Throughout the Third Reich and the Second World War, there were many makeshift execution
sites established.
The Nazis used different methods to execute prisoners, including inside of Germany they
used a guillotine style device called a fallbeil.
Across the nation people were being guillotined to death for resisting Hitler and his government,
but also there were large scale hangings that took place inside of German cities and across
occupied lands.
Inside of the occupied lands, the Gestapo and other German agencies inspired a reign
of fear into the people living in them countries to force them into submission.
But inside of the largest concentration camp established, there was an execution site created
that was used to execute thousands of people.
The Death Wall as it was known sat between Blocks 10 and 11 which themselves provoked
fear into the prisoners, and many would stand against it during the camps operation before
they were then dispatched by a firing squad or a lone gunman.
Join us today as we look at the BRUTAL executions of the Death wall of Auschwitz.
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Auschwitz was the largest concentration camp established by the SS and inside the huge
complex over 1.3 million people were imprisoned within the barbed wire fences.
IT’s believed that 1.1 million people at least were killed there, inside of the gas
chambers and in other killings.
The guards of Auschwitz were brutal and were known for their beatings of inmates sometimes
to death, but there was one part of the camp which inspired as much fear as the guards
of Auschwitz.
Block 10 and 11 stood inside of the mens camp, and these two large brick buildings struck
prisoners with so much fear that they would walk quickly past them.
Block 10 was where human experimentation took place inside of the camp, and inside there
many doctors would conduct horrific experiments onto the inmates.
Prisoners knew if they were summoned to block 10 then there was a very good chance that
they would never make it out alive, as they would be infected with deadly diseases and
then subject to different treatments many of which were so potent that they would be
killed.
Also many people were killed straight away by injections into the heart, but inside of
the brick building next door, Block 11, there was also horrific punishment inflicted upon
people.
Block 11 was the punishment centre of the camp, and here there were many interrogation
rooms and cells where prisoners would be investigated by Gestapo and SS agents.
Torture was administered insider of Block 11 and many people were killed through the
ordeals they were subject to within the building.
There were also standing cells here which were tiny dungeon like prison rooms in which
people were not able to move or sit down, and they were help in these very cramped conditions
for days on end with very little oxygen supply.
But next to these blocks was the Death Wall of Auschwitz.
The Death Wall that stands today inside of the courtyard is a reconstruction of what
it used to look like and this was an execution area.
Many people were brought to Auschwitz from around Poland to be killed, and here many
Polish people on behalf of the General Government who had been sentenced to death were killed
inside of Auschwitz on the death wall.
To begin with a firing squad near to the camp where gravel had been taken from the ground
was used, and executions took place inside of these gravel pits.
But from Autumn 1941, the majority of executions by firing squad took place in the walled off
yard against the death wall.
The first executions occurred there on the 11th November 1941 with inmates being shot
in the back of the head on Poland’s National Independence Day.
This was a huge mass shooting, and 151 polish people made their way to the death wall one
at a time, and they were forced to strip naked and then had their hands tied behind their
backs.
They were then told to stand against the wall, and then an SS executioner walked up from
behind and shot them in the back of the head with a small calibre rifle.
It was then said that following this execution a Catholic mass was held in memorial for the
dozens killed.
Women were also shot on the Death Wall, and these were dealt with in the same manner as
men, but were given some privacy to disrobe and undress in a seperate room near to the
courtyard before they were led to the wall, tied and then shot dead.
Rudolf Hoess the Commandant of Auschwitz stated that, ‘execution orders arrived in an unbroken
stream,’ and another SS officer stated that, ‘some of these walking skeletons had spent
months in the stinking cells, where not even animals would be kept, and they could barely
manage to stand straight, and yet at the last moment many of them shouted ‘Long live Poland,
or long life freedom.’
Following the shootings a group of prisoners known as the Sonderkommando would pick up
the bodies and would then place them onto trucks or carts before they were then taken
to the crematoria and were disposed of.
Many of the people who were taken to the death wall were never recorded on the camps records
as they were brought specifically just to be killed, and because of this it’s impossible
to calculate how many thousands of people were shot dead there.
Around 4,500 polish prisoners were sentenced to death by the courts, and a significant
number of these were shot after being taken to Auschwitz, and many Soviet POWs were also
brought in from outside prisons to be killed.
It is estimated that thousands were killed on the death wall, and around 10,000 polish
people were taken to Auschwitz without being registered to just be killed and executed.
Around 1000 soviet POWs died also in Auschwitz by execution, with many taking place on the
death wall.
The polish government in exile stated that 11,274 prisoners and 6,314 prisoners of war
were executed presumably most taking place on the death wall.
This included many people who were suspected of being involved in the Polish resistance.
The gestapo would round these people up, then torture and interrogate them before they were
sent to Auschwitz to be executed.
Firing squads would also be assembled in the courtyard, and the concrete blocks in front
of the wall were placed there to reduce ricochets following bullets being fired.
On the 7th October 1944 another mass execution took place against the death wall, as 200
members of the Sonderkommando, those prisoners forced to collect the bodies and burn them
inside of the crematoria.
They rose up against the guards in the Sonderkommando rebellion and revolt, and during this one
overseer was thrown inside a furnace in the crematoria, and they attacked the SS with
stones and hammers.
But to deal with this, the SS went into overdrive and they ordered mass executions of the sonderkommando
on the firing range.
Also floggings and whippings took place in the death wall’s courtyard, and prisoners
could be heard screaming in pain from their punishment there.
As mentioned inside of Auschwitz other execution methods were used such as hangings where gallows
took the lives of many prisoners during roll call.
The Death Wall was one element of terror inside of the camp in which the SS inflicted horror
onto the prisoners, and the thought of people going to their deaths there was a common one
throughout the inmates.
It was a very scary and brutal part of the camp sandwiched between the experimentation
block and the torture block, and today the Death wall is a horrific part of Auschwitz
in which thousands of people lost their lives against.
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