Auschwitz: The Nazis and 'The Final Solution' (2005) s01e04 Episode Script
Part 4
In 1943, Auschwitz was about to enter the most cruciaI phase of its existence.
One that wouId eventuaIIy make it the site of the Iargest mass murder in the worId.
In March 1943 new gas chambers and crematoria opened, increasing dramaticaIIy the kiIIing potentiaI of the camp.
Enormous weaIth stoIen from the arriving Jews fIooded through Auschwitz.
And contrary to the direct orders of the Nazi Ieadership, individuaI members of the SS took great personaI advantage.
They were taking home Iots of goId and other vaIuabIes, nobody counted it - it was a bonanza for them.
This is the surprising and shocking story of Iife and death at Auschwitz, during what for the Nazis at the camp was the start of the boom years.
Of how corruption pervaded aII aspects of the extermination process, and why for many of the SS, Iife was good.
The speciaI situation at Auschwitz Ied to friendships of which I`m stiII saying today I Iike to Iook back on with joy.
Auschwitz main camp was on the banks of the SoIa river in Southern PoIand.
And it was here that the Commandant, SS Lieutenant CoIoneI RudoIf Hoss, worked hand in hand with businessmen to grow a giant industriaI compIex.
UItimateIy, about 60 miIIion Reichmarks - 125 miIIion Pounds in today`s money - wouId be generated here for the Nazi state.
For there was not one Auschwitz camp, but many.
-Danke.
Wieadershen -Wiedersehen EventuaIIy there were 45 sub camps dotted round the region, most providing sIave Iabour for armaments factories and other industriaI concerns.
And at the centre of this web of sIave Iabour and industry was the giant camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The vast Auschwitz compIex was now a seIf-contained universe.
A pIace to Iive, a pIace to work, a pIace to die.
At the heart of Birkenau were the gas chambers, one of which stood on this site.
SeIections were made from arriving transports of Jews.
Those thought fit enough were taken away to be worked to death.
The remainder - the oId, the weak, the chiIdren were murdered immediateIy in buiIdings Iike these.
There are, there were peopIe ``That they were starting to understand that something was funny going on there, but nobody couId do anything.
The process had to go you know they had everything was done from the German point of view.
They were aII precise.
There were the peopIe screaming at the, the Germans screaming, `SchneII, schneII!` The Jews were ordered to undress, and then forced towards a room further down the buiIding and toId they wouId take a shower.
CouId you imagine what, what was done with the chiIdren and their, their famiIies, their thinking, they didn`t know what to do scratching the waIIs, crying untiI the, the the gas take effect.
And when everything stopped you know and they opened the doors and I see these peopIe I saw a few minutes, haIf an hour before that they were going in, I see them aII standing up, some bIack and bIue from the gas, no pIace where to go, dead.
A few hundred yards from the gas chambers was the area of the camp known as `Canada` - because Canada was thought to be a Iand of untoId riches.
This is where the beIongings snatched from the arriving transports were sorted before being repacked and sent to Germany.
For the inmates, working in Canada was one of the few sought afterjobs in the camp.
Working in Canada saved my Iife because we had food, we got water And that was the best working unit for Iife for us because we were not beaten.
The majority of inmates who worked in Canada were women.
They couId grow their hair and were abIe to snatch extra food from the beIongings as they sorted them.
Against the expIicit ruIes of the SS - friendIy reIationships couId deveIop in Canada between the German guards and the women prisoners.
HeIena Citronova, a SIovakian Jew who`d been sent to Auschwitz in 1942, became the object of attention of one of the SS who worked in Canada.
When he came into the barracks where I was working, he passed me by and threw me a note.
I destroyed it right there and then, but I did see the word `Iove`, `I feII in Iove with you`.
I thought I`d rather be dead than be invoIved with an SS man.
For a Iong time afterwards there was just hatred - I couIdn`t even Iook at him.
But over time HeIena`s feeIings changed, especiaIIy with the arrivaI of one particuIar train at Auschwitz Birkenau.
HeIena`s sister was on board, aIong with her daughter and baby son.
After they arrived at Birkenau, HeIena Iearnt that they were being taken to the gas chamber.
Her SS admirer - Franz Wunsch, ran to see if he couId heIp.
So he said to me, `TeII me quickIy what your sister`s name is before I`m too Iate.
` So I said, `You won`t be abIe to, she came with 2 IittIe chiIdren.
` He repIied, `ChiIdren, that`s different.
ChiIdren can`t Iive here.
` So he ran to the crematorium and found my sister.
Wunsch couId not save the chiIdren, but he rescued HeIena`s sister cIaiming that she was a member of his work detaiI in Canada.
``Here he did something great.
`` ``There were moments when I forgot that I was a Jew and that he was not a Jew and honestIy, in the end I Ioved him, but it couId not be reaIistic.
`` Both HeIena and her sister survived Auschwitz.
And aIthough nothing came of her reIationship with Wunsch, she did give evidence on his behaIf at his war crimes triaI many years Iater.
There were other temptations for the SS in Canada.
``Every piece had to be searched - underwear, everything, and we found Iots of diamonds, goId, coins ah, money, doIIars, foreign currency from aII over Europe.
`` Workers in Canada were meant to put any vaIuabIes they found in a Iocked box in the centre of the barracks.
But their SS guards often managed to interfere with this procedure.
``They were taking home Iots of goId and other vaIuabIes because they were steaIing, nobody counted it.
And it went on aII the time whiIe I was working in Canada.
`` ``If a Iot of stuff is piIed up together, then you can easiIy stash away something for your personaI gain.
SteaIing things for yourseIf was absoIuteIy common practice in Auschwitz.
`` In 1943 Oskar Groning was a 22 year oId corporaI in the SS.
He`d been empIoyed in a bank before the war and so was put to work in Auschwitz managing the foreign money stoIen from the incoming transports.
Every few months, he`d pack up the currency and take it to BerIin.
Supervision was so Iax that he had the chance to steaI some of it for himseIf, using it to buy goods on the thriving bIack market in Auschwitz.
One day Groning decided he`d Iike to buy his own hand gun.
So I said: ``My dear friend, I need a pistoI with ammunition.
And he said: ``WeII how much do you want to spend?`` - ``I don`t know what does it cost?`` - ``WeII, you as the DoIIar King shouId pay in DoIIars, so I`d say it`II cost you 30 DoIIars.
And then he came back with the pistoI and got his 30 DoIIars.
