A- A+

SECURITY SYSTEM IN AUSCHWITZ I AND BIRKENAU: THE SMALL GUARD CHAIN (KLEINE POSTENKETTE)

ESCAPES FROM AUSCHWITZ

SECURITY SYSTEM IN AUSCHWITZ I AND BIRKENAU: THE SMALL GUARD CHAIN (KLEINE POSTENKETTE)

The main camp was surrounded by a double barbed wire fence installed on 3.3 m high concrete posts. The posts were, in their upper part, curved towards the camp interior in the semi-circular shape. Three-phase 400 Volt current flew in the wires. Under the fence, approx. 1 meter deep, concrete slabs were put in order to prevent the prisoners from digging tunnels. From the inside of the camp, along the fence, there was a so-called neutral zone, gravelled and 3 meters wide. Entering the zone could result in being shot by the guards on duty in the towers located on the external side of the fence.

In the first stage of the camp’s functioning guard towers, so-called platforms, were approx. 4 meters high, were supported on four wooden pillars and had flat roofs.. As late as at the end of the year 1943 higher towers were constructed (7 and 11 meters high) on permanent foundations, with sloping roof and glazed windows. In 1942, about 3 meters high wall, made of concrete boards, was constructed on the western and southern side of the camp fencing. It seemed to be an attempt to hide the camp area from the view of civilians using the road nearby, and to create additional barrier making it more difficult for the prisoners to escape.

Source: A-BSMA

Auschwitz I. Fragment of the security system in the western part of the camp. From the right: block 11, a row of lower posts with wire marking the border of the so-called neutral zone, double barbed-wire fence, concrete wall, and two guard towers. In the background on the left, the building of the so-called Theatergebäude (old theatre). Photo by Z. Klawender, 1945/1946.

Source: A-BSMA

Auschwitz I. Fragment of the security system in the southern part of the camp. In the foreground—wires marking the border of the so-called neutral zone, then double fence, and in the background—a guard tower and concrete wall. Photo by Z. Klawender, 1945/1946.

Source: A-BSMA

Auschwitz I. Concrete wall obscuring camp premises from Topolowa Street (now S. Leszczyńskiej) together with a guard tower. In the background, block 28. Photo by Z. Klawender, 1945/1946.

Source: A-BSMA, photo by the SS, probably winter 1943/1944.

Auschwitz I. Fragment of the security system in the northern part of the camp. In the background, between the so-called Aufnahmegebäude (admission building) under construction and the fence there is a guard tower (platform). Towers of this kind were placed around the camp in the first years of its functioning.

Source: A-BSMA

Auschwitz I. Fragment of the security system in the northern part of the camp. A guard tower with the Aufnahmegebäude (admission building) in the background; on the right, a brick air-raid shelter. Towers of this kind were constructed around the camp from the end of 1943. Photo by Z. Klawender, 1945/1946.

As its fence was long (according to the designs it was supposed to reach 18 km), the Birkenau camp was surrounded by a single row of barbed wire installed on concrete posts with the shape and height similar to those in the main camp. Concrete slabs were not put under the wires, but along the fence, from the inner side of the camp, there was a ditch—about 3 meters deep. Due to its length, the voltage in the fence was 760 Volt, thus higher than in the main camp.

Testimony of former prisoner Henryk Porębski:

In the spring of 1942, I don’t remember the exact date, I was moved to the camp in Brzezinka (Birkenau), where I was employed in the electricians’ Kommando.… After the construction of fencing in Birkenau, the installation of barbed wire and connecting it to electricity, I worked in the maintenance of all electrical devices. It was in August 1942.

High voltage current went from the transformer of the roofing felt plant to the camp transformer, located in the entrance gate of the Birkenau camp.…

While performing the maintenance of camp fencing, I was supposed to get familiar with technical data connected to the voltage, etc. I remember constantly measuring the voltage with voltmeters and when it was necessary, i.e., when the voltage was low, the lighting was switched off.

