The Week UK 01Feb2020

Briefing NEWS 13

1February2020 THE WEEK

HowwasAuschwitzliberated?
TheRedArmylaunchedamajor
offensiveinJanuary 1945 ;injustover
twoweeks,Sovietforcesadvancedfrom
centralPolandtonearthecurrentborder
withGermany.On 27 January,they
liberatedAuschwitz,inthetownof
Oswiecim,andits4 0 orsosatellite
camps;2 30 Soviettroopswerelostin
combatthatday.Bythen,Auschwitz
hadlargelybeenevacuated:Heinrich
Himmler,oneofthearchitectsofthe
Holocaust,hadorderedthatnoevidence
shouldfallintoAlliedhands.TheSoviets
foundonly 7 ,500prisoners,mostlysick
andclosetostarvation,manyconfinedto
bunkscoveredwithfilthandexcrement

• andmorethan 600 corpses.Mostof
  theinmates–about58,0 00 – hadbeen
  evacuatedearlierinthemonth,on“death
  marches”takingthemdeeperintoGerman-heldterritory.

Howdidwitnessesremembertheepisode?
Manyin theNazicamps “experiencedtheirliberationasasudden
absence ofguardsratherthan asanarrivalofAlliedliberators”,
writesthe historian DanStone.Oneofthegreatmemoiristsof
Auschwitz,PrimoLevi,describedtendaysofchaosinthewake
ofthe Germans’ departure.On 27January, fouryoungSoviet
soldiersarrived onhorseback:he wrotethatthey seemed
ashamed,“throwing strangelyembarrassedglancesat the
sprawlingbodies,atthebatteredhutsand atusfewstillalive”.
OneSoviet officer,GeorgiiElisavetskii,remembersthesurvivors
tryingtohidefrom him beforehe spokein Yiddish:“Donotbe
afraid,IamacolonelofSovietArmy andaJew.We havecome to
liberateyou,”he said.“Finally,as ifthebarrier collapsed...they
rushedtowardsusshouting,fellon theirknees,kissedthe flapsof
ourovercoats,and threw theirarms aroundourlegs.”Despitethe
Soviets’ determinedefforts, abouthalf ofthoseinmates died.

Whyis Auschwitzparticularly notorious?
ItwastheHolocaust’s mostdeadlysite.Thenumbers are
estimates–theSSdestroyed their records–butabout1.1million
people were killed atAuschwitz: 960,000Jews,75,00 0 Polish
civilians,25,000 Roma,15,000 Soviet
prisonersofwar,and15, 000 others.
Itwasalsounusual. Therewere
various typesof campsin theNazi
system:concentration camps, such as
Dachau, for keeping enemiesof the
regime; extermination camps, such
as Treblinka; industriallabour
camps;and prisonerof warcamps.
The 15-square-mile Auschwitz zone
containedalloft hese: AuschwitzI,
aconcentrationcamp; Auschwitz II-
Birkenau,adeath camp; Auschwitz
III-Monowitz, builtbyIGFarbento
make synthetic rubber;anddozens
of sub-camps.Some200,000 inmates
survived Auschwitz, so itis re latively
well remembered. By contrast, more
than 800,000 died at Treblinkain
eastern Poland, butthere were just
67 Jewishsurvivors to bear witness.

Why wasAuschwitz chosen?
OriginallyaPolis harmybarracks,
AuschwitzIwas adapted in mid-

toimprison(andexecute)Polishpolitical

prisoners.Theyweresupervisedby

internees:criminalsfromGermany,

whoestablishedareputationforsadism.

Gassing,usingZyklonBcyanidepellets,

waspioneeredthereonSovietPOWsin

1941 .AstheWarwenton,thefirststage

ofthegenocide,themasskillingscarried

outbytheEinsatzgruppen–deathsquads

followingAxisforcesacrossEastern

Europe–gavewaytoamoresystematic

“finalsolutiontotheJewishquestion”.