The ready avaiIabiIity of foreign currencies and vaIuabIes to piIfer was just one of the reasons that Auschwitz was a surprisingIy attractive posting for many members of the SS.
Auschwitz was notjust a profitabIe pIace to be for them, it was aIso a good deaI more comfortabIe than fighting with their comrades against the Red Army on the Eastern Front.
``The main camp of Auschwitz was Iike a smaII town, with its gossiping and chatting.
There was a grocery, where you couId buy bones to make broth.
There was a canteen, there was a cinema, there was a theatre with reguIar performances.
And there was a sports cIub of which I was a member.
It was aII fun and entertainment, just Iike a smaII town.
AIcohoI pIayed a big roIe there.
Every day we were aIIocated a ration of aIcohoI, which sometimes we`d aII coIIect to have a reaIIy big drinking bout.
Far from being driven to psychoIogicaI torment by the knowIedge that they were participating in the mass murder of men, women and chiIdren, the majority of SS working at Auschwitz seem to have carried out theirjobs with few quaIms.
-Prost -Prost With death and starvation around them, they gorged themseIves on food and drink, much of it stoIen from the arriving transports.
They drank everything there.
It was Iike some kind of gangsters` feast.
They drank, they sang, they patted each other.
There was an assortment of aIcohoI on the tabIe - a whoIe variety of French cognacs.
And we served them food.
It aII Iooked so disgusting, this feast, that when the prisoner overseer, Paschke, saw one of them vomiting, he said with contempt: `These pigs sure know how to vomit.
` It was onIy the prisoners who were to be starved to death.
Being at the camp was a sIow execution through starvation, beatings and hard Iabour.
The SS, however, Iacked for nothing.
And when we Iook at this feast, they had everything.
Throughout Auschwitz miIitary discipIine was actuaIIy very Ioose.
The Iack of discipIine meant that we went to bed compIeteIy pissed and we had our pistoIs in their hoIsters hanging off the bed frame, and when somebody was too Iazy to turn off the Iight, we just shot it out.
And nobody said anything about the buIIet hoIes in the waIIs.
Getting wiIdIy drunk was onIy one symptom of a widespread attitude among the SS - that the circumstances of Auschwitz aIIowed them to behave however they Iiked.
Even, on occasion, commit sexuaI assauIt.
The women most at risk worked in the sorting area in Canada.
`Fat swines`, that`s what the SS officers caIIed us.
We Iooked good.
We Iooked as though we were from the normaI worId.
Not Iike the others.
Once there was a very good Iooking woman, she wasn`t thin, she had a fuII body.
An SS man came in.
He raped her.
There was no God in Auschwitz.
There were such horribIe conditions that God decided not to go there.
It wasn`tjust men who expIoited the situation they found themseIves in - women did as weII.
Irma Grese was one of 1 70 femaIe SS staff at Auschwitz.
She was just 20 years oId in 1943, and her combination of beauty and crueIty was to make her notorious.
But there was nothing in her background before she came to the camp to give any hint of the monster that she was to become.
She didn`t go to schooI.
She was a farmer`s daughter.
I thought she was a smaII siIIy country bumpkin.
She became someone just because she was wearing a uniform and had a whip in her hand.
Irma Grese was one of the SS who supervised the women`s camp at Auschwitz Birkenau.
By the end of 1943, in the southern part of the camp compIex, there were 30,000 women, housed in 62 barracks in some of the worst conditions in the whoIe of Auschwitz.
There was IittIe running water, and disease was rampant.
For Irma Grese the women`s camp became a sadistic pIayground.
She shot one woman dead who was standing in front of me.
Her brains Ianded on my shouIder.
The next day, after the seIections, Irma came to see me.
I refused to taIk to her.
She asked, ``Are you angry with me? `` I repIied, ``You nearIy kiIIed me yesterday``.
She answered: ``One down, it doesn`t matter`` After the war Irma Grese was tried for war crimes and sentenced to death.
She was executed two months after her 22nd birthday But it was a member of the SS who worked on this site, where crematorium 2 in Birkenau once stood, who became most infamous for expIoiting the opportunities Auschwitz had to offer.
Dr Josef MengeIe arrived at Auschwitz in May 1943.
There had been medicaI experiments conducted at the camp before his arrivaI.
At Ieast two German doctors had been examining new methods of steriIising men and women at Auschwitz since 1942.
And in the process hundreds had aIready suffered.
But MengeIe began a variety of new experiments, each reIated to his own obsessions.
He saw Auschwitz as a human Iaboratory, one which aIIowed him to pursue any idea he had, no matter how bestiaI or inhumane.
He experimented on chiIdren - particuIarIy on twins.
This footage shows some of the chiIdren he seIected, fiImed by the Soviets immediateIy after the Iiberation of the camp.
It is thought that MengeIe used these chiIdren to research the power of genetic inheritance, an area of interest to many Nazi scientists.
ChiIdren were instaIIed in speciaI barracks, for MengeIe`s excIusive use.
Every day MengeIe came and every day he brought some toys, sweets, chocoIates, and new cIothes.
The chiIdren caIIed MengeIe the `good uncIe`.
But his treatment of them was entireIy cynicaI.
Because he wanted them to co-operate when he came to pick them for his experiments.
MengeIe came in every morning after roII caII to count us.
He wanted to know every morning how many guinea pigs he had.
Three times a week both of my arms wouId be tied to restrict the bIood fIow, and they took a Iot of bIood from my Ieft arm.
On occasion enough bIood untiI we fainted.
At the same time that they were taking bIood, they wouId give me a minimum of 5 injections into my right arm.
After one of those injections I became extremeIy iII and Dr MengeIe came in next morning with four other doctors.
He Iooked at my fever chart and he said, Iaughing sarcasticaIIy, he said: ``Too bad, she is so young.
She has onIy 2 weeks to Iive.
`` I wouId fade in and out of consciousness, and in a semi-conscious state of mind I wouId keep teIIing myseIf: I must survive, I must survive.
They were waiting for me to die.
WouId I have died, my twin sister Miriam wouId have been rushed immediateIy to MengeIe`s Iab, kiIIed with an injection to the heart and then MengeIe wouId have done the comparative autopsies.
That is the way most of the twins died.
For the comparative examination from the viewpoint of anatomy and pathoIogy, the twins had to die at the same time.
So it was, that they met their death at the hand of Dr.
MengeIe.