I’d like to emphasize that the current was turned on in the fencing only at night and during holidays, or in the cases when during the day all prisoners stayed within the camp premises (e.g., general roll calls, etc.). …

Machines for automatic power cutting in case of short circuit were located in Blockführerstube. There was also a device used for turning the electricity on in the fencing and for the lighting. At night the lamps in the fencing were always on and they were switched off only in the case of an air-raid alert. Although I wasn’t familiar with electrical devices in the main camp, it seems to me that working principles and the rules for turning them on were the same as in Birkenau.

Source: Henryk Porębski, A-BSMA, Testimonies Fonds, vol. 22, pp. 59, 60.

Initially, only temporary towers were built along the fencing, so-called platforms. In 1944 they were replaced by towers on permanent foundation, as in the main camp. Platform-type towers remained exclusively inside the camp, along the fencing of subsequent sectors.

Source: A-BSMA

Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Fragment of the security system from the eastern side of the camp, guard towers (platforms) are visible, together with single barbed wire fencing and a ditch. Photo by the SS, probably 1943/1944.

Source: A-BSMA

Fragment of the security system from the eastern side of the camp together with guard towers constructed in 1944. Photo by S. Kolowca, May 1945.

Source: A-BSMA, photo by the SS, when the camp was in operation.

Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Fencing of the northern part of the BII sector. In the foreground there is the gate to the BIIf sector, further—a guard tower.

The SS men kept guard in the towers only at night as well as on Sundays and public holidays, i.e., when prisoners stayed in the camp. They had at their disposal machine guns placed on stands and fixed searchlights. Their task was to observe the particular sector and shoot prisoners entering the neutral zone. At night the fencing was illuminated with lamps installed on posts, which were switched off during an air-raid alert. The SS men would then leave their towers and hide in the shelters (concrete or ground), constructed in the vicinity of the fencing starting from 1943.

Source: A-BSMA

Auschwitz I. Guard tower interior with a part of the searchlight, block 11 in the background. Photo by Z. Klawender, 1945/1946.

Source: A-BSM Collections

The drawing on the left represents a prisoner who committed suicide by pouncing on camp fencing wires, while the drawing on the right represents an SS man on the guard tower. Sketches made in the camp by an unknown prisoner, 1942‒1944.

Source: A-BSM Collections

Drawing by former prisoner Marian Kołodziej, made shortly after the liberation, entitled Wires, 1945.

Source: A-BSM Collections

Drawing by former prisoner Francis Reisz, made shortly after the liberation, entitled Stop – Halt, 1945.

Memoirs of former prisoner Genowefa Ułan:

The view of concrete posts, surrounded by barbed wire, loaded with high-voltage current was frightening. Guard booths aroused fear together with the SS men on duty, holding in their hands machine guns with their barrels pointed at female prisoners. I used to think with horror: what devil or what beast had invented something so cruel and terrifying.

Source: Genowefa Ułan, A-BSMA, Memoirs Fonds, vol. 108, p. 177.

An excerpt from the memoirs of the former Auschwitz female Pelagia Lewińska (Pelagia Lewińska, Oświęcim i triumf człowieka [Auschwitz and the triumph of human]:

The night had already fallen deep when we entered through the camp gate. Now we saw those lights imitating from far away the lights of a big city. Electrical lamps installed on concrete posts, on which barbed wire camp fencing was stretched, emitted a cold, hostile circle of light. The lamps, with the distance of about 5 meters between them, formed a chain of light circles overlapping each other. The light chain separated us from the freedom. To cross it alive—impossible. We were intuitively moving away from them.

The thought about freedom, the longing of free life encountered the wires, was torn into pieces on their spikes, faded on them. Go beyond them?... Between the lights there isn’t even a tiny shadow which would allow the already crystallized thought about the escape. Seeing the sentry, along with ruthless, relentless, audacious searchlights, annihilated all thoughts of liberating oneself. It was also the light that armed the wires with the power to kill. Even if human watchfulness of a guard on duty failed one day, the light and the wires, impregnated with its power, would not let down. They would kill a daredevil.

Source: Pelagia Lewińska, Oświęcim i triumf człowieka [Auschwitz and the triumph of human], Publishing House of the National Council of Poles in France, Paris 1946, pp. 16‒17.