The liberation of Auschwitz
This week the world commemorated the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the most notorious of the Nazi camps
How was Auschwitz liberated?
The Red Army launched a major offensive in January 1945; in just over two weeks, Soviet forces advanced from central Poland to near the current border with Germany. On 27 January, they liberated Auschwitz, in the town of Oswiecim, and its 40 or so satellite camps; 230 Soviet troops were lost in combat that day. By then, Auschwitz had largely been evacuated: Heinrich Himmler, one of the architects of the Holocaust, had ordered that no evidence should fall into Allied hands. The Soviets found only 7,500 prisoners, mostly sick and close to starvation, many confined to bunks covered with filth and excrement – and more than 600 corpses. Most of the inmates – about 58,000 – had been evacuated earlier in the month, on “death marches” taking them deeper into German-held territory.
How did witnesses remember the episode?
Many in the Nazi camps “experienced their liberation as a sudden absence of guards rather than as an arrival of Allied liberators”, writes the historian Dan Stone. One of the great memoirists of Auschwitz, Primo Levi, described ten days of chaos in the wake of the Germans’ departure. On 27 January, four young Soviet soldiers arrived on horseback: he wrote that they seemed ashamed, “throwing strangely embarrassed glances at the sprawling bodies, at the battered huts and at us few still alive”. One Soviet officer, Georgii Elisavetskii, remembers the survivors trying to hide from him before he spoke in Yiddish: “Do not be afraid, I am a colonel of Soviet Army and a Jew. We have come to liberate you,” he said. “Finally, as if the barrier collapsed ... they rushed towards us shouting, fell on their knees, kissed the flaps of our overcoats, and threw their arms around our legs.” Despite the Soviets’ determined efforts, about half of those inmates died.
Why is Auschwitz particularly notorious?
It was the Holocaust’s most deadly site. The numbers are estimates – the SS destroyed their records – but about 1.1 million people were killed at Auschwitz: 960,000 Jews, 75,000 Polish civilians, 25,000 Roma, 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war, and 15,000 others. It was also unusual. There were various types of camps in the Nazi system: concentration camps, such as Dachau, for keeping enemies of the regime; extermination camps, such as Treblinka; industrial labour camps; and prisoner of war camps. The 15-square-mile Auschwitz zone contained all of these: Auschwitz I, a concentration camp; Auschwitz IIBirkenau, a death camp; Auschwitz III-Monowitz, built by IG Farben to make synthetic rubber; and dozens of sub-camps. Some 200,000 inmates survived Auschwitz, so it is relatively well remembered. By contrast, more than 800,000 died at Treblinka in eastern Poland, but there were just 67 Jewish survivors to bear witness.
Why was Auschwitz chosen?
Originally a Polish army barracks, Auschwitz I was adapted in mid-1940 to imprison (and execute) Polish political prisoners. They were supervised by internees: criminals from Germany, who established a reputation for sadism. Gassing, using Zyklon B cyanide pellets, was pioneered there on Soviet POWs in 1941. As the War went on, the first stage of the genocide, the mass killings carried out by the Einsatzgruppen – death squads following Axis forces across Eastern Europe – gave way to a more systematic “final solution to the Jewish question”. It was agreed by Nazi officials at the Wannsee Conference in January 1942 that Jews from all over Europe would be transported to camps in Poland, which had the continent’s largest Jewish population, and annihilated through forced labour and mass murder. The first mass transport came in early 1942.
How did the death camp work?
People were crammed into livestock wagons from all across Europe. Upon arrival, they were subjected to a “selection”: those deemed useful were sent right to be registered, and set to work on starvation rations; the rest were sent left to the showers for “delousing” – i.e. to Birkenau’s gas chambers. The average number of bodies disposed of between 1942 and 1944 was 1,000 per day, though between April and July 1944, when 430,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz, it was around 6,000 per day. The disposal was done by Sonderkommando, “special squads” of mostly Jewish prisoners, who were wiped out at regular intervals.
What impact did the liberation of Auschwitz have?
At the time, not much, certainly in the West. The New York Times devoted only two paragraphs to the discovery of a “murder factory” at Oswiecim. The Allies had been aware of the genocide since at least 1942 (see box); the Russians had discovered other major camps in 1944. But in the West, there was suspicion of what was seen as Soviet propaganda about Nazi crimes, and only over time did the scope and machinery of the final solution come into clear focus. In Auschwitz, the SS guards had blown up the main crematoria and gas chambers, but surprised by the speed of the advance, they left abundant evidence. As well as the survivors, the Russians found 837,000 women’s garments, 370,000 men’s suits, and 7.7 tonnes of human hair.
Why is this anniversary particularly significant?
In 2005, the UN designated 27 January as International Holocaust Remembrance Day, urging every member nation to commemorate its victims and to help prevent future acts of genocide. The date was chosen because of Auschwitz’s centrality to the killing of around six million Jews under Hitler’s regime. “After Auschwitz, the human condition is no longer the same,” declared another survivor, Elie Wiesel. But the ceremonies this week are likely to be the last major events at which survivors will be present. They mark the moment at which the Holocaust is passing out of living memory.