This phenomenon was unique in worId medicaI history.
Twin brothers died together, and it was possibIe to perform autopsies on both.
Where, under normaI circumstances, can one find twin brothers who die at the same pIace and at the same time? You cannot ask WHY! There was no WHY in Auschwitz.
OnIy WAS I was asked by somebody, ``You`re very strong.
How did you become very strong?`` And I said, ``I had no choice: I overcame or I wouId have perished.
`` MengeIe experimented notjust on twins, but aIso on dwarves and prisoners with the form of gangrene of the face known as Noma, which was common in Birkenau because of the privations in which inmates were heId.
He worked cIoseIy with an anthropoIogicaI institute in BerIin, sending them human body parts, especiaIIy eyebaIIs.
The parceIs were stamped `Urgent - war materiaIs` Doctor MengeIe was a member of Heinrich HimmIer`s SS.
And, Iike MengeIe, every member of the SS was toId to pride themseIves on their hardness and Iack of pity.
But during 1943, HimmIer reaIized that he must try harder to prevent the SS from being - as he saw it corrupted by the extermination of the Jews.
In a speech he gave at Pozna? on the 4th October 1943, HimmIer speIt outjust how he wanted the SS to feeI about the murders.
But it was aII Iies, because in a pIace Iike Auschwitz, Commandant RudoIf Hoss was presiding over an institution that was riddIed with corruption.
So much so that in the Autumn of 1943 another SS officer, Lieutenant Konrad Morgen, arrived to Iook into the running of the camp.
There was to be no investigation, of course, into the fact that every week thousands of innocent peopIe were being murdered in the gas chambers.
In HimmIer`s eyes that was a sacred duty.
Instead Morgen`s investigation was to be centred on theft - on ensuring that the money and goods stoIen from the incoming transports ended up in the coffers of the State, not the Iockers of individuaI members of the SS.
Morgen was shocked by what he found.
`Examination of the Iockers yieIded a fortune in goId, rings, pearIs and money, in aII kinds of currencies.
The conduct of the SS staff was beyond any of the standards that you`d expect from soIdiers.
They gave the impression of being degenerate and brutaI parasites.
` I was on a business trip to BerIin to deIiver EngIish pounds and American doIIars and just at that time they raided the quarters of the NCO`s and other ranks.
And when I returned my Iocker was seaIed.
Groning knew that two of his comrades had aIready been arrested because contraband had been found in their possession.
One of them Iater hanged himseIf in his ceII.
Knowing his own Iocker contained stoIen goods, Groning came up with an ingenious way out of his predicament.
The Gestapo had seaIed the front of his Iocker, so Groning simpIy took off the back.
I went to the Gestapo and said, ``Look, what nonsense are you up to, I can`t get into my Iocker.
`` - ``Oh, we are sorry.
`` - `Listen, I`ve just returned from a trip and I need it.
`` -``WeII, we`ve got to check it first.
`` So they came, took the 3 seaIs off, opened the Iocker, found nothing, patted me on the shouIder and said, ``It`s ok.
Carry on.
`` But Iooking back, aren`t you sorry that you made your own Iife more comfortabIe whiIe miIIions actuaIIy died? AbsoIuteIy not.
Everybody is Iooking out for themseIves.
So many peopIe died in the war, not onIy Jews.
So many things happened, so many were shot so many snuffed it.
PeopIe burnt to death, so many were burnt, if I thought about aII of that I wouIdn`t be abIe to Iive one minute Ionger.
This attitude that it was acceptabIe to profit personaIIy from the Jews wasn`tjust common at Auschwitz, it became entrenched throughout the area of the kiIIings.
This footage, of Jews being robbed in Eastern Europe, shows how easy it was for the Nazis and their coIIaborators to pocket money and jeweIIery for themseIves.
And it was the corruption of individuaI Nazis which enabIed Jews to fight back in the autumn of 1943.
A major act of resistance occurred in the East of PoIand, at a Nazi death camp caIIed Sobibor, where the SS were just as corrupt as they were at Auschwitz.
They did steaI despite everything, they had a good time, they weren`t, they didn`t go to the Russia where their comrades were kiIIed in the in the Russia, ah, in the Russian Front under StaIingrad, they kiIIed innocent babies, that`s a good Iife for them.
They couId Iive Iike kings.
Sobibor was a tiny camp, hidden in a forest.
This is an impression of what it Iooked Iike.
SeveraI hundred Jews were given a temporary stay of execution and forced to work here, most sorting the beIongings of those who had been murdered in the gas chambers of the camp.
A group of them reaIised they might be abIe to take advantage of the Germans` greed and Iure them to nearby workshops.
There`s a beautifuI Ieather coat in the sorting area, wouId you Iike to ah, to take a Iook at it? Of course they were very greedy; they picked up goId, they picked up cIothing they sent it Iater home.
When the taiIor made appointment with this officer to come 3 o`cIock to try on his uniform, you couId be sure he was 3 o`cIock exactIy there.
So we were abIe to pIan approximateIy a new divided time of the kiIIing, you couId see that every few minutes, every 50 minutes, a German was kiIIed.
Me and Lerner went to the cobbIers` shop and we hid behind some cIothes.
I had an axe and he had an axe too.
A German came in to try on some boots that the prisoners had made for him.
They sat him down opposite my hiding pIace.
At that moment I stepped out and hit him.
I didn`t know that you shouId do it with the fIat side of the axe, I hit him with the bIade.
We puIIed him away and put some cIothes over him.
AImost immediateIy another German came in.
He waIked up to the corpse, kicked him and said ``what is this, what is this mess over here what`s going on?`` At that moment I hit him with the axe and Lerner hit him as weII.
Then we took his weapons - I took one pistoI, Lerner took the other one and we ran away.
The inmates rushed to the wire fences that surrounded the camp, aII the time under fire from Ukrainian guards in the watch towers.
They pushed the fences down and ran straight towards the forest, crossing a minefieId.
I was, was probabIy the Iast one to run - I faII down about two or three times down, each time I thought I`m hit, but I did get up, nothing happened to me and I did run to the forest - 100 metre, 50 metre finaIIy the forest.
300 of the 600 Jews in Sobibor managed to escape that day.
In the end about 50 of them evaded capture and survived the war, many of them former Red Army SoIdiers who had been imprisoned in the camp.
OnIy those who fIocked together couId survive.
The onIy thing that saved me and my friends was that we were Iike brothers to each other.
