located. The camp was bombed, four times. A total of 327 aircraft dropped 3,394 bombs on Auschwitz industrial sites. And not a single one for nearby Brzezinka! Allied aviation was not interested in it. There are still no clear explanations for this fact.

And since they are not there, bad versions creep into your head. Maybe the émigré Polish government didn’t really ask for such a blow? Because “two nations cannot be above the Vistula”?

Ctrl Enter

Noticed osh Y bku Select text and click Ctrl+Enter

Next, we suggest going on a virtual tour of a terrible place - the German Majdanek death camp, which was built on Polish territory during the Second World War. Currently, there is a museum on the camp grounds.

From Warsaw to the museum at the site of the “death camp” (outskirts of Lublin) it takes two and a half hours by car. Admission is free, but few people want to visit. Only in the crematorium building, where five ovens turned prisoners into ashes every day, is a school field trip crowded with a Catholic priest. Preparing to celebrate Mass in memory of the Poles martyred in Majdanek, the priest lays a tablecloth on the prepared table, takes out the Bible and candles. Teenagers are clearly not interested here - they joke, smile, and go out to smoke. “Do you know who liberated this camp?” - I ask. There is confusion among young Poles. "English?" – the blonde girl says hesitantly. "No, Americans!" - a thin guy interrupts her. - “It seems there was a landing party here!” “Russians,” the priest says quietly. The schoolchildren are amazed - the news for them is like a bolt from the blue. On July 22, 1944, the Red Army was greeted in Lublin with flowers and tears of joy. Now we cannot wait for the liberation of the concentration camps, not even gratitude - just basic respect.

Almost everything has been preserved in Majdanek. Double fencing with barbed wire, SS guard towers and blackened crematorium ovens. On the barracks with the gas chamber there is a sign screwed on - “Washing and disinfection.” Fifty people were brought here, supposedly “to go to the bathhouse” - they were given soap and asked to fold their clothes carefully. Victims entered the cement shower room, the door was locked and gas was leaking from holes in the ceiling. The peephole in the door is amazing - some bastard from the SS calmly watched people die in agony. Rare visitors speak quietly, as if in a cemetery. A girl from Israel cries, burying her face in her boyfriend's shoulder. A museum employee reports: 80,000 people died in the camp. "Like this? – I’m surprised. “After all, at the Nuremberg trials the figure of 300 thousand appeared, a third of them were Poles.” It turns out that after 1991, the number of victims has been constantly decreasing - at first it was decided that 200 thousand people were tortured in Majdanek, and recently they “knocked it down” to eighty: they say, more precisely, they recounted it.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if in ten years the Polish authorities begin to claim with such standards that no one died at Majdanek, the concentration camp was an exemplary sanatorium-resort where prisoners underwent health procedures,” says Maciej Wisniewski, editor-in-chief of the Strajk Internet portal, indignantly. - My father, who was a partisan during the war, said: “Yes, the Russians brought us a regime that we did not want. But the main thing is that the gas chambers and ovens stopped working in the SS concentration camps.” In Poland, state propaganda at all levels is trying to silence the merits of Soviet soldiers in saving tens of millions of lives. After all, if it were not for the Red Army, the Majdanek crematorium would continue to smoke every day.

It only takes a minute to walk from the gas chamber - you find yourself in a barracks filled to the brim with old, half-rotten shoes. I look at her for a long time. Expensive shoes of fashionistas (one even made of snakeskin), men's boots, children's boots. There are more of them - but in 2010, one museum barrack burned down for unknown reasons (possibly from arson): 7,000 pairs of shoes were lost in the fire. On November 3, 1943, as part of the so-called “Operation Erntedankfest” (harvest festival), the SS shot 18,400 Jews in Majdanek, including many citizens of the USSR. People were forced to lie down in ditches on top of each other, “in a layer,” and then were shot in the back of the head. 611 people then spent a week sorting the property of the executed, including these very shoes. The sorters were also destroyed - the men were shot, the women were sent to the gas chamber. In the room nearby there is a memorial to nameless prisoners whose identities could not be established: rows of light bulbs shrouded in balls of barbed wire are burning. An audio recording is played - in Polish, Russian, Yiddish, people ask God to save their lives.

The current museum occupies only a quarter of the actual territory of Majdanek: founded on October 1, 1941, it was a concentration camp city with “districts” where women, Jews, and Polish rebels were kept separately. The first inhabitants of the “SS special zone” were 2,000 Soviet prisoners of war; after just a month and a half (!), three quarters of them died from unbearable conditions of detention. The museum's exhibition does not focus on this fact. By January 1942, all the remaining prisoners had died - the camp stood empty until March, when 50,000 new prisoners were brought in. They were destroyed so quickly that one crematorium could not cope with the burning of bodies - a second one had to be built.

The towers above the camp darkened with time, the wood became coal black. 73 years ago, two SS guards stood on each one, watching Majdanek - often, in despair, the prisoners themselves walked into the bullets just to end their torment. The ashes of thousands of prisoners were buried in a huge mausoleum built next to the crematorium - the Red Army soldiers who liberated Majdanek discovered boxes of ashes, which the guards prepared for disposal. The crematorium ovens are smoked by fire; it is impossible to clean them from the remains of hundreds of thousands of people soaked into the metal. One of the prisoners who ended up in Majdanek at the age of six (!), a native of the Vitebsk region, Alexander Petrov, said that Jewish preschool children were burned alive in these ovens. Survivors in the camp testify that the Germans did not show much hatred towards them. They boredly tried to kill as many people as possible while doing their job. Of all the trees in the camp, only one survived. On the rest, the prisoners, dying of terrible hunger, ate the bark and chewed off the roots.

Looking at this camp even now makes me feel uneasy. And people lived there for almost 3 years. The photo shows Majdanek itself, the gas chamber, barracks, and crematorium.

