The largest concentration camp of the Third Reich operated by Nazi Germany was Auschwitz.
Inside the barbed wire fences at least 1.1 million people were killed inside the gas
chambers, and by violence inflicted upon the prisoners by the guards.
The commandant Rudolf Hoess was later executed inside of the camp on a specially built gallows
at Auschwitz, for the reign of terror and hell that he instilled at the large complex.
Guards were schooled in how to violently strike fear into the hearts of prisoners, and infamous
members of staff such as Irma Grese and Josef Kramer regularly took the lives of prisoners.
It wasn’t just a place of mass killing, but it was also a place of torture, and specifically
there was one block which became incredibly feared.
Block 11 found inside of Auschwitz I was a brick building where horrific punishment occurred
inside.
But what is the story of this?
Join us today as we look at the horrific torture of Block 11 at Auschwitz, Remember to support
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Auschwitz itself originally began use as an army barracks, but over the Second World War
it transitioned into the largest concentration camp inside of the Third Reich that was also
the most deadly.
Around 1.3 million prisoners were housed there, and the gas chambers each day were used and
killed prisoners on a huge scale.
Around every corner of the camp was death, starvation and suffering.
Prisoners were forced to work rather hard, and were given very little food in order to
perform their daily jobs, and this led to large amounts of malnutrition.
Many guards wanted prisoners to work until they simply dropped, but there were many more
prisoners who did not even make it inside of the camp.
When people were transported to Auschwitz, they had to undergo selection, where guards
and doctors would choose which prisoners could enter the complex to work.
Those who were not deemed fit enough, or were too old or young to work successfully were
taken straight to their deaths in the gas chambers.
To maintain law and order in the camp, guards were told to be violent, and many took this
to the point where they were murderers, and some would whip and beat prisoners to death
regularly in front of others.
Women such as Irma Grese and Johanna Bormann would use their dogs to terrorise prisoners,
and were even known for killing and maiming inmates with their animals.
Guards also regularly shot inmates who weren’t working well, and were not being as productive
as they could have been.
Prisoners could easily be beaten for small infractions of the camps rules, and many were
killed for these.
Inside of roll call yards, there were large gallows in which seemingly almost daily executions
would take place.
At roll call, those who broke the rules or tried to escape would be brought out in front
of thousands of prisoners, before they were then executed to send a message to others
about not breaking the rules.
Some guards even became known for their sadism by nicknames, for example the ‘Hyena of
Auschwitz,’ or ‘The Woman with the dogs.’
With this there was great fear inside the prison population, and in particular there
was one block which became known for it’s brutality with regards to punishment.
Prisoners often were punished for breaking rules such as returning for second helpings
of food at mealtimes, taking out their own gold teeth to barter to buy break, stealing
food from kitchens, putting hands in pockets and some were even so desperate they stole
food from the pigsty.
There were floggings that were done in public at roll call, large whipping spectacles to
terrorise prisoners.
A flogging table known as ‘the goat,’ forced prisoners into a locked position, with
their feet in a box whilst stretched over a table.
Prisoners were then whipped by the guards, and were forced to out the lashes.
They were forced to shout, ’funf und zwanzig besten dank have ice erhalten,’ meaning
25 received with many thanks.
If they got the number wrong, the flogging began again from number 1.
Prisoners were also punished by being tired to posts with their hands tied behind their
backs with chains attack to hooks.
They were left then dangling by the wrists in the medieval style manacles, but Block
11 was known for being the brutal punishment block where torture was administered.
Block 11 was the name of a brick building found inside of Auschwitz I ,the main camp
of the complex.
It was a place where execution and torture took place, as between Block 10 and 11 stood
the Auschwitz Death Wall, the site where many prisoners faced the firing squad.
Inside of Block 11 were a number of different torture chambers and punishment blocks used
to obtain information and inflict pain and suffering onto the prisoners.
Prisoners were interrogated inside Block 11 under extreme torture, and there were many
different devices and methods used within the walls of the building to extract information.
One of these was the ‘Boger Swing,’ and this was used inside the block.
It was said of this device, invented by guard Wilhelm Boger that, ‘It was a meter-long
iron bar suspended by chains hung from the ceiling ... A prisoner would be brought in
for "questioning," stripped naked and bent over the bar, wrists manacled to ankles.
A guard at one side would shove him—or her—off across the chamber in a long, slow arc, while
Boger would ask "questions," at first quietly, then barking them out, and at the last bellowing.
