Through the large windows in the tower above the entrance gate you can see almost the entire Birkenau camp. Today it is rows of barracks and brick chimneys left over from the wooden structures that were already dismantled after the war. Both from here and from the lower towers, the SS guards could see everything that happened on the ramp with an unhindered view. In turn, the towers near the crematoria gave a good view of the prisoners sent to their deaths in the gas chambers as they descended the stairs to their place of execution. Piotr Setkiewicz stresses that the SS men at Birkenau must have known what kind of place they were serving in.

In January 1945, the camp’s staff numbered more than 4,000, and during the entire period of the camp’s operation around 8,000 guards passed through the place, of whom about 7,000 survived the war. Only a few died while at the camp or of disease. More lost their lives after being transferred to the Eastern Front. All the guards were Germans or Volksdeutsche. The only exception was a company of Ukrainians brought here in 1943, however, these quickly rebelled and were expelled from the camp after three months.

The SS men posted to Auschwitz could consider themselves lucky to be on quiet, safe duty. Relatively few, perhaps 300 or 400 of them, directly killed prisoners. The team of “disinfectors” trained in the use of the poisonous Zyklon B gas, released from pellets poured from cans through holes in the roof of the gas chambers, numbered a few dozen at most.

“Those SS men who were on duty in the guard battalion, that is, more or less 80 per cent of the entire Auschwitz staff, even if they did not shoot anyone, by the fact that they did not allow escapes, also ultimately contributed to the mass deaths of prisoners,” Piotr Setkiewicz points out.

Documents and correspondence show that there was a plague of drunkenness among the SS, which the commanders tried to combat by managing the soldiers’ free time. Sports and cultural events were organised in the camp. The crew even had their own resort. Conditions were very good and, in the case of the lower-ranking SS men, resembled life in barracks in peacetime. Officers, on the other hand, could count on comfortable accommodation, sometimes entire villas with a garden and servants. Some also tried to enrich themselves illegally by stealing money and valuables taken from prisoners that formally belonged to the Reich. There were investigations into this and even some sentences were handed down.

After the war, some members of the Auschwitz-Birkenau staff answered for their crimes. Until the end of the 1940s, the Allies had no problems in issuing and executing death sentences on these people. Some 700 of them were extradited to Poland, where most stood trial in group trials. Due to limited contact between guards and prisoners, it was difficult for witnesses to identify them. Hence, they were sentenced to one to two years in prison “for belonging to a criminal organisation, the concentration camp crew”. Most left for the Federal Republic of Germany after serving their sentences.

The podcast was produced as part of the Jan Nowak-Jeziorański Eastern Europe College project funded by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Public task financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland within the grant competition “Public Diplomacy 2022”.  The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of the official positions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland.