Penal company (Auschwitz concentration camp)

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Bringing prisoners to the penal company was one of the most severe camp penalties in Auschwitz . The prisoners in this penal department were subject to a decimation program under the most difficult working and living conditions on the part of the commanding officers of the camp SS and prison functionaries who supervised them . The death rate among prisoners in the penal company was extraordinarily high, so in many cases the admission to the penal company amounted to a death sentence. First, in August 1940, a penal company for male prisoners was formed in the main camp of the Auschwitz concentration camp, which was later transferred to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. From June 1942 there was also a penal company for women, first in Budy near Oświęcim and later in the women's camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The so-called educational company existed for a few months in 1941 as a further punishment unit for men . The punishment companies in the Auschwitz concentration camp existed until the camp was evacuated in January 1945.

Male punishment company

At the beginning of August 1940, a penal company for men was formed in the main camp of Auschwitz , the purpose of which, as part of the camp penalties, was to isolate them from the other prisoners and to perform exhausting hard labor while running. Furthermore, the prisoners of the penal company were excluded from correspondence, they were not allowed to smoke in their free time and their food rations were lower than usual. The penal company, isolated from the other prisoners, was initially housed on the upper floor of Block 3a of the main camp and later in Block 13 (from August 1941 it was run as Block 11 ). On May 9, 1942, the penal company was transferred to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp and relocated to the camp area several times.

Reasons that led to the briefing in the penal company were, for example, escape attempts or prohibited contact with civilians or the possession of prohibited items (money, photographs, letters, clothing) as well as insufficient work performance in the sense of the SS (breaks, slow work). The duration of assignment to the punishment company was between one and twelve months and longer. Over 6,000 prisoners were assigned to the penal company between 1940 and 1945. At first there were mainly Jews and Polish clergy in the penal company. The prisoners this company received on the concentration camp prisoner clothing as an additional indicator of isolation inside the bearing a black dot on the front and back of their jacket and pants.

After the punishment company was formed, the SK prisoners first had to carry out leveling work with a road roller in the main camp under the most difficult of conditions, dig the foundations for the prisoner blocks and drive down gravel in the gravel pit outside the camp. After being transferred to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, the members of the punishment company had to create a drainage ditch called the Königsgraben. From 1940 to 1942, the induction into the penal company amounted to a death sentence: According to statements made by Auschwitz survivor and member of the penal company Jan Pilecki, more than a hundred prisoners died a day.

Command leader of the penal company was temporarily the notorious SS-Hauptscharführer Otto Moll . First Kapo and later block elder of the penal company was Ernst Krankemann , last block elder was Emil Bednarek . The prisoners of the penal company were often badly mistreated by the command leaders and prison functionaries, resulting in an extremely high death rate. A mass escape of four hundred prisoners of the penal company on June 10, 1942 from the camp area failed, only nine prisoners were freed. Of those who were arrested, more than 350 died in the following reprisals, 320 of them in the gas chamber .

In the book of the penal company , the inmates interned there were recorded with the inmate number, date of birth, duration of assignment and date of discharge or death. The book of the penal company was kept by the respective SK prisoner clerk as well as in the main office. The records from July 19, 1943 to November 24, 1944 have been preserved. Among the 1069 entries listed there are 17 in which a prisoner was assigned twice to the penal company. 95 entries record the death of the prisoner, including three shootings while attempting to escape.

In 1959, the Polish Auschwitz survivor Józef Kret made the following comments about the punishment company in the first edition of the Auschwitz magazine : “Whoever walked through it was convinced that the camp was only a vestibule to Hell. Hell itself was only the punishment company. "

Women's punishment company

In June 1942, a punishment company for women was set up in retaliation for the first successful escape of a female prisoner (J. Nowak). Initially the command consisted of 200 Polish women who had recently been sent to Auschwitz as so-called political prisoners from Krakow . Later, German prisoners as well as Slovak and French Jews were assigned to the penal company, which had grown to around 400 female prisoners. Initially, the women's punishment company was not far from the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in accommodation in the village of Budy (Budy Command). In the spring of 1943 the women's punishment company was transferred to the women's camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau and housed there. The inmates of the women's punishment company also did heavy labor while mistreating female guards and prisoner functionaries: In addition to cutting reeds and desludging the fish ponds of the Harmense subcamp, they also had to do exhausting earthworks. At the beginning of October 1942, around 90 French Jewish women were massacred by German female kapos using axes and clubs, on the pretext of having planned a revolt . The head of the women's punishment company was temporarily Irma Grese .

literature

  • Wacław Długoborski , Franciszek Piper (eds.): Auschwitz 1940–1945. Studies on the history of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. Verlag Staatliches Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau, Oswiecim 1999, ISBN 83-85047-76-X . 5 volumes:
    • I. Construction and structure of the camp.
    • II. The prisoners - living conditions, work and death.
    • III. Destruction.
    • IV. Resistance.
    • V. Epilog.
  • Raphael Gross , Werner Renz (ed.): The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial (1963–1965). Annotated source edition , Scientific Series of the Fritz Bauer Institute, Volume 1, Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main / New York 2013, ISBN 978-3-593-39960-7 .
  • Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum (ed.): Auschwitz death books . Volume 1: Reports , Saur, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-598-11263-7 .
  • Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum (ed.): Auschwitz in the eyes of the SS. Oswiecim 1998, ISBN 83-85047-35-2 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Raphael Gross, Werner Renz (ed.): The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial (1963-1965). Annotated source edition , Scientific Series of the Fritz Bauer Institute, Volume 1, Frankfurt am Main / New York 2013, p. 207.
  2. ↑ a b c Irena Strzelecka: Punishments and torture . In: Wacław Długoborski, Franciszek Piper (ed.): Auschwitz 1940–1945. Studies on the history of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. , Oswiecim 1999, Volume II: The prisoners - living conditions , work and death , p. 460ff.
  3. ↑ Raphael Gross, Werner Renz (ed.): The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial (1963-1965). Annotated source edition , Scientific Series of the Fritz Bauer Institute, Volume 1, Frankfurt am Main / New York 2013, pp. 207f.
  4. ^ Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum (ed.): Auschwitz death books . Volume 1: Reports , KG Saur, Munich 1995 ISBN 3-598-11263-7 p. 233.
  5. ↑ Quoted from Irena Strzelecka: Punishment and Torture . In: Wacław Długoborski, Franciszek Piper (ed.): Auschwitz 1940–1945. Studies on the history of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. , Oswiecim 1999, Volume II: The prisoners - conditions of existence, work and death , p. 460. The text can also be found in all editions of: HG Adler , Hermann Langbein , Ella Lingens-Reiner, Ed .: Auschwitz. Certificates and reports. Most recently: Series of publications 1520. Federal Agency for Civic Education BpB, Bonn 2014 ISBN 9783838905204 pp. 23–43.
  6. ↑ Note 96 to the Broad Report . In: State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau (ed.): Auschwitz in the eyes of the SS , Oswiecim 1998, p. 58.
  7. ^ Ernst Klee: Auschwitz. Perpetrators, accomplices and victims and what became of them. An encyclopedia of persons , Frankfurt am Main 2013, p. 150.