Nazi sadists largely repeated the actions of their Polish predecessors. ( And if the Germans acted more like ants - doing routine work, then the Poles killed with passion and pleasure - arctus)

It is known that in Poland history has long been a character active on the political scene. Therefore, bringing “historical skeletons” to this stage has always been a favorite activity of those Polish politicians who do not have solid political baggage and, for this reason, prefer to engage in historical speculation.

Original taken from arctus in Polish concentration camps of the 20s surpassed the Nazi ones in atrocities

The situation in this regard received a new impetus when, after winning the parliamentary elections in October 2015, the party of the ardent Russophobe Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Law and Justice (PiS), returned to power. The protege of this party, Andrzej Duda, became the President of Poland. Already on February 2, 2016, at a meeting of the National Development Council, the new president formulated a conceptual approach to Warsaw’s foreign policy: “The historical policy of the Polish state should be an element of our position in the international arena. It must be offensive."

An example of such “offensiveness” was the recent bill approved by the Polish government. It provides for imprisonment of up to three years for the phrases “Polish concentration camp” or “Polish death camps,” in reference to the Nazi camps that operated in occupied Poland during World War II. The author of the bill, the Polish Minister of Justice, explained the need for its adoption by the fact that such a law would more effectively protect the “historical truth” and “the good name of Poland.”

In this regard, a little history. The phrase “Polish death camp” came into use largely with the “light hand” of Jan Karski, an active participant in the Polish anti-Nazi resistance. In 1944, he published an article in Colliers Weekly entitled “The Polish Death Camp.”

In it, Karski told how he, disguised as a German soldier, secretly visited the ghetto in Izbica Lubelska, from which prisoners Jews, Gypsies and others were sent to the Nazi extermination camps “Belzec” and “Sobibor”. Thanks to Karski’s article, and then the book he wrote, “Courier from Poland: Story of a Secret State,” the world first learned about the Nazis’ mass extermination of Jews in Poland.

I note that for 70 years after World War II, the phrase “Polish death camp” was generally understood as a Nazi death camp located on Polish territory.

The problems began when US President Barack Obama in May 2012, posthumously awarding J. Karski the Presidential Medal of Freedom, mentioned the “Polish death camp” in his speech. Poland was outraged and demanded an explanation and apology,since such a phrase allegedly cast a shadow on Polish history. Pope Francis' visit to Poland in July 2016 added fuel to the fire. Then, in Krakow, Francis met with the only woman born and survivor of the Nazi camp Auschwitz (Auschwitz). In his speech, the Pope called her birthplace "the Polish concentration camp Auschwitz." This clause was replicated by the Vatican Catholic portal “IlSismografo”. Poland was again indignant. These are the known origins of the above-mentioned Polish bill.

However, the point here is not only the above-mentioned unfortunate reservations of world leaders regarding the Nazi camps.

The Polish authorities, in addition, urgently need to block any memories that in Poland in 1919 - 1922. There was a network of concentration camps for Red Army prisoners of war captured during the Polish-Soviet war of 1919 - 1920.

It is known that due to the conditions of existence of prisoners of war in them, these camps were the forerunners of the Nazi concentration death camps.

However, the Polish side does not want to recognize this documented fact and reacts very painfully when statements or articles appear in the Russian media that mention Polish concentration camps. Thus, the article caused a sharply negative reaction from the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in the Russian Federation Dmitry Ofitserov-Belsky Associate Professor of the National Research University Higher School of Economics (Perm) entitled “ Indifferent and patient"(05.02.2015.Lenta.ru https://lenta.ru/articles/2015/02/04/poland/).

In this article, the Russian historian, analyzing the difficult Polish-Russian relations, called Polish prisoner of war camps concentration camps, and also called the Nazi death camp Auschwitz Auschwitz. He thereby allegedly cast a shadow not only on the Polish city of Auschwitz, but also on Polish history. The reaction of the Polish authorities, as always, was immediate.
Deputy Polish Ambassador to the Russian Federation Jaroslaw Książek, in a letter to the editor of Lenta.ru, stated that the Polish side categorically objects to the use of the definition of “Polish concentration camps”, because it in no way corresponds to historical truth. In Poland from 1918 to 1939. such camps allegedly did not exist.

However, Polish diplomats, refuting Russian historians and publicists, once again got into a puddle. I had to face critical assessments of my article “The Lies and Truth of Katyn”, published in the newspaper “Spetsnaz of Russia” (No. 4, 2012). The critic then was Grzegorz Telesnicki, First Secretary of the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in the Russian Federation. In his letter to the editors of Spetsnaz Rossii, he categorically asserted that the Poles did not participate in the Nazi exhumation of Katyn graves in 1943.

Meanwhile, it is well known and documented that specialists from the Technical Commission of the Polish Red Cross participated in the Nazi exhumation in Katyn from April to June 1943, fulfilling, in the words of the Minister of Nazi Propaganda and the main falsifier of the Katyn crime J. Goebbels, the role of “objective” witnesses. Equally false is the statement of Mr. J. Książyk about the absence of concentration camps in Poland, which is easily refuted by documentation.

Polish forerunners of Auschwitz-Birkenau
To begin with, I will conduct a small educational program for Polish diplomats. Let me remind you that in the period 2000-2004. Russian and Polish historians, in accordance with the Agreement between the Russian Archives and the General Directorate of State Archives of Poland, signed on December 4, 2000, prepared a collection of documents and materials “ Red Army soldiers in Polish captivity in 1919-1922"(hereinafter referred to as the collection "Red Army Soldiers...").

This 912-page collection was published in Russia in a circulation of 1 thousand copies. (M.; St. Petersburg: Summer Garden, 2004). It contains 338 historical documents revealing the very unpleasant situation that prevailed in Polish prisoner of war camps, including concentration camps. Apparently, for this reason, the Polish side not only did not publish this collection in Polish, but also took measures to buy up part of the Russian circulation.
So, in the collection “Red Army Soldiers...” document No. 72 is presented, called “Temporary instructions for concentration camps for prisoners of war, approved by the Supreme Command of the Polish Army.”
Let me give a short quote from this document: “... Following the orders of the High Command No. 2800/III of 18.IV.1920, No. 17000/IV of 18.IV.1920, No. 16019/II, as well as 6675/San. temporary instructions for concentration camps are issued... Camps for Bolshevik prisoners, which should be created by order of the Supreme Command of the Polish Army No. 17000/IV in Zvyagel and Ploskirov, and then Zhitomir, Korosten and Bar, are called “Concentration camp for prisoners of war No....».

So, gentlemen, a question arises. How, having adopted a law on the inadmissibility of calling Polish concentration camps, will you deal with those Polish historians who allow themselves to refer to the above-mentioned “Temporary Instructions...”? But I will leave this issue for consideration by Polish lawyers and return to Polish prisoner of war camps, including those called concentration camps.

Familiarization with the documents contained in the collection “Red Army Soldiers...” allows us to confidently assert that the point is not in the name, but in the essence of the Polish prisoner of war camps. They created such inhuman conditions for keeping Red Army prisoners of war that they can rightfully be considered as the forerunners of Nazi concentration camps.
This is evidenced by the absolute majority of documents placed in the collection “Red Army Men...”.

To substantiate my conclusion, I will allow myself to refer to the testimony of former prisoners of Auschwitz-Birkenau Ota Krausa(No. 73046) and Erich Kulka(No. 73043). They went through the Nazi concentration camps of Dachau, Sachsenhausen and Auschwitz-Birkenau and were well aware of the rules established in these camps. Therefore, in the title of this chapter I used the name “Auschwitz-Birkenau”, since it was this name that was used by O. Kraus and E. Kulka in their book “The Death Factory” (M.: Gospolitizdat, 1960).

The guard atrocities and living conditions of Red Army prisoners of war in Polish camps are very reminiscent of the Nazi atrocities at Auschwitz-Birkenau. For those who doubt, I will give a few quotes from the book “Factory of Death”.
O. Kraus and E. Kulka wrote that

• “They didn’t live in Birkenau, but huddled in wooden barracks 40 meters long and 9 meters wide. The barracks had no windows, were poorly lit and ventilated... In total, the barracks housed 250 people. There were no washrooms or toilets in the barracks. Prisoners were forbidden to leave the barracks at night, so at the end of the barracks there were two tubs for sewage...”


• “Exhaustion, illness and death of prisoners were caused by insufficient and poor nutrition, and more often by real hunger... There were no utensils for food in the camp... The prisoner received less than 300 grams of bread. Bread was given to the prisoners in the evening, and they ate it immediately. The next morning they received half a liter of a black liquid called coffee or tea and a tiny portion of sugar. For lunch, the prisoner received less than a liter of stew, which should have contained 150 g of potatoes, 150 g of turnips, 20 g of flour, 5 g of butter, 15 g of bones. In fact, it was impossible to find such modest doses of food in the stew... With poor nutrition and hard work, a strong and healthy beginner could only last for three months...”

Below I will give similar examples from Polish camps. Surprisingly, the Nazi sadists largely repeated the actions of their Polish predecessors. So, let’s open the collection “Red Army Men...”. Here is document No. 164, called “ Report on the results of the inspection of the camps in Dąba and Strzałkowo"(October 1919).

• “Inspection of the Dombe camp... The buildings are wooden. The walls are not solid, some buildings do not have wooden floors, the chambers are large... Most of the prisoners without shoes are completely barefoot. There are almost no beds or bunks... There is no straw or hay. They sleep on the ground or boards... No linen or clothes; cold, hunger, dirt and all this threatens with enormous mortality...".

• “Report on the inspection of the Strzalkowo camp. ...The state of health of the prisoners is appalling, the hygienic conditions of the camp are disgusting. Most of the buildings are dugouts with holes in the roofs, earthen floors, planks are very rare, the windows are boarded up instead of glass... Many barracks are overcrowded. So, on October 19 this year. The barracks for captured communists were so crowded that entering it in the midst of the fog it was difficult to see anything. The prisoners were so crowded that they could not lie down, but were forced to stand, leaning on one another...".

It should be noted that in both Nazi and Polish camps, the beating of prisoners of war was commonplace. Thus, in the above-mentioned document No. 334 it was noted that in the Strzałkowo camp “ To this day, violations of the personalities of prisoners occur. The beating of prisoners of war is a constant phenomenon..." It turns out that brutal beatings of prisoners of war in the Strzalkowo camp were practiced from 1919 to 1922.

This is confirmed by document No. 44 “ Attitude of the Ministry of War of Poland to the High Command of the Eastern Military District regarding an article from the newspaper “Courier Nowy” regarding the abuse of Latvians who deserted from the Red Army with a transmittal note from the Ministry of War of Poland to the High Command"(January 16, 1920). It says that upon arrival at the Strzalkovo camp (apparently in the fall of 1919), the Latvians were first robbed, leaving them in their underwear, and then each of them received 50 blows with a barbed wire rod. More than ten Latvians died from blood poisoning, and two were shot without trial.

Those responsible for this barbarity were the head of the camp, Captain Wagner and his assistant lieutenant Malinovsky, characterized by sophisticated cruelty.
This is described in document No. 314 “ Letter from the Russian-Ukrainian delegation to the Polish delegation of the PRUSK with a request to take action on the application of Red Army prisoners of war regarding the former commandant of the camp in Strzałkowo"(September 03, 1921).

The Red Army statement said that

• “Lieutenant Malinovsky always walked around the camp, accompanied by several corporals who had wire whips in their hands and ordered whoever he didn’t like to lie down in a ditch, and the corporals beat him as much as was ordered. If the beaten one moaned or begged for mercy, it was time. Malinovsky took out his revolver and shot... If the sentries shot the prisoners then. Malinowski gave them 3 cigarettes and 25 Polish marks as a reward... Repeatedly it was possible to observe how a group led by por. Malinovsky climbed onto machine gun towers and from there fired at defenseless people...”

According to the calculations of the Russian military historian M.V. Filimoshin, the number of Red Army soldiers who died and died in Polish captivity is 82,500 people (Filimoshin. Military History Magazine, No. 2. 2001). This figure seems quite reasonable. I believe that the above allows us to assert that Polish concentration camps and prisoner of war camps can rightfully be considered the forerunners of Nazi concentration camps.

I refer distrustful and inquisitive readers to my research " Antikatyn, or Red Army soldiers in Polish captivity”, presented in my books “The Secret of Katyn” (M.: Algorithm, 2007) and “Katyn. Modern history of the issue" (M.: Algorithm, 2012). It gives a more comprehensive picture of what was happening in the Polish camps.

Violence due to dissent
It is impossible to complete the topic of Polish concentration camps without mentioning two camps: the Belarusian " Birch-Kartuzskaya" and Ukrainian " Bialy Podlaski" They were created in 1934 by decision of the Polish dictator Jozef Piłsudski, as a means of reprisal against Belarusians and Ukrainians who protested against the Polish occupation regime of 1920-1939. Although they were not called concentration camps, in some ways they surpassed the Nazi concentration camps.

But first about how many Belarusians and Ukrainians accepted the Polish regime established in the territories of Western Belarus and Western Ukraine captured by the Poles in 1920 . This is what the newspaper Rzeczpospolita wrote in 1925.« ...If there are no changes for several years, then we will have a general armed uprising there (in the eastern cresses). If we don’t drown it in blood, it will tear several provinces away from us... There is a gallows for an uprising and nothing more. Horror must fall on the entire local (Belarusian) population from top to bottom, from which the blood in their veins will freeze » .

In the same year, the famous Polish publicist Adolf Nevchinsky on the pages of the newspaper “Slovo” stated that with Belarusians it is necessary to conduct a conversation in the language of “gallows and only gallows... this will be the most correct resolution of the national question in Western Belarus».

Feeling public support, Polish sadists in Bereza-Kartuzska and Biała Podlaska did not stand on ceremony with the rebellious Belarusians and Ukrainians. If the Nazis created concentration camps as monstrous factories for the mass extermination of people, then in Poland such camps were used as a means of intimidating the disobedient. How else can one explain the monstrous tortures to which Belarusians and Ukrainians were subjected? I will give examples.

In Bereza-Kartuzskaya, 40 people were crammed into small cells with a cement floor. To prevent prisoners from sitting down, the floor was constantly watered. They were forbidden to even talk in the cell. They tried to turn people into dumb cattle. A regime of silence for prisoners was also in force in the hospital. They beat me for moaning, for grinding teeth from unbearable pain.
The management of Bereza-Kartuzskaya cynically called it “the most athletic camp in Europe.” It was forbidden to walk here - only run. Everything was done on the whistle. Even the dream was on such a command. Half an hour on your left side, then the whistle, and immediately turn over to your right. Anyone who hesitated or did not hear the whistle in a dream was immediately subjected to torture. Before such a “sleep”, several buckets of water with bleach were poured into the rooms where the prisoners slept, for “prevention”. The Nazis failed to think of this.

The conditions in the punishment cell were even more terrible.The offenders were kept there from 5 to 14 days. To increase the suffering, several buckets of feces were poured onto the floor of the punishment cell.. The pit in the punishment cell had not been cleaned for months. The room was infested with worms. In addition, the camp practiced group punishment such as cleaning camp toilets with glasses or mugs.
Commandant of Bereza-Kartuzskaya Jozef Kamal-Kurgansky in response to statements that prisoners could not stand the torture conditions of detention and would prefer death, calmly stated: “ The more of them rest here, the better it will be to live in my Poland.».

I believe that the above is enough to imagine what Polish camps for the rebellious are, and the story about the Biala Podlaska camp will be redundant.

In conclusion I will add that the use of feces for torture was a favorite means of Polish gendarmes, apparently suffering from unsatisfied sadomasochistic tendencies. There are known facts when employees of the Polish defense forces forced prisoners to clean toilets with their hands, and then, without allowing them to wash their hands, they gave them lunch rations. Those who refused had their hands broken. Sergey Osipovich Pritytsky, a Belarusian fighter against the Polish occupation regime in the 1930s, recalled how Polish police poured slurry into his nose.

This is the unpleasant truth about the “skeleton in the Polish closet” called “concentration camps” that forced me to tell the gentlemen from Warsaw and the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in the Russian Federation.

P.S. Panova, please keep this in mind. I am not a Polonophobe. I enjoy watching Polish films, listening to Polish pop music, and I regret that I did not master the Polish language at one time. But I “hate it” when Polish Russophobes brazenly distort the history of Polish-Russian relations with the tacit consent of official Russia.

Auschwitz is a city that has become a symbol of the mercilessness of the fascist regime; the city where one of the most senseless dramas in human history unfolded; a city where hundreds of thousands of people were brutally murdered. In the concentration camps located here, the Nazis built the most terrible conveyor belts of death, exterminating up to 20 thousand people every day... Today I begin to talk about one of the most terrible places on earth - the concentration camps at Auschwitz. I warn you, the photographs and descriptions left below may leave a heavy mark on the soul. Although I personally believe that every person should touch and let through these terrible pages of our history...

There will be very few of my comments on the photographs in this post - this is too sensitive a topic, on which, it seems to me, I do not have the moral right to express my point of view. I honestly admit that visiting the museum left a heavy scar on my heart that still refuses to heal...

Most of the comments on the photos are based on the guidebook (

The Auschwitz concentration camp was Hitler's largest concentration camp for Poles and prisoners of other nationalities, whom Hitler's fascism doomed to isolation and gradual destruction by hunger, hard work, experimentation, and immediate death through mass and individual executions. Since 1942, the camp has become the largest center for the extermination of European Jews. Most of the Jews deported to Auschwitz died in gas chambers immediately after arrival, without registration or identification with camp numbers. That is why it is very difficult to establish the exact number of those killed - historians agree on a figure of about one and a half million people.

But let's return to the history of the camp. In 1939, Auschwitz and its surroundings became part of the Third Reich. The city was renamed Auschwitz. In the same year, the fascist command came up with the idea of ​​​​creating a concentration camp. The deserted pre-war barracks near Auschwitz were chosen as the site for the creation of the first camp. The concentration camp is named Auschwitz I.