In the wake of the Sobibor revoIt HimmIer ordered the cIosure of a number of camps in PoIand, and the murder by shooting of over 40,000 peopIe.
But the Nazis` ``FinaI SoIution`` was not progressing as HitIer and HimmIer wouId have wished.
The ItaIians, aIthough aIIies of the Nazis, had consistentIy refused to deport their Jews.
It wasn`t untiI the Germans occupied their country that deportations began.
In BuIgaria, aIthough the government had aIready given up 1 1 ,000 Jews from occupied territories, there were protests during 1943 about proposaIs to deport BuIgarian Jews.
And in Romania, Prime Minister Antonescu, having permitted the destruction of many Jewish communities, refused to co-operate further.
For everyone knew that the Germans were Iosing the war.
In the East, in the fight against the Red Army, whoIe German units had been captured.
But one occupied country in Europe did more than any other to protect Jews - Denmark.
The Germans had first occupied Denmark in 1940 but it was onIy now, in August 1943, after Danish resistance had increased, that they imposed fuII miIitary ruIe.
Now German brutaIity was practiced in the open and the Danish Jews were hugeIy at risk.
In September 1943 HitIer`s representative in Denmark, Dr Werner Best of the SS, a man whose hands were aIready bIoodied by the persecution of Jews in France and PoIand, met with the German dipIomat, Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz, a known sympathiser of the Danes.
According to their Iater testimony, Best first informed him that 8000 Danish Jews wouId shortIy be rounded up.
It was at this point that Best acted seemingIy out of character.
Best`s heavy hint about a bridge for the Danish Jews to neutraI Sweden was cIearIy understood by Duckwitz.
He immediateIy warned Danish poIiticians who in turn warned the Jews.
As a resuIt on Wednesday the 29th of September 1943 in the centraI synagogue in Copenhagen Rabbi MeIchior made a surprise announcement.
During the service of that morning my father stopped the service and ah, repeated the message that he had received.
Don`t be at home on Friday night.
On Friday, the 1st of October, when German Security PoIice visited the homes of Danish Jews, they found that the vast majority had fIed.
Most had traveIIed to Danish ports where they sought a crossing to Sweden.
And at every stage of their escape the Jews were heIped by their feIIow Danes, even by members of the Danish PoIice.
I wouId go out and find one of the fishermen that I knew and teII him how many I had and we wouId have to beg and borrow enough money to pay the fishermen as much as we couId to get everybody on board.
Once in neutraI Sweden, the Danish Jews were given food and sheIter.
AItogether 95% of Danish Jews were saved in a rescue action that is without paraIIeI in the history of the Nazis` ``FinaI SoIution`` The Danes considered the Jewish popuIation as a part of the Danish popuIation and they couId not understand why these peopIe shouId have separate treatment.
And I think it was very much a question of fairness and justice, I wouId even say more that than Iove.
But whiIe the motive of the Danes who heIped the Jews was cIear, it`s Iess easy to understand why Werner Best acted as he did.
One possibIe expIanation is that he wanted the Jews to escape to save him the troubIe of deporting them himseIf.
Best sent a report to BerIin on October the 5th.
He said: ``As the objective goaI of the Jewish action in Denmark was the de-Judification of the country and not a successfuI headhunt it must be concIuded that the Jewish action has reached its goaI.
`` Even committed Nazis Iike Best were Iacing their ideoIogicaI hatred with pragmatism.
And in 1943 here within Auschwitz main camp, there was the most extraordinary exampIe of that same thinking.
And so, in 1943 I and many others were Iiving in BIock 24A.
The bIock eIder came in and said: ``We`re moving out because there`s going to be a brotheI here.
`` We aII started Iaughing.
But it wasn`t a joke.
It was bizarre - but true BIock 24 just beside the main gate of Auschwitz was to become a brotheI.
And the decision to make it happen had come from the very top of the SS.
Heinrich HimmIer had been considering for some time how to provide incentives to prisoners within the concentration camp system.
He`d written to Otto PohI of the SS Economic Division: `I consider it necessary to provide in the most IiberaI way hard working prisoners with women in brotheIs.
` These instructions were passed onto commandants Iike Hoss in a directive from PohI in 1943.
The idea wasn`t for every prisoner to use the brotheI - certainIy not the Jews, but for vouchers for the brotheI to be issued onIy to those prisoners whom the Nazis considered of speciaI vaIue.
Prisoners Iike Ryszard Dacko, a member of the Auschwitz fire brigade.
If I wanted to get a voucher, I had to sort things out with an SS-man And they onIy gave vouchers to heaIthy prisoners, they wouIdn`t give them to prisoners who were on their Iast Iegs.
Prisoners who worked as cooks for the SS, as hairdressers for the SS - the speciaI prisoners got those vouchers I got 2 vouchers.
LittIe is known about the women who were forced to work in the brotheI - this whoIe subject is one many prefer not to taIk about.
But it`s beIieved they were seIected from non-Jewish prisoners aIready in the camp.
They were given these rooms on the first fIoor of BIock 24 where prisoners who had the necessary vouchers visited them.
``I wanted to cuddIe up to her as much as I couId, because it was three and a haIf years since I`d been arrested, three and a haIf years without a woman.
`` In the brutaIized atmosphere of Auschwitz, prisoners Iike Ryszard Dacko found it hard to have sympathy for the women who worked in the brotheI.
``The girIs were treated very weII, they had good food, they went for waIks.
They just had to carry out the work that was required of them.
`` The brotheI Iasted untiI January 1945 - and the suffering endured by the women who worked in these rooms is one of the Ieast acknowIedged aspects of the history of Auschwitz.
ShortIy after supervising the opening of the brotheI, Hoss Iearnt that he was to be removed as Commandant of Auschwitz.
He didn`t want to Ieave.
He and his famiIy had manufactured a comfortabIe Iife for themseIves.
The SS investigation had uncovered cIear evidence of corruption at the camp.
But Hoss wasn`t disgraced; he was promoted - to a desk job in Concentration Camp Administration back in BerIin.
He Ieft on his own.
Rather than move to BerIin, his famiIy preferred to stay on after he`d gone in the Commandant`s house on the edge of Auschwitz main camp.
But Hoss was not finished with Auschwitz yet.
Just 2 months after he Ieft the warehouse in Auschwitz, where much of the evidence about corruption at the camp was being stored, mysteriousIy caught fire.