At each return, another guard armed with a crowbar would smash the victim across the
buttocks.
As the swinging went on and on, and the wailing victim fainted, was revived only to faint
howling again, the blows continued—until only a mass of bleeding pulp hung before their
eyes.
Most perished from the ordeal--some sooner, some later.
In the end a sack of bones and flayed flesh and fat was swept along the shambles of that
concrete floor to be dragged away.’
Boger himself was known for overseeing terrible crimes inside of the Block, but was never
executed for his role in the punishment at the camp.
Inside of Block 11, it was here where the first attempts and experiments to kill and
exterminate people and prisoners using Zyklon B were made in September 1941.
As the final solution ramped up, the guards tried different ways of killing prisoners,
and Zyklon B became the method inside of the gas chambers that was used to kill hundreds
of thousands.
It was inside the block where this was tried, and Commandant Rudolf Hoess personally watched
the trials, and his guards oversaw the first killing of Russian prisoners of war in the
basement of block 11.
They continued to use block 11 to repeat the experiment on more Russian POWs and Hoess
would watch the killings, but Block 11 itself became unsuitable as the basement was difficult
to air out following the killings, as there was not much ventilation, and also the crematorium
to dispose of the bodies was a fair way away, so with this gas chambers were made with crematoria
next to them.
So Block 11 was used as the prototype gas chamber.
Many of the prisoners of Block 11 were people who were suspected of being involved in defiance
or resistance at the camp.
Because of this they were interrogated and tortured in different ways, from beatings
and being maimed to being thrown into the specialised torture cells of block 11.
The Stehbunker, or the standing cells were an oubliette style dungeon or cell inside
Block 11 that was used to punish inside of Auschwitz.
There were four standing cells at Auschwitz in the basement of Block 11, and they measured
around 1 square yard, and inside here four prisoners were crammed in and they were only
able to stand.
This was horrendous, and almost like an oubliette style dungeon found in a castle, where prisoners
could not sit or rest up, they were kept in one cramped standing position for periods
of up to 10 days.
Some prisoners were allowed to go out to work, before they were then locked back in the standing
cells again, but there was very minimal air and was only a 2 inch opening for air to come
in, which meant the prisoners did not suffocate, but also that air was in short supply.
One survivor of the cells spoke at the Auschwitz Trials about how he was forced into the standing
cells of block 11 for 6 weeks and was given just three small meals during this time, and
he noted that one prisoner was so hungry inside the cells that he even ate his own shows.
Rudolf Hoess stated that the standing cells were only used for three night punishment,
but this was not the case and it was his successor Arthur Liebehenschel who removed the standing
cells of Block 11 in 1943.
The prisoners who were housed in block 11 were usually interrogated and then sentenced
to death to be hanged or shot.
Int he first years of the camp, many prisoners assigned to the harshest of labour were imprisoned
here, and many Polish priests were also housed inside the block.
To begin with also the Sonderkommando, the groups of prisoners forced to burn bodies
were housed in the block, but then police prisoners were held and these were those suspected
of resistance work.
There were many prisoners who were killed inside Block 11 by starvation, including those
who were sentenced to death by starvation, meaning they were simply left in a cell to
just starve.
But one of the most brutal part of Block 11 was what was found outside in a courtyard
between the block and also Block 10.
Just in the yard at the side was the Death Wall, this was a concrete reinforced wall
which was where firing squads would execute many prisoners.
The condemned were taken from their cells in Block 11 to the death wall, where they
were then stood against the wall before an SS firing squad woulds shoot them.
Thousands of prisoners were shot against the wall, and the SS men took the lives of many
Polish prisoners and those suspected of resistance activity.
Also death sentences were carried out on the death wall of people who were brought into
the camp to be killed.
Many hostages who were detained in reprisal for Polish resistance activities in towns
and cities nearby were brought to Auschwitz and were then killed next to Block 11.
The death wall was dismantled in 1944, but today a reconstruction stands.
Also prisoners were flogged and tied to the post in this yard next to Block 11.
So Block 11 was the feared torture and punishment block of the deadliest concentration camp
of the Second World War.
It was greatly feared, and was used as the Gestapo Headquarters to inflict interrogation
and brutality onto the prisoners.
Using devices such as the Boger Swing, or the standing cells it became a place where
no one wanted to be, and because of this it was considered ‘The death block,’ of Auschwitz.
It was just one part of the horrific concentration camp system, and was a small part of the horror
and terror of Auschwitz, that prisoners had to deal with on a daily basis.
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