The education order dates back to April 1940. Rudolf Hoess is appointed camp commandant. On June 14, 1940, the Gestapo sent the first prisoners to Auschwitz I - 728 Poles from the prison in Tarnow.

The gate leading to the camp is with the cynical inscription: “Arbeit macht frei” (Work makes you free), through which the prisoners went to work every day and returned ten hours later. In a small square next to the kitchen, the camp orchestra played marches that were supposed to speed up the movement of prisoners and make it easier for the Nazis to count them.

At the time of its founding, the camp consisted of 20 buildings: 14 one-story and 6 two-story. In 1941-1942, with the help of prisoners, one floor was added to all one-story buildings and eight more buildings were built. The total number of multi-story buildings in the camp was 28 (except for the kitchen and utility buildings). The average number of prisoners fluctuated between 13-16 thousand prisoners, and in 1942 reached over 20 thousand. Prisoners were placed in blocks, also using attics and basements for this purpose.

Along with the growth in the number of prisoners, the territorial volume of the camp increased, which gradually turned into a huge plant for exterminating people. Auschwitz I became the base for a whole network of new camps.

In October 1941, after there was no longer enough space for the newly arrived prisoners at Auschwitz I, work began on the construction of another concentration camp, called Auschwitz II (also known as Bireknau and Brzezinka). This camp was destined to become the largest in the Nazi death camp system. I .

In 1943, in Monowitz near Auschwitz, another camp was built on the territory of the IG Ferbenindustrie plant - Auschwitz III. In addition, in 1942-1944, about 40 branches of the Auschwitz camp were built, which were subordinate to Auschwitz III and were located mainly near metallurgical plants, mines and factories that used prisoners as cheap labor.

Arriving prisoners were taken away from their clothes and all personal items, they were cut, disinfected and washed, and then they were given numbers and registered. Initially, each of the prisoners was photographed in three positions. Since 1943, prisoners began to be tattooed - Auschwitz became the only Nazi camp in which prisoners received tattoos with their number.

Depending on the reasons for their arrest, prisoners received triangles of different colors, which, along with their numbers, were sewn onto their camp clothes. Political prisoners were given a red triangle; Jews wore a six-pointed star consisting of a yellow triangle and a triangle of the color that corresponded to the reason for their arrest. Black triangles were given to gypsies and those prisoners whom the Nazis considered antisocial elements. Jehovah's Witnesses received purple triangles, homosexuals received pink triangles, and criminals received green triangles.

The scanty striped camp clothing did not protect the prisoners from the cold. Linen was changed at intervals of several weeks, and sometimes even at monthly intervals, and the prisoners did not have the opportunity to wash it, which led to epidemics of various diseases, especially typhus and typhoid, as well as scabies.

The hands of the camp clock mercilessly and monotonously measured the life of the prisoner. From the morning to the evening gong, from one bowl of soup to the next, from the first count until the moment when the prisoner's corpse was counted for the last time.

One of the disasters of camp life was the inspections at which the number of prisoners was checked. They lasted for several, and sometimes over ten hours. Camp authorities very often announced penalty checks, during which prisoners had to squat or kneel. There were also cases when they were ordered to hold their hands up for several hours.

Along with executions and gas chambers, grueling labor was an effective means of exterminating prisoners. Prisoners were employed in various sectors of the economy. At first they worked during the construction of the camp: they built new buildings and barracks, roads and drainage ditches. A little later, the industrial enterprises of the Third Reich increasingly began to use the cheap labor of prisoners. The prisoner was ordered to do the work at a run, without a second of rest. The pace of work, the meager portions of food, as well as constant beatings and abuse increased the mortality rate. During the return of prisoners to the camp, the dead or wounded were dragged or carried on wheelbarrows or carts.

The prisoner's daily caloric intake was 1300-1700 calories. For breakfast, the prisoner received about a liter of “coffee” or a decoction of herbs, for lunch - about 1 liter of lean soup, often made from rotten vegetables. Dinner consisted of 300–350 grams of black clay bread and a small amount of other additives (for example, 30 g sausage or 30 g margarine or cheese) and a herbal drink or “coffee.”

At Auschwitz I, most prisoners lived in two-story brick buildings. Living conditions throughout the camp's existence were catastrophic. The prisoners brought in by the first trains slept on straw scattered on the concrete floor. Later, hay bedding was introduced. About 200 prisoners slept in a room that barely accommodated 40-50 people. The three-tier bunks installed later did not improve living conditions at all. Most often there were 2 prisoners on one tier of bunks.

The malarial climate of Auschwitz, poor living conditions, hunger, scanty clothing that was not changed for a long time, unwashed and unprotected from the cold, rats and insects led to mass epidemics that sharply reduced the ranks of prisoners. A large number of patients who came to the hospital were not admitted due to overcrowding. In this regard, SS doctors periodically carried out selections both among patients and among prisoners in other buildings. Those who were weakened and had no hope of a quick recovery were sent to death in gas chambers or killed in a hospital by injecting a dose of phenol directly into their hearts.

That is why prisoners called the hospital “the threshold of the crematorium.” At Auschwitz, prisoners were subjected to numerous criminal experiments carried out by SS doctors. For example, Professor Karl Clauberg, in order to develop a quick method of biological destruction of the Slavs, conducted criminal sterilization experiments on Jewish women in building No. 10 of the main camp. Dr. Josef Mengele, as part of genetic and anthropological experiments, conducted experiments on twin children and children with physical disabilities.

In addition, various kinds of experiments were carried out in Auschwitz using new drugs and preparations: toxic substances were rubbed into the epithelium of prisoners, skin transplants were carried out... During these experiments, hundreds of prisoners died.

Despite the difficult living conditions, constant terror and danger, the camp prisoners carried out secret underground activities against the Nazis. It took different forms. Establishing contacts with the Polish population living in the area around the camp made possible the illegal transfer of food and medicine. Information was transmitted from the camp about crimes committed by the SS, lists of names of prisoners, SS men and material evidence of crimes. All parcels were hidden in various objects, often specially intended for this purpose, and correspondence between the camp and the centers of the resistance movement was encrypted.