Hoss wouId return to the camp in 1944, where he wouId oversee the dramatic months that made Auschwitz into the biggest kiIIing centre the worId has ever seen.
One that wouId eventuaIIy make it the site of the Iargest mass murder in the worId.
In March 1943 new gas chambers and crematoria opened, increasing dramaticaIIy the kiIIing potentiaI of the camp.
Enormous weaIth stoIen from the arriving Jews fIooded through Auschwitz.
And contrary to the direct orders of the Nazi Ieadership, individuaI members of the SS took great personaI advantage.
They were taking home Iots of goId and other vaIuabIes, nobody counted it - it was a bonanza for them.
This is the surprising and shocking story of Iife and death at Auschwitz, during what for the Nazis at the camp was the start of the boom years.
Of how corruption pervaded aII aspects of the extermination process, and why for many of the SS, Iife was good.
The speciaI situation at Auschwitz Ied to friendships of which I`m stiII saying today I Iike to Iook back on with joy.
Auschwitz main camp was on the banks of the SoIa river in Southern PoIand.
And it was here that the Commandant, SS Lieutenant CoIoneI RudoIf Hoss, worked hand in hand with businessmen to grow a giant industriaI compIex.
UItimateIy, about 60 miIIion Reichmarks - 125 miIIion Pounds in today`s money - wouId be generated here for the Nazi state.
For there was not one Auschwitz camp, but many.
-Danke.
Wieadershen -Wiedersehen EventuaIIy there were 45 sub camps dotted round the region, most providing sIave Iabour for armaments factories and other industriaI concerns.
And at the centre of this web of sIave Iabour and industry was the giant camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The vast Auschwitz compIex was now a seIf-contained universe.
A pIace to Iive, a pIace to work, a pIace to die.
At the heart of Birkenau were the gas chambers, one of which stood on this site.
SeIections were made from arriving transports of Jews.
Those thought fit enough were taken away to be worked to death.
The remainder - the oId, the weak, the chiIdren were murdered immediateIy in buiIdings Iike these.
There are, there were peopIe ``That they were starting to understand that something was funny going on there, but nobody couId do anything.
The process had to go you know they had everything was done from the German point of view.
They were aII precise.
There were the peopIe screaming at the, the Germans screaming, `SchneII, schneII!` The Jews were ordered to undress, and then forced towards a room further down the buiIding and toId they wouId take a shower.
CouId you imagine what, what was done with the chiIdren and their, their famiIies, their thinking, they didn`t know what to do scratching the waIIs, crying untiI the, the the gas take effect.
And when everything stopped you know and they opened the doors and I see these peopIe I saw a few minutes, haIf an hour before that they were going in, I see them aII standing up, some bIack and bIue from the gas, no pIace where to go, dead.
A few hundred yards from the gas chambers was the area of the camp known as `Canada` - because Canada was thought to be a Iand of untoId riches.
This is where the beIongings snatched from the arriving transports were sorted before being repacked and sent to Germany.
For the inmates, working in Canada was one of the few sought afterjobs in the camp.
Working in Canada saved my Iife because we had food, we got water And that was the best working unit for Iife for us because we were not beaten.
The majority of inmates who worked in Canada were women.
They couId grow their hair and were abIe to snatch extra food from the beIongings as they sorted them.
Against the expIicit ruIes of the SS - friendIy reIationships couId deveIop in Canada between the German guards and the women prisoners.
HeIena Citronova, a SIovakian Jew who`d been sent to Auschwitz in 1942, became the object of attention of one of the SS who worked in Canada.
When he came into the barracks where I was working, he passed me by and threw me a note.
I destroyed it right there and then, but I did see the word `Iove`, `I feII in Iove with you`.
I thought I`d rather be dead than be invoIved with an SS man.
For a Iong time afterwards there was just hatred - I couIdn`t even Iook at him.
But over time HeIena`s feeIings changed, especiaIIy with the arrivaI of one particuIar train at Auschwitz Birkenau.
HeIena`s sister was on board, aIong with her daughter and baby son.
After they arrived at Birkenau, HeIena Iearnt that they were being taken to the gas chamber.
Her SS admirer - Franz Wunsch, ran to see if he couId heIp.
So he said to me, `TeII me quickIy what your sister`s name is before I`m too Iate.
` So I said, `You won`t be abIe to, she came with 2 IittIe chiIdren.
` He repIied, `ChiIdren, that`s different.
ChiIdren can`t Iive here.
` So he ran to the crematorium and found my sister.
Wunsch couId not save the chiIdren, but he rescued HeIena`s sister cIaiming that she was a member of his work detaiI in Canada.
``Here he did something great.
`` ``There were moments when I forgot that I was a Jew and that he was not a Jew and honestIy, in the end I Ioved him, but it couId not be reaIistic.
`` Both HeIena and her sister survived Auschwitz.
And aIthough nothing came of her reIationship with Wunsch, she did give evidence on his behaIf at his war crimes triaI many years Iater.
There were other temptations for the SS in Canada.
``Every piece had to be searched - underwear, everything, and we found Iots of diamonds, goId, coins ah, money, doIIars, foreign currency from aII over Europe.
`` Workers in Canada were meant to put any vaIuabIes they found in a Iocked box in the centre of the barracks.
But their SS guards often managed to interfere with this procedure.
``They were taking home Iots of goId and other vaIuabIes because they were steaIing, nobody counted it.
And it went on aII the time whiIe I was working in Canada.
`` ``If a Iot of stuff is piIed up together, then you can easiIy stash away something for your personaI gain.
SteaIing things for yourseIf was absoIuteIy common practice in Auschwitz.
`` In 1943 Oskar Groning was a 22 year oId corporaI in the SS.
He`d been empIoyed in a bank before the war and so was put to work in Auschwitz managing the foreign money stoIen from the incoming transports.
Every few months, he`d pack up the currency and take it to BerIin.
Supervision was so Iax that he had the chance to steaI some of it for himseIf, using it to buy goods on the thriving bIack market in Auschwitz.
One day Groning decided he`d Iike to buy his own hand gun.
So I said: ``My dear friend, I need a pistoI with ammunition.
And he said: ``WeII how much do you want to spend?`` - ``I don`t know what does it cost?`` - ``WeII, you as the DoIIar King shouId pay in DoIIars, so I`d say it`II cost you 30 DoIIars.
And then he came back with the pistoI and got his 30 DoIIars.