ItwasagreedbyNaziofficialsatthe

WannseeConferenceinJanuary 1942

thatJewsfromalloverEuropewould

betransportedtocampsinPoland,

whichhadthecontinent’slargestJewish

population,andannihilatedthrough

forcedlabourandmassmurder.The

firstmasstransportcameinearly 1942.

Howdidthe deathcampwork?

People were crammedinto livestock wagonsfromallacross

Europe.Upon arrival,they weresubjected toa“selection”:those

deemed useful weresentrighttoberegistered,and setto work on

starvationrations;therestweresentleft tothe showersfor

“de lousing”–i.e.toBirkenau’s gaschambers. The average number

of bodiesdisposedof between 1942 and 1 944 was1,000perday,

thoughbetween AprilandJuly1944,when430, 000 Hungarian

JewsweredeportedtoAuschwitz,itwasaround6,000perday.

Th edisposalwasdonebySonderkommando,“specialsquads”of

mostlyJewishprisoners,who werewipedoutat regularintervals.

Whatimpact did theliberationof Auschwitzhave?

At thetime, notmuch,certainlyintheWest.TheNewYork

Timesdevoted only twoparagraphs tothediscoveryofa“murder

factory”at Oswiecim. TheAllieshadbeenawareof the genocide

since atleast 1942 (seebox);the Russianshad discovered other

majorcamps in 1944 .But intheWest,therewassuspicionof

whatwasseenasSovietpropagandaaboutNazicrimes, and only

over time didthescope andmachineryofthefinalsolution come

intoclear focus.InAuschwitz,theSS guards hadblown upthe

maincrematoriaand gaschambers,butsurprisedbythe speed

of the advance,theyleft abundant

evidence.Aswellas thesurvivors,

theRussians found 837,000women’s

garments,370,000men’ssuits,and

7.7 tonnes of humanhair.

Why isthis anniversary

particularly significant?

In 2005,the UN designated

January asInte rnational Holocaust

Remembrance Day,urging every

membernation to commemorate

its victims andtohelpprevent future

acts ofgenocide. The date waschosen

becauseof Auschwitz’s centrality to

the killing of aroundsixmillion

Jews under Hitler’s regime.“After

Auschwitz,the humancondition

is no longer the same,” declared

another survivor, Elie Wiesel.But

the ceremoniesthis weekare likely

to be thelast majoreventsat which

survivorswill be present. They mark

the moment atwhic hthe Holocaust

is passing out ofliving memory.

The liberation of Auschwitz

Thisweektheworldcommemoratedthe 75 thanniversaryoftheliberationofthemostnotoriousoftheNazicamps

TheSovietsfoundjust7,500prisonersleftatthecamp

Uncovering theHolocaust

The extermination of the European Jewry began when

the German army invaded Russia in July 1941. Reports

of massacres in the USSR leaked rapidly out of Nazi-

occupied Europe. By the end of the following year, the

free world knew, in outline, thatagenocide was under

way. The Polish government-in-exile had compiled a

report from its underground resistance networks, and

in late 1942 it issuedadocument to the embryonic

United Nations entitledThe Mass Extermination of

Jews in German Occupied Poland,which Anthony

Eden referenced in the House of Commons.

In 1943,areport by Witold Pilecki,aPolish officer who

had volunteered to be sent to Auschwitz, and had later

escaped, was the first comprehensive account to reach

the Allies. It included details about the gas chambers,

the selections and medical experiments conducted by

Josef Mengele and other doctors. Further eyewitness

accounts by Auschwitz escapees–196 prisoners

successfully escaped in total–circu late dinearly 1944.

But in Britain, it was the liberation of Bergen-Belsen

concentration camp in April 1945 that was the moment

of real revelation. There, British forces found some of

the evacuees of the camp system in Poland: 60,

starving, mortally ill people, and thousands of corpses.