In the camp, work was carried out to provide assistance to prisoners and explanatory work in the field of international solidarity against Hitlerism. Cultural activities were also carried out, which consisted of organizing discussions and meetings at which prisoners recited the best works of Russian literature, as well as secretly holding religious services.

Check area - here the SS men checked the number of prisoners.

Public executions were also carried out here on a portable or common gallows.

In July 1943, the SS hanged 12 Polish prisoners on it because they maintained relations with the civilian population and helped 3 comrades escape.

The courtyard between buildings No. 10 and No. 11 is fenced with a high wall. Wooden shutters placed on the windows in block No. 10 were supposed to make it impossible to observe the executions carried out here. In front of the “Wall of Death,” the SS shot several thousand prisoners, mostly Poles.

In the dungeons of building No. 11 there was a camp prison. In the halls on the right and left sides of the corridor, prisoners were placed awaiting the verdict of the military court, which came to Auschwitz from Katowice and, during a meeting that lasted 2-3 hours, imposed from several dozen to over a hundred death sentences.

Before execution, everyone had to undress in the washrooms, and if the number of those sentenced to death was too small, the sentence was carried out right there. If the number of those sentenced was sufficient, they were taken out through a small door to be shot at the “Wall of Death.”

The system of punishment that the SS administered in Hitler's concentration camps was part of a well-planned, deliberate extermination of prisoners. A prisoner could be punished for anything: for picking an apple, relieving himself while working, or for pulling out his own tooth to exchange it for bread, even for working too slowly, in the opinion of the SS man.

Prisoners were punished with whips. They were hung by their twisted arms on special poles, placed in the dungeons of a camp prison, forced to perform penalty exercises, stances, or sent to penalty teams.

In September 1941, an attempt was made here to mass exterminate people using the poisonous gas Zyklon B. About 600 Soviet prisoners of war and 250 sick prisoners from the camp hospital died then.

The cells located in the basements housed prisoners and civilians who were suspected of having connections with prisoners or assisting in escapes, prisoners sentenced to starvation for the escape of a cellmate, and those whom the SS considered guilty of violating camp rules or against whom an investigation was underway. .

All the property that the people deported to the camp brought with them was taken away by the SS. It was sorted and stored in huge barracks in Auszewiec II. These warehouses were called “Canada”. I will tell you more about them in the next report.

The property located in the warehouses of the concentration camps was then transported to the Third Reich for the needs of the Wehrmacht.Gold teeth that were removed from the corpses of murdered people were melted down into ingots and sent to the SS Central Sanitary Administration. The ashes of the burned prisoners were used as manure or they were used to fill nearby ponds and river beds.

Items that previously belonged to people who died in gas chambers were used by SS men who were part of the camp staff. For example, they turned to the commandant with a request to issue strollers, things for babies and other items. Despite the fact that looted property was constantly being removed by trainloads, the warehouses were overcrowded, and the space between them was often filled with piles of unsorted luggage.

As the Soviet Army approached Auschwitz, the most valuable things were urgently removed from warehouses. A few days before the liberation, the SS men set fire to warehouses, erasing traces of the crime. 30 barracks burned down, and in those that remained, after liberation, many thousands of pairs of shoes, clothes, toothbrushes, shaving brushes, glasses, dentures were found...

While liberating the camp at Auschwitz, the Soviet Army discovered about 7 tons of hair packed in bags in warehouses. These were the remains that the camp authorities did not manage to sell and send to the factories of the Third Reich. The analysis showed that they contain traces of hydrogen cyanide, a special toxic component of drugs called “Cyclone B”. From human hair, German companies, among other products, produced hair tailor's beads. Rolls of beading found in one of the cities, located in a display case, were submitted for analysis, the results of which showed that it was made from human hair, most likely women's hair.

It is very difficult to imagine the tragic scenes that played out every day in the camp. Former prisoners - artists - tried to convey the atmosphere of those days in their work.

Hard work and hunger led to complete exhaustion of the body. From hunger, prisoners fell ill with dystrophy, which very often ended in death. These photographs were taken after liberation; they show adult prisoners weighing from 23 to 35 kg.

In Auschwitz, in addition to adults, there were also children who were sent to the camp along with their parents. First of all, these were the children of Jews, Gypsies, as well as Poles and Russians. Most Jewish children died in gas chambers immediately after arriving at the camp. A few of them, after careful selection, were sent to a camp where they were subject to the same strict rules as adults. Some of the children, such as twins, were subjected to criminal experiments.

One of the most terrible exhibits is a model of one of the crematoria in the Auschwitz II camp. On average, about 3 thousand people were killed and burned in such a building per day...

And this is the crematorium in Auschwitz I. It was located behind the camp fence.

The largest room in the crematorium was the morgue, which was converted into a temporary gas chamber. Here in 1941 and 1942, Soviet prisoners and Jews from the ghetto organized by the Germans in Upper Silesia were killed.

The second part contains two of the three ovens, reconstructed from preserved original metal elements, in which about 350 bodies were burned during the day. Each retort housed 2-3 corpses at a time.

Auschwitz is a city that has become a symbol of the mercilessness of the fascist regime; the city where one of the most senseless dramas in human history unfolded; a city where hundreds of thousands of people were brutally murdered. In the concentration camps located here, the Nazis built the most terrible conveyor belts of death, exterminating up to 20 thousand people every day... Today I begin to talk about one of the most terrible places on earth - the concentration camps at Auschwitz. I warn you, the photographs and descriptions left below may leave a heavy mark on the soul. Although I personally believe that every person should touch and let through these terrible pages of our history...

There will be very few of my comments on the photographs in this post - this is too sensitive a topic, on which, it seems to me, I do not have the moral right to express my point of view. I honestly admit that visiting the museum left a heavy scar on my heart that still refuses to heal...