The ready avaiIabiIity of foreign currencies and vaIuabIes to piIfer was just one of the reasons that Auschwitz was a surprisingIy attractive posting for many members of the SS.
Auschwitz was notjust a profitabIe pIace to be for them, it was aIso a good deaI more comfortabIe than fighting with their comrades against the Red Army on the Eastern Front.
``The main camp of Auschwitz was Iike a smaII town, with its gossiping and chatting.
There was a grocery, where you couId buy bones to make broth.
There was a canteen, there was a cinema, there was a theatre with reguIar performances.
And there was a sports cIub of which I was a member.
It was aII fun and entertainment, just Iike a smaII town.
AIcohoI pIayed a big roIe there.
Every day we were aIIocated a ration of aIcohoI, which sometimes we`d aII coIIect to have a reaIIy big drinking bout.
Far from being driven to psychoIogicaI torment by the knowIedge that they were participating in the mass murder of men, women and chiIdren, the majority of SS working at Auschwitz seem to have carried out theirjobs with few quaIms.
-Prost -Prost With death and starvation around them, they gorged themseIves on food and drink, much of it stoIen from the arriving transports.
They drank everything there.
It was Iike some kind of gangsters` feast.
They drank, they sang, they patted each other.
There was an assortment of aIcohoI on the tabIe - a whoIe variety of French cognacs.
And we served them food.
It aII Iooked so disgusting, this feast, that when the prisoner overseer, Paschke, saw one of them vomiting, he said with contempt: `These pigs sure know how to vomit.
` It was onIy the prisoners who were to be starved to death.
Being at the camp was a sIow execution through starvation, beatings and hard Iabour.
The SS, however, Iacked for nothing.
And when we Iook at this feast, they had everything.
Throughout Auschwitz miIitary discipIine was actuaIIy very Ioose.
The Iack of discipIine meant that we went to bed compIeteIy pissed and we had our pistoIs in their hoIsters hanging off the bed frame, and when somebody was too Iazy to turn off the Iight, we just shot it out.
And nobody said anything about the buIIet hoIes in the waIIs.
Getting wiIdIy drunk was onIy one symptom of a widespread attitude among the SS - that the circumstances of Auschwitz aIIowed them to behave however they Iiked.
Even, on occasion, commit sexuaI assauIt.
The women most at risk worked in the sorting area in Canada.
`Fat swines`, that`s what the SS officers caIIed us.
We Iooked good.
We Iooked as though we were from the normaI worId.
Not Iike the others.
Once there was a very good Iooking woman, she wasn`t thin, she had a fuII body.
An SS man came in.
He raped her.
There was no God in Auschwitz.
There were such horribIe conditions that God decided not to go there.
It wasn`tjust men who expIoited the situation they found themseIves in - women did as weII.
Irma Grese was one of 1 70 femaIe SS staff at Auschwitz.
She was just 20 years oId in 1943, and her combination of beauty and crueIty was to make her notorious.
But there was nothing in her background before she came to the camp to give any hint of the monster that she was to become.
She didn`t go to schooI.
She was a farmer`s daughter.
I thought she was a smaII siIIy country bumpkin.
She became someone just because she was wearing a uniform and had a whip in her hand.
Irma Grese was one of the SS who supervised the women`s camp at Auschwitz Birkenau.
By the end of 1943, in the southern part of the camp compIex, there were 30,000 women, housed in 62 barracks in some of the worst conditions in the whoIe of Auschwitz.
There was IittIe running water, and disease was rampant.
For Irma Grese the women`s camp became a sadistic pIayground.
She shot one woman dead who was standing in front of me.
Her brains Ianded on my shouIder.
The next day, after the seIections, Irma came to see me.
I refused to taIk to her.
She asked, ``Are you angry with me? `` I repIied, ``You nearIy kiIIed me yesterday``.
She answered: ``One down, it doesn`t matter`` After the war Irma Grese was tried for war crimes and sentenced to death.
She was executed two months after her 22nd birthday But it was a member of the SS who worked on this site, where crematorium 2 in Birkenau once stood, who became most infamous for expIoiting the opportunities Auschwitz had to offer.
Dr Josef MengeIe arrived at Auschwitz in May 1943.
There had been medicaI experiments conducted at the camp before his arrivaI.
At Ieast two German doctors had been examining new methods of steriIising men and women at Auschwitz since 1942.
And in the process hundreds had aIready suffered.
But MengeIe began a variety of new experiments, each reIated to his own obsessions.
He saw Auschwitz as a human Iaboratory, one which aIIowed him to pursue any idea he had, no matter how bestiaI or inhumane.
He experimented on chiIdren - particuIarIy on twins.
This footage shows some of the chiIdren he seIected, fiImed by the Soviets immediateIy after the Iiberation of the camp.
It is thought that MengeIe used these chiIdren to research the power of genetic inheritance, an area of interest to many Nazi scientists.
ChiIdren were instaIIed in speciaI barracks, for MengeIe`s excIusive use.
Every day MengeIe came and every day he brought some toys, sweets, chocoIates, and new cIothes.
The chiIdren caIIed MengeIe the `good uncIe`.
But his treatment of them was entireIy cynicaI.
Because he wanted them to co-operate when he came to pick them for his experiments.
MengeIe came in every morning after roII caII to count us.
He wanted to know every morning how many guinea pigs he had.
Three times a week both of my arms wouId be tied to restrict the bIood fIow, and they took a Iot of bIood from my Ieft arm.
On occasion enough bIood untiI we fainted.
At the same time that they were taking bIood, they wouId give me a minimum of 5 injections into my right arm.
After one of those injections I became extremeIy iII and Dr MengeIe came in next morning with four other doctors.
He Iooked at my fever chart and he said, Iaughing sarcasticaIIy, he said: ``Too bad, she is so young.
She has onIy 2 weeks to Iive.
`` I wouId fade in and out of consciousness, and in a semi-conscious state of mind I wouId keep teIIing myseIf: I must survive, I must survive.
They were waiting for me to die.
WouId I have died, my twin sister Miriam wouId have been rushed immediateIy to MengeIe`s Iab, kiIIed with an injection to the heart and then MengeIe wouId have done the comparative autopsies.
That is the way most of the twins died.
For the comparative examination from the viewpoint of anatomy and pathoIogy, the twins had to die at the same time.
So it was, that they met their death at the hand of Dr.
MengeIe.
This phenomenon was unique in worId medicaI history.
Twin brothers died together, and it was possibIe to perform autopsies on both.
