A prison system for the innocent

Looking to the right as you walk in through the main gate of Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Oswiecim, Poland. This is the view standing directly beneath the sign that says ‘Arbeit macht frei’, or, ‘Work makes one free’. All the camps had one cynical statement or another posted above the main gate; it was a Nazi tradition. Nobody escaped Auschwitz, and except for some prisoners from the last group to arrive, nobody left alive: more than a million people perished inside these gates or those of Auschwitz ii – Birkenau, 15 minutes away. The phrase above the gate at Buchenwald was ‘Jeden das sein’, or ‘Every man for himself’. Photographed Sept. 27, 2006 by Eric Francis.

[Editor’s Note: This article was originally published Oct. 5, 2006. For a more detailed introduction to this series, please see this link. The approximately eight articles and 15 photos in this series will be published evenings at about 6 pm Eastern Time.]

WHEN THE NAZIS took control of Germany in February 1933, there was a fast seizure of, and concentration of, government power, and within eight days, the roundup of enemies of the Reich began.

Hitler was not initially elected. After many months of extremely complex political maneuvering, he was appointed to the office of chancellor by Paul von Hindenburg, then the president of Germany, and this was the transition to the Nazi state. Hitler had been an up-and-coming figure in Germany for decades, and was the leader of something called the National Socialist movement. It had nothing to do with socialism in the true sense of the word; it was fascism supported by business leaders.

Much of how power was concentrated involved a 9/11-like incident called the Reichstag Fire. This is an infamous event in 20th Century history that everyone should know about. Less than a month after Hitler assumed the chancellorship, the building where the German Parliament met in Berlin was burned down, and this was used as an excuse to give the government carte blanche to do anything it needed to “protect people.”

The fire was blamed on the Communists (enemies of the Nazis), but there is trial testimony from the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials that it was set by the Nazis, particularly Hermann GГ¶ring (who, according to court testimony, admitted to it). German notes, a page documenting the history of the Fire, stated: “it is generally believed the Nazi hierarchy was involved in order to reap political gain — and it obviously did.”

In the aftermath of the fire, all basic civil liberties were curtailed, including freedom of the press, and the state granted itself extra powers to stop its supposed enemies — which soon turned out to be everyone. Hindenburg, after signing these laws, died of lung cancer, after which Hitler declared the office of the president perpetually vacant, in effect merging it with the office of chancellor. He thus held both offices for the duration of his life, and the war: about 11 more years.

Initially, prisoners of the Reich were kept in makeshift or improvised facilities, such as the torture yard in Ilvers Gehoffen, now part of Erfurt, or a Roman Catholic citadel on a hill in central Erfurt. [Both of these are covered in my 1998 series on the Holocaust written in Germany.]

Soon after, construction of a highly organized camp system began, and then mass arrests, deportations, relocations and the extermination of many millions of people. Jews were a central focus, and a major excuse, but nobody was exempt. The people arrested were guilty of no crime, though many of the early ones were those who opposed fascism. Many others were simply on the list of who was going next. The terror created by the roundups was enough to keep the rest of the population silent, and for the most part, people were glad the Gestapo were coming for their neighbors and not for them.

Then the effort spread to the countries neighboring Germany, where poor farmers are said to have resented the wealthier urban Jewish people. At the beginning, this sentiment (known as rampant anti-Semitism) was an excuse for looking the other way as the atrocities began. There is a name for this routine: divide and conquer.

The entity we call Auschwitz started with a relatively small facility, winding up with perhaps 50 brick buildings, in the polish town ofВ OЕ›wiД™cimВ (the Germans pronounced this ‘Auschwitz’ and that is where the name of the camp came from). It was founded May 20, 1940, based on the grounds of an old Polish army barracks, but soon expanded to the surrounding homesteads and farms of the locals. Of the 24 original farms inВ OЕ›wiД™cim, only seven remained after the war, and were in bad shape; the rest had been subsumed into Auschwitz. Wikipedia tells us, “The camp was initially used for interning Polish intellectuals and resistance movement members, then also for Soviet prisoners of war.”

Today it’s a seemingly pleasant enough place, with tree-lined walkways and neat brick buildings about three or four stories tall. Workmen are busy restoring the details and doing maintenance projects. The presence of graceful old trees 60 years later suggests that the Nazis were planning to be there for a while (they were obviously not planted by the survivors). Architecturally, it feels a little like an old-time psychiatric hospital or sanatorium; it’s a bit too organized and sterile to be a college campus. Gradually, seeing detail after detail, one connects with the menacing purpose the place was invested with.

Most of what we know about Auschwitz we know from movies, which perpetuate various inaccuracies. Few people — I suspect even most visitors to the camps — have read a book about the Holocaust. The facility depicted in the photo above was not the extermination facility, which was called Birkenau: and by modern historians, Auschwitz II – Birkenau. That came a little later. Let’s start with the first one, and then deal with the second. Except for size and scale, one is no less atrocious than the other. Inside these gates, it’s estimated that 70,000 people lost their lives, mostly Poles and Russian prisoners of war.

It was originally a forced labor and torture center, but the first extermination experiments and mass exterminations were carried out here. Indeed, the first time Zyklon B gas was used was in the basement of Block 11, the Death Block, which was the ‘prison within the prison’. It was basically a place people were sent to die, many by shooting, torture and hanging by the arms. But in the quest for more efficient ways of killing ever more people, new methods were developed. Wiki reports that, “On September 3, 1941, 600 Soviet POWs were gassed with Zyklon B at Auschwitz camp I; this was the first experiment with the gas at Auschwitz.” Prior to that, 250 Gypsy children at Buchenwald had been used as guinea pigs for the gas, which was originally designed as an insecticide.

Block 11 is preserved in its nearly original state, including the test gas chamber; we’ll get to pictures of that tomorrow. Many of the other blocks have been renovated lightly and converted to museums and memorials which are open to the public without tour guides necessary. Some are dedicated to specific nationalities or religious faiths; others to photographic and artifact displays.

The shock of the place sets in slowly. The war itself comes into some focus, particularly thanks to a photo display of the bombing damage to Warsaw. The day I went was a beautiful clear blue day, and the presence of tourists and a lot of students brings a higher vibration. But as you look at people’s faces, it becomes obvious the difficulty they are experiencing processing what they are seeing. Many have pensive, tortured looks. Sometimes the teens are clowning around, which is the result of nervousness, but also sign that they have a guide who has not put them in the appropriate frame of mind.

Most people are somber and reflective, slowly slipping into an altered state. I saw nobody crying. Most people are a little curious, even if it has a grim quality to it. Many seem to be struggling for understanding. There really is no way to comprehend what happened, but being confronted by the direct evidence is a step in the right direction.

My first cognitive impression of the place involved the sign above the gate, “Work makes one free.” I thought: the problem with the Nazis was that they were liars. Everything else derived from that.

Wiki on Reichstag Fire
…on Auschwitz
…on Zykon B gas
…on Paul von Hindenburg