Most of the comments on the photos are based on the guidebook (

The Auschwitz concentration camp was Hitler's largest concentration camp for Poles and prisoners of other nationalities, whom Hitler's fascism doomed to isolation and gradual destruction by hunger, hard work, experimentation, and immediate death through mass and individual executions. Since 1942, the camp has become the largest center for the extermination of European Jews. Most of the Jews deported to Auschwitz died in gas chambers immediately after arrival, without registration or identification with camp numbers. That is why it is very difficult to establish the exact number of those killed - historians agree on a figure of about one and a half million people.

But let's return to the history of the camp. In 1939, Auschwitz and its surroundings became part of the Third Reich. The city was renamed Auschwitz. In the same year, the fascist command came up with the idea of ​​​​creating a concentration camp. The deserted pre-war barracks near Auschwitz were chosen as the site for the creation of the first camp. The concentration camp is named Auschwitz I.

The education order dates back to April 1940. Rudolf Hoess is appointed camp commandant. On June 14, 1940, the Gestapo sent the first prisoners to Auschwitz I - 728 Poles from the prison in Tarnow.

The gate leading to the camp is with the cynical inscription: “Arbeit macht frei” (Work makes you free), through which the prisoners went to work every day and returned ten hours later. In a small square next to the kitchen, the camp orchestra played marches that were supposed to speed up the movement of prisoners and make it easier for the Nazis to count them.

At the time of its founding, the camp consisted of 20 buildings: 14 one-story and 6 two-story. In 1941-1942, with the help of prisoners, one floor was added to all one-story buildings and eight more buildings were built. The total number of multi-story buildings in the camp was 28 (except for the kitchen and utility buildings). The average number of prisoners fluctuated between 13-16 thousand prisoners, and in 1942 reached over 20 thousand. Prisoners were placed in blocks, also using attics and basements for this purpose.

Along with the growth in the number of prisoners, the territorial volume of the camp increased, which gradually turned into a huge plant for exterminating people. Auschwitz I became the base for a whole network of new camps.

In October 1941, after there was no longer enough space for the newly arrived prisoners at Auschwitz I, work began on the construction of another concentration camp, called Auschwitz II (also known as Bireknau and Brzezinka). This camp was destined to become the largest in the Nazi death camp system. I .

In 1943, in Monowitz near Auschwitz, another camp was built on the territory of the IG Ferbenindustrie plant - Auschwitz III. In addition, in 1942-1944, about 40 branches of the Auschwitz camp were built, which were subordinate to Auschwitz III and were located mainly near metallurgical plants, mines and factories that used prisoners as cheap labor.

Arriving prisoners were taken away from their clothes and all personal items, they were cut, disinfected and washed, and then they were given numbers and registered. Initially, each of the prisoners was photographed in three positions. Since 1943, prisoners began to be tattooed - Auschwitz became the only Nazi camp in which prisoners received tattoos with their number.

Depending on the reasons for their arrest, prisoners received triangles of different colors, which, along with their numbers, were sewn onto their camp clothes. Political prisoners were given a red triangle; Jews wore a six-pointed star consisting of a yellow triangle and a triangle of the color that corresponded to the reason for their arrest. Black triangles were given to gypsies and those prisoners whom the Nazis considered antisocial elements. Jehovah's Witnesses received purple triangles, homosexuals received pink triangles, and criminals received green triangles.

The scanty striped camp clothing did not protect the prisoners from the cold. Linen was changed at intervals of several weeks, and sometimes even at monthly intervals, and the prisoners did not have the opportunity to wash it, which led to epidemics of various diseases, especially typhus and typhoid, as well as scabies.

The hands of the camp clock mercilessly and monotonously measured the life of the prisoner. From the morning to the evening gong, from one bowl of soup to the next, from the first count until the moment when the prisoner's corpse was counted for the last time.

One of the disasters of camp life was the inspections at which the number of prisoners was checked. They lasted for several, and sometimes over ten hours. Camp authorities very often announced penalty checks, during which prisoners had to squat or kneel. There were also cases when they were ordered to hold their hands up for several hours.

Along with executions and gas chambers, grueling labor was an effective means of exterminating prisoners. Prisoners were employed in various sectors of the economy. At first they worked during the construction of the camp: they built new buildings and barracks, roads and drainage ditches. A little later, the industrial enterprises of the Third Reich increasingly began to use the cheap labor of prisoners. The prisoner was ordered to do the work at a run, without a second of rest. The pace of work, the meager portions of food, as well as constant beatings and abuse increased the mortality rate. During the return of prisoners to the camp, the dead or wounded were dragged or carried on wheelbarrows or carts.

The prisoner's daily caloric intake was 1300-1700 calories. For breakfast, the prisoner received about a liter of “coffee” or a decoction of herbs, for lunch - about 1 liter of lean soup, often made from rotten vegetables. Dinner consisted of 300–350 grams of black clay bread and a small amount of other additives (for example, 30 g sausage or 30 g margarine or cheese) and a herbal drink or “coffee.”

At Auschwitz I, most prisoners lived in two-story brick buildings. Living conditions throughout the camp's existence were catastrophic. The prisoners brought in by the first trains slept on straw scattered on the concrete floor. Later, hay bedding was introduced. About 200 prisoners slept in a room that barely accommodated 40-50 people. The three-tier bunks installed later did not improve living conditions at all. Most often there were 2 prisoners on one tier of bunks.

The malarial climate of Auschwitz, poor living conditions, hunger, scanty clothing that was not changed for a long time, unwashed and unprotected from the cold, rats and insects led to mass epidemics that sharply reduced the ranks of prisoners. A large number of patients who came to the hospital were not admitted due to overcrowding. In this regard, SS doctors periodically carried out selections both among patients and among prisoners in other buildings. Those who were weakened and had no hope of a quick recovery were sent to death in gas chambers or killed in a hospital by injecting a dose of phenol directly into their hearts.