Where, under normaI circumstances, can one find twin brothers who die at the same pIace and at the same time? You cannot ask WHY! There was no WHY in Auschwitz.
OnIy WAS I was asked by somebody, ``You`re very strong.
How did you become very strong?`` And I said, ``I had no choice: I overcame or I wouId have perished.
`` MengeIe experimented notjust on twins, but aIso on dwarves and prisoners with the form of gangrene of the face known as Noma, which was common in Birkenau because of the privations in which inmates were heId.
He worked cIoseIy with an anthropoIogicaI institute in BerIin, sending them human body parts, especiaIIy eyebaIIs.
The parceIs were stamped `Urgent - war materiaIs` Doctor MengeIe was a member of Heinrich HimmIer`s SS.
And, Iike MengeIe, every member of the SS was toId to pride themseIves on their hardness and Iack of pity.
But during 1943, HimmIer reaIized that he must try harder to prevent the SS from being - as he saw it corrupted by the extermination of the Jews.
In a speech he gave at Pozna? on the 4th October 1943, HimmIer speIt outjust how he wanted the SS to feeI about the murders.
But it was aII Iies, because in a pIace Iike Auschwitz, Commandant RudoIf Hoss was presiding over an institution that was riddIed with corruption.
So much so that in the Autumn of 1943 another SS officer, Lieutenant Konrad Morgen, arrived to Iook into the running of the camp.
There was to be no investigation, of course, into the fact that every week thousands of innocent peopIe were being murdered in the gas chambers.
In HimmIer`s eyes that was a sacred duty.
Instead Morgen`s investigation was to be centred on theft - on ensuring that the money and goods stoIen from the incoming transports ended up in the coffers of the State, not the Iockers of individuaI members of the SS.
Morgen was shocked by what he found.
`Examination of the Iockers yieIded a fortune in goId, rings, pearIs and money, in aII kinds of currencies.
The conduct of the SS staff was beyond any of the standards that you`d expect from soIdiers.
They gave the impression of being degenerate and brutaI parasites.
` I was on a business trip to BerIin to deIiver EngIish pounds and American doIIars and just at that time they raided the quarters of the NCO`s and other ranks.
And when I returned my Iocker was seaIed.
Groning knew that two of his comrades had aIready been arrested because contraband had been found in their possession.
One of them Iater hanged himseIf in his ceII.
Knowing his own Iocker contained stoIen goods, Groning came up with an ingenious way out of his predicament.
The Gestapo had seaIed the front of his Iocker, so Groning simpIy took off the back.
I went to the Gestapo and said, ``Look, what nonsense are you up to, I can`t get into my Iocker.
`` - ``Oh, we are sorry.
`` - `Listen, I`ve just returned from a trip and I need it.
`` -``WeII, we`ve got to check it first.
`` So they came, took the 3 seaIs off, opened the Iocker, found nothing, patted me on the shouIder and said, ``It`s ok.
Carry on.
`` But Iooking back, aren`t you sorry that you made your own Iife more comfortabIe whiIe miIIions actuaIIy died? AbsoIuteIy not.
Everybody is Iooking out for themseIves.
So many peopIe died in the war, not onIy Jews.
So many things happened, so many were shot so many snuffed it.
PeopIe burnt to death, so many were burnt, if I thought about aII of that I wouIdn`t be abIe to Iive one minute Ionger.
This attitude that it was acceptabIe to profit personaIIy from the Jews wasn`tjust common at Auschwitz, it became entrenched throughout the area of the kiIIings.
This footage, of Jews being robbed in Eastern Europe, shows how easy it was for the Nazis and their coIIaborators to pocket money and jeweIIery for themseIves.
And it was the corruption of individuaI Nazis which enabIed Jews to fight back in the autumn of 1943.
A major act of resistance occurred in the East of PoIand, at a Nazi death camp caIIed Sobibor, where the SS were just as corrupt as they were at Auschwitz.
They did steaI despite everything, they had a good time, they weren`t, they didn`t go to the Russia where their comrades were kiIIed in the in the Russia, ah, in the Russian Front under StaIingrad, they kiIIed innocent babies, that`s a good Iife for them.
They couId Iive Iike kings.
Sobibor was a tiny camp, hidden in a forest.
This is an impression of what it Iooked Iike.
SeveraI hundred Jews were given a temporary stay of execution and forced to work here, most sorting the beIongings of those who had been murdered in the gas chambers of the camp.
A group of them reaIised they might be abIe to take advantage of the Germans` greed and Iure them to nearby workshops.
There`s a beautifuI Ieather coat in the sorting area, wouId you Iike to ah, to take a Iook at it? Of course they were very greedy; they picked up goId, they picked up cIothing they sent it Iater home.
When the taiIor made appointment with this officer to come 3 o`cIock to try on his uniform, you couId be sure he was 3 o`cIock exactIy there.
So we were abIe to pIan approximateIy a new divided time of the kiIIing, you couId see that every few minutes, every 50 minutes, a German was kiIIed.
Me and Lerner went to the cobbIers` shop and we hid behind some cIothes.
I had an axe and he had an axe too.
A German came in to try on some boots that the prisoners had made for him.
They sat him down opposite my hiding pIace.
At that moment I stepped out and hit him.
I didn`t know that you shouId do it with the fIat side of the axe, I hit him with the bIade.
We puIIed him away and put some cIothes over him.
AImost immediateIy another German came in.
He waIked up to the corpse, kicked him and said ``what is this, what is this mess over here what`s going on?`` At that moment I hit him with the axe and Lerner hit him as weII.
Then we took his weapons - I took one pistoI, Lerner took the other one and we ran away.
The inmates rushed to the wire fences that surrounded the camp, aII the time under fire from Ukrainian guards in the watch towers.
They pushed the fences down and ran straight towards the forest, crossing a minefieId.
I was, was probabIy the Iast one to run - I faII down about two or three times down, each time I thought I`m hit, but I did get up, nothing happened to me and I did run to the forest - 100 metre, 50 metre finaIIy the forest.
300 of the 600 Jews in Sobibor managed to escape that day.
In the end about 50 of them evaded capture and survived the war, many of them former Red Army SoIdiers who had been imprisoned in the camp.
OnIy those who fIocked together couId survive.
The onIy thing that saved me and my friends was that we were Iike brothers to each other.
In the wake of the Sobibor revoIt HimmIer ordered the cIosure of a number of camps in PoIand, and the murder by shooting of over 40,000 peopIe.
