Auschwitz was the largest concentration camp system established within the Third Reich.
It’s estimated that at least 1.1 million prisoners were killed inside of Auschwitz,
with the mass murder that took place inside shocking the world. When the camp was liberated,
the Soviet Red Army found many prisoners who had been simply left for dead, and after the
Second World War ended in Europe, the time to punish the perpetrators of crimes against
Humanity to justice. One man who was brought to trial was Rudolf Hoess, the former commandant
of Auschwitz who served for the longest amount of time. However today, inside of Auschwitz
a gallows stands, which was specially constructed to take the life of the man who inflicted
such misery, suffering and depravity onto so many people. So join us today as we look
at, ‘The Gallows of Auschwitz,’ remember to support our channel, please make sure to
subscribe.
One common method of punishment and deterrent that was used throughout Auschwitz was to
execute prisoners by hanging. These hangings took place often during roll call and in the
huge yards where this took place. The point of this was to convince the prisoners to remain
in complete submission to the guards. These gallows often were large, and there was one
day in which 12 prisoners from the surveyors labour detail on the 19th July 1943 were executed
on a mass scale. Three prisoners inside of this detachment had escaped, so the guards
dragged 12 prisoners out to the gallows, and hanged them in brutal scenes. The gallows
were used as a way of punishing those who escaped. Mala Zimetbaum, a well liked member
of the camp escaped with her boyfriend, but despite getting outside of the camps walls
they were quickly captured. They were then taken to the gallows to be publicly hanged,
however things didn’t go well. Mala’s boyfriend struggled, and was eventually executed
on them, but Mala refused to go down without a fight, calling on the inmates to rise up,
and instead of hanging her she was then beaten to within an inch of her life, and then was
allegedly burned alive inside the camp crematoria. The gallows were used a lot during the camps
lifetime, and more escapees were hanged, for example 5 two months before the camp was liberated,
and four women were also hanged for being involved in the Sonderkommando revolt, supplying
the rebels with explosives.
So executions were common on the gallows, but after the camp was cleaned up, the surviving
prisoners cared for and many of the staff imprisoned and executed, there was one more
life to be taken inside of Auschwitz. 1.1 million had been killed before, but the time
of the commandant of the camp, Rudolf Hoess was to come. Hoess was the driving force behind
the mass murder at Auschwitz, and it was his leadership that led to thousands being executed
each day inside of the gas chambers. Hoess wrote of the killing process, ‘technically
it wasn’t so hard, it would not have been hard to exterminate even greater numbers.
The killing itself took the least time. You could dispose of 2000 in hall an hour, but
it was the burning that took the time. The Killing was easy, you didn’t even need guards
to drive them into the chambers. They just went in expecting to take showers, and instead
of water, we turned on poison gas, the whole thing went very quickly.’ Hoess experimented
with the most efficient way of killing, and he killed hundreds of thousands.
However Hoess himself was dismissed from his position after it was accused that he had
an affair with a political prisoner. He testified at the Nurembergg Trials after being called
as a defence witness by Ernst Kaltenrbunner’s lawyer, and he described in detail how many
he had overseen go to their deaths, and also how the staff killed on a mass scale. He stated,
‘I commanded Auschwitz until 1 December 1943, and estimate that at least 2,500,000
victims were executed and exterminated there by gassing and burning, and at least another
half million succumbed to starvation and disease, making a total of about 3,000,000 dead. This
figure represents about 70% or 80% of all persons sent to Auschwitz as prisoners, the
remainder having been selected and used for slave labor in the concentration camp industries.
Included among the executed and burnt were approximately 20,000 Russian prisoners of
war (previously screened out of Prisoner of War cages by the Gestapo) who were delivered
at Auschwitz in Wehrmacht transports operated by regular Wehrmacht officers and men. The
remainder of the total number of victims included about 100,000 German Jews, and great numbers
of citizens (mostly Jewish) from The Netherlands, France, Belgium, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia,
Greece, or other countries. We executed about 400,000 Hungarian Jews alone at Auschwitz
in the summer of 1944.’
He was accused of murdering 3 and a half million people, and he replied honestly, ‘No only
2 and a half million, the rest died from disease and starvation.’ Following the trials, he
was later handed over to the Polish to be tried for his involvement in the Holocaust
and the Final Solution. He revised his death toll at around 1.1 million, and even stated
that ‘Auschwitz had limits to its destructive capabilities.’ Hoess trial lasted just short
of 3 weeks, and following this he was sentenced to death to be hanged on the 2nd April 1947.
However the sentence was carried out later on the 16th April. On the day of the verdict,
former prisoners petitioned to the court to allow the execution of the former Commandant
of Auschwitz to take place in a special place, in a place where he inspired so much suffering.
Instead of a prison it was deemed fit for him to be executed inside of Auschwitz, and
the execution was rescheduled as it was feared he would be intercepted by polish citizens
and lynched.
However inside of Auschwitz, a special gallows had been created. It had been made solely
for the purpose of executing Rudolf Hoess, and today a board marks the site of the gallows.
It says, ‘This is where the camp Gestapo was located. Prisoners suspected of involvement
in the camp's underground resistance movement or of preparing to escape were interrogated
here. Many prisoners died as a result of being beaten or tortured. The first commandant of
Auschwitz, SS-Obersturmbannführer Rudolf Höss, who was tried and sentenced to death
after the war by the Polish Supreme National Tribunal, was hanged here on 16 April 1947.’
It was build by German Prisoners of War, who made it with a trapdoor at dawn on the day
of the execution. On the day of the execution, no one was admitted to witness the execution
without holding a special pass, and armed guards were based everywhere. Hoess was brought
back to the camp he oversaw at 8am, and was taken to the camp jail in block 11 where he
consumed a cup of coffee. Two hours later at 10am, he was taken out of the death block,
and was taken to the gallows walking up the main camp street. His hands had been handcuffed
behind his back, and he then arrived at the wooden structure that would take his life.
He stood and looked at it, and the executioners helped him stand on a stood above the trapdoor.
After this, they stood back and a priest approached the gallows. A prosecutor read out the death
sentence, and then the noose was placed around Hoess neck, and then it was adjusted when
he moved his head. The hangman then pulled the stool from below Hoess, and his body then
crashed through the trapdoor and hit part of it. He was executed at 10:08am, and was
pronounced death 13 minutes later with his remains being cremated. However today the
gallows in which Hoess was executed on, are a popular sight to see within Auschwitz. They
have remained a constant reminder of the execution of one of the most evil men in the Nazi regime,
who was tasked with mass murder and inflicting so much suffering onto the prisoners of Auschwitz.
These Gallows of Auschwitz only saw one person having their life taken on them, unlike the
many other wooden structures scattered around the camp.
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