That is why prisoners called the hospital “the threshold of the crematorium.” At Auschwitz, prisoners were subjected to numerous criminal experiments carried out by SS doctors. For example, Professor Karl Clauberg, in order to develop a quick method of biological destruction of the Slavs, conducted criminal sterilization experiments on Jewish women in building No. 10 of the main camp. Dr. Josef Mengele, as part of genetic and anthropological experiments, conducted experiments on twin children and children with physical disabilities.

In addition, various kinds of experiments were carried out in Auschwitz using new drugs and preparations: toxic substances were rubbed into the epithelium of prisoners, skin transplants were carried out... During these experiments, hundreds of prisoners died.

Despite the difficult living conditions, constant terror and danger, the camp prisoners carried out secret underground activities against the Nazis. It took different forms. Establishing contacts with the Polish population living in the area around the camp made possible the illegal transfer of food and medicine. Information was transmitted from the camp about crimes committed by the SS, lists of names of prisoners, SS men and material evidence of crimes. All parcels were hidden in various objects, often specially intended for this purpose, and correspondence between the camp and the centers of the resistance movement was encrypted.

In the camp, work was carried out to provide assistance to prisoners and explanatory work in the field of international solidarity against Hitlerism. Cultural activities were also carried out, which consisted of organizing discussions and meetings at which prisoners recited the best works of Russian literature, as well as secretly holding religious services.

Check area - here the SS men checked the number of prisoners.

Public executions were also carried out here on a portable or common gallows.

In July 1943, the SS hanged 12 Polish prisoners on it because they maintained relations with the civilian population and helped 3 comrades escape.

The courtyard between buildings No. 10 and No. 11 is fenced with a high wall. Wooden shutters placed on the windows in block No. 10 were supposed to make it impossible to observe the executions carried out here. In front of the “Wall of Death,” the SS shot several thousand prisoners, mostly Poles.

In the dungeons of building No. 11 there was a camp prison. In the halls on the right and left sides of the corridor, prisoners were placed awaiting the verdict of the military court, which came to Auschwitz from Katowice and, during a meeting that lasted 2-3 hours, imposed from several dozen to over a hundred death sentences.

Before execution, everyone had to undress in the washrooms, and if the number of those sentenced to death was too small, the sentence was carried out right there. If the number of those sentenced was sufficient, they were taken out through a small door to be shot at the “Wall of Death.”

The system of punishment that the SS administered in Hitler's concentration camps was part of a well-planned, deliberate extermination of prisoners. A prisoner could be punished for anything: for picking an apple, relieving himself while working, or for pulling out his own tooth to exchange it for bread, even for working too slowly, in the opinion of the SS man.

Prisoners were punished with whips. They were hung by their twisted arms on special poles, placed in the dungeons of a camp prison, forced to perform penalty exercises, stances, or sent to penalty teams.

In September 1941, an attempt was made here to mass exterminate people using the poisonous gas Zyklon B. About 600 Soviet prisoners of war and 250 sick prisoners from the camp hospital died then.

The cells located in the basements housed prisoners and civilians who were suspected of having connections with prisoners or assisting in escapes, prisoners sentenced to starvation for the escape of a cellmate, and those whom the SS considered guilty of violating camp rules or against whom an investigation was underway. .

All the property that the people deported to the camp brought with them was taken away by the SS. It was sorted and stored in huge barracks in Auszewiec II. These warehouses were called “Canada”. I will tell you more about them in the next report.

The property located in the warehouses of the concentration camps was then transported to the Third Reich for the needs of the Wehrmacht.Gold teeth that were removed from the corpses of murdered people were melted down into ingots and sent to the SS Central Sanitary Administration. The ashes of the burned prisoners were used as manure or they were used to fill nearby ponds and river beds.

Items that previously belonged to people who died in gas chambers were used by SS men who were part of the camp staff. For example, they turned to the commandant with a request to issue strollers, things for babies and other items. Despite the fact that looted property was constantly being removed by trainloads, the warehouses were overcrowded, and the space between them was often filled with piles of unsorted luggage.

As the Soviet Army approached Auschwitz, the most valuable things were urgently removed from warehouses. A few days before the liberation, the SS men set fire to warehouses, erasing traces of the crime. 30 barracks burned down, and in those that remained, after liberation, many thousands of pairs of shoes, clothes, toothbrushes, shaving brushes, glasses, dentures were found...

While liberating the camp at Auschwitz, the Soviet Army discovered about 7 tons of hair packed in bags in warehouses. These were the remains that the camp authorities did not manage to sell and send to the factories of the Third Reich. The analysis showed that they contain traces of hydrogen cyanide, a special toxic component of drugs called “Cyclone B”. From human hair, German companies, among other products, produced hair tailor's beads. Rolls of beading found in one of the cities, located in a display case, were submitted for analysis, the results of which showed that it was made from human hair, most likely women's hair.

It is very difficult to imagine the tragic scenes that played out every day in the camp. Former prisoners - artists - tried to convey the atmosphere of those days in their work.

Hard work and hunger led to complete exhaustion of the body. From hunger, prisoners fell ill with dystrophy, which very often ended in death. These photographs were taken after liberation; they show adult prisoners weighing from 23 to 35 kg.

In Auschwitz, in addition to adults, there were also children who were sent to the camp along with their parents. First of all, these were the children of Jews, Gypsies, as well as Poles and Russians. Most Jewish children died in gas chambers immediately after arriving at the camp. A few of them, after careful selection, were sent to a camp where they were subject to the same strict rules as adults. Some of the children, such as twins, were subjected to criminal experiments.

One of the most terrible exhibits is a model of one of the crematoria in the Auschwitz II camp. On average, about 3 thousand people were killed and burned in such a building per day...

And this is the crematorium in Auschwitz I. It was located behind the camp fence.

The largest room in the crematorium was the morgue, which was converted into a temporary gas chamber. Here in 1941 and 1942, Soviet prisoners and Jews from the ghetto organized by the Germans in Upper Silesia were killed.

The second part contains two of the three ovens, reconstructed from preserved original metal elements, in which about 350 bodies were burned during the day. Each retort housed 2-3 corpses at a time.