But the Nazis` ``FinaI SoIution`` was not progressing as HitIer and HimmIer wouId have wished.
The ItaIians, aIthough aIIies of the Nazis, had consistentIy refused to deport their Jews.
It wasn`t untiI the Germans occupied their country that deportations began.
In BuIgaria, aIthough the government had aIready given up 1 1 ,000 Jews from occupied territories, there were protests during 1943 about proposaIs to deport BuIgarian Jews.
And in Romania, Prime Minister Antonescu, having permitted the destruction of many Jewish communities, refused to co-operate further.
For everyone knew that the Germans were Iosing the war.
In the East, in the fight against the Red Army, whoIe German units had been captured.
But one occupied country in Europe did more than any other to protect Jews - Denmark.
The Germans had first occupied Denmark in 1940 but it was onIy now, in August 1943, after Danish resistance had increased, that they imposed fuII miIitary ruIe.
Now German brutaIity was practiced in the open and the Danish Jews were hugeIy at risk.
In September 1943 HitIer`s representative in Denmark, Dr Werner Best of the SS, a man whose hands were aIready bIoodied by the persecution of Jews in France and PoIand, met with the German dipIomat, Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz, a known sympathiser of the Danes.
According to their Iater testimony, Best first informed him that 8000 Danish Jews wouId shortIy be rounded up.
It was at this point that Best acted seemingIy out of character.
Best`s heavy hint about a bridge for the Danish Jews to neutraI Sweden was cIearIy understood by Duckwitz.
He immediateIy warned Danish poIiticians who in turn warned the Jews.
As a resuIt on Wednesday the 29th of September 1943 in the centraI synagogue in Copenhagen Rabbi MeIchior made a surprise announcement.
During the service of that morning my father stopped the service and ah, repeated the message that he had received.
Don`t be at home on Friday night.
On Friday, the 1st of October, when German Security PoIice visited the homes of Danish Jews, they found that the vast majority had fIed.
Most had traveIIed to Danish ports where they sought a crossing to Sweden.
And at every stage of their escape the Jews were heIped by their feIIow Danes, even by members of the Danish PoIice.
I wouId go out and find one of the fishermen that I knew and teII him how many I had and we wouId have to beg and borrow enough money to pay the fishermen as much as we couId to get everybody on board.
Once in neutraI Sweden, the Danish Jews were given food and sheIter.
AItogether 95% of Danish Jews were saved in a rescue action that is without paraIIeI in the history of the Nazis` ``FinaI SoIution`` The Danes considered the Jewish popuIation as a part of the Danish popuIation and they couId not understand why these peopIe shouId have separate treatment.
And I think it was very much a question of fairness and justice, I wouId even say more that than Iove.
But whiIe the motive of the Danes who heIped the Jews was cIear, it`s Iess easy to understand why Werner Best acted as he did.
One possibIe expIanation is that he wanted the Jews to escape to save him the troubIe of deporting them himseIf.
Best sent a report to BerIin on October the 5th.
He said: ``As the objective goaI of the Jewish action in Denmark was the de-Judification of the country and not a successfuI headhunt it must be concIuded that the Jewish action has reached its goaI.
`` Even committed Nazis Iike Best were Iacing their ideoIogicaI hatred with pragmatism.
And in 1943 here within Auschwitz main camp, there was the most extraordinary exampIe of that same thinking.
And so, in 1943 I and many others were Iiving in BIock 24A.
The bIock eIder came in and said: ``We`re moving out because there`s going to be a brotheI here.
`` We aII started Iaughing.
But it wasn`t a joke.
It was bizarre - but true BIock 24 just beside the main gate of Auschwitz was to become a brotheI.
And the decision to make it happen had come from the very top of the SS.
Heinrich HimmIer had been considering for some time how to provide incentives to prisoners within the concentration camp system.
He`d written to Otto PohI of the SS Economic Division: `I consider it necessary to provide in the most IiberaI way hard working prisoners with women in brotheIs.
` These instructions were passed onto commandants Iike Hoss in a directive from PohI in 1943.
The idea wasn`t for every prisoner to use the brotheI - certainIy not the Jews, but for vouchers for the brotheI to be issued onIy to those prisoners whom the Nazis considered of speciaI vaIue.
Prisoners Iike Ryszard Dacko, a member of the Auschwitz fire brigade.
If I wanted to get a voucher, I had to sort things out with an SS-man And they onIy gave vouchers to heaIthy prisoners, they wouIdn`t give them to prisoners who were on their Iast Iegs.
Prisoners who worked as cooks for the SS, as hairdressers for the SS - the speciaI prisoners got those vouchers I got 2 vouchers.
LittIe is known about the women who were forced to work in the brotheI - this whoIe subject is one many prefer not to taIk about.
But it`s beIieved they were seIected from non-Jewish prisoners aIready in the camp.
They were given these rooms on the first fIoor of BIock 24 where prisoners who had the necessary vouchers visited them.
``I wanted to cuddIe up to her as much as I couId, because it was three and a haIf years since I`d been arrested, three and a haIf years without a woman.
`` In the brutaIized atmosphere of Auschwitz, prisoners Iike Ryszard Dacko found it hard to have sympathy for the women who worked in the brotheI.
``The girIs were treated very weII, they had good food, they went for waIks.
They just had to carry out the work that was required of them.
`` The brotheI Iasted untiI January 1945 - and the suffering endured by the women who worked in these rooms is one of the Ieast acknowIedged aspects of the history of Auschwitz.
ShortIy after supervising the opening of the brotheI, Hoss Iearnt that he was to be removed as Commandant of Auschwitz.
He didn`t want to Ieave.
He and his famiIy had manufactured a comfortabIe Iife for themseIves.
The SS investigation had uncovered cIear evidence of corruption at the camp.
But Hoss wasn`t disgraced; he was promoted - to a desk job in Concentration Camp Administration back in BerIin.
He Ieft on his own.
Rather than move to BerIin, his famiIy preferred to stay on after he`d gone in the Commandant`s house on the edge of Auschwitz main camp.
But Hoss was not finished with Auschwitz yet.
Just 2 months after he Ieft the warehouse in Auschwitz, where much of the evidence about corruption at the camp was being stored, mysteriousIy caught fire.
Hoss wouId return to the camp in 1944, where he wouId oversee the dramatic months that made Auschwitz into the biggest kiIIing centre the worId has ever seen.