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WOMEN'S CAMP IN AUSCHWITZ II-BIRKENAU

WOMEN IN AUSCHWITZ

WOMEN IN AUSCHWITZ

WOMEN'S CAMP IN AUSCHWITZ II-BIRKENAU

As soon as the female camp was moved to the still unfinished Birkenau camp, women were accommodated in the sector BI a, also still under construction. As a matter of fact, there were 15 brick-built barracks and kitchen, but some of the wooden ones remained unfinished as well as the bath building (so called “sauna”). As toilets served provisional latrines- being just holes in the ground between brick-built barracks. There was neither sewer system, nor access to fresh water. Next to the female camp, in the sector BI b were living male prisoners, appointed to build the remaining parts of the camp.

Source: A-BSMA

Plan of the camp Birkenau from September 22, 1942 with the female camp outlined.



In July 1943, after transferring the men to the newly created sector BIId, the female camp was extended by the sector BIb. In the sector were accommodated women from commandos working outside the camp (German: Aussenkomandos) and those working in writing office, parcel office, in camp’s warehouses and orchestra. In the sector BIa remained women, who were sick or in pre-entry quarantine and those working in the camp area and children. 

At the beginning the blocks had a dirt floor (bare soil trampled with prisoner’s feet instead of regular floor); in rainy days dirt floor turned into mud. Roads were not gravelled, only at the end of 1943 the efforts were made to order the camp territory including to make gravelled roads. Every spring and autumn we got stuck in swamp regardless of state of the roads. In summer it was a desert with small bunches of grass on the sides trampled every day by thousands of feet. […]


At the beginning of my imprisonment there was just one water supply with a tap, available once a day. Prisoners were therefore using water from rows and puddles. […] Later on, a washing room was facilitated, as it is today. However, it was not until 1944, as we were able to use it. At the end of the camp’s existence washing rooms in each block were under construction, but the project was never completed.

Source: Maria Żumańska, A-BSMA, Testimonies Collection, vol. 4, pp. 422, 423.

Almost until the end 1944 the main camp for women – Frauenkonzentrationslager (FKL) Auschwitz, renamed in March 1943 in Frauenlager (FL) – consisted of sectors BIa and BIb.

Apart from the main women’s camp female prisoners were living and working in the other parts of the whole Auschwitz concentration camp as follows:

BIIe – in the family camp for Roma were held approx. 11 thousand women with their families.

BIIb – in the family camp were held over 9 thousand Jewish women from the Theresienstadt Ghetto. In August 1944 Polish women deported from Warsaw after the Uprising were held therein temporarily.

BIIc and BIII – in the so-called transit camps (Durchgangslager) were held not registered Jewish women from Hungary, the occupied Polish territories (after the liquidation of ghettos and work camps and from the camp in Płaszów), Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (also from the Theresienstadt Ghetto). Prisoners named the sector BIII “Mexico”. Dozen or so thousands of women were held there regularly. 

BIIg – from the spring of 1944 prisoners employed to sort the goods confiscated from Jews (in the warehouse of the so called “Canada”) and those working in warehouses for prisoner’s items (Effektenkammer) were living there. 

In November 1944, due to preparation of liquidation of the camp, some women were relocated from the section BI to the sections BII e and BII b.

In the time from August 1942 to May 1944 roughly 400 female prisoners were employed in the camp offices, in the service points for SS-Men and in their households or in headquarters (Stabsgebäude) within the administration area of the main camp. 

In the block 10 of the main camp from April 1943 to September 1944 were held female prisoners, who were objects of medical experiments of SS physicians: Carl Clauberg, Horst Schumann, Eduard Wirths and Bruno Weber.

In the block 11 were held so called police prisoners, brought from the overcrowded prison in Mysłowice. They waited to be tried by the Police Summary Court. Most of them was sentenced to death and shot in yard of the block 11. 

From October 1, 1944, in the newly build blocks, so called camp extension (Lagererweiterung) a female camp was created with Elisabeth Volkenrath as a supervisor. The experiment station of Dr. Clauberg (located previously in the block 10) was transferred there. Furthermore, also the construction office along with prisoners working there and women staying in headquarters (Stabsgebäude) and working in Union- Werke factory were also transferred there; in total it was almost 4 thousand women.

From October 30, 1944, over thousand female prisoners, including a few hundred working in Union- Werke, were accommodated in the blocks 22 and 23 of the main camp. These blocks were separated from the male camp by a fence of barbed wire. 

From 1942 female prisoners were collocated also in the subcamps created by the camp’s own farms (among others in Harmęże, Rajsk, Budy, Babice, Pławy etc.) and by industry factories. They were there forced not only to cleaning and to tiresome works on assembly lines, but also to perform very heavy labours (among others in Bobrek near Oświęcim in the Siemens-Schuckertwerke factory, in Gleiwitz II in Gliwice, operating machines producing soot from anthracite and oils, in Hinderburg in Zabrze, in foundries of steel works producing ammunition, welding and assembling carriages for transporting aircraft bombs and operating machines).

Places of imprisonment of female prisoners (area of the main camp and its close surroundings):

Aerial photograph taken by the Allied forces on June,26 1944.

Source: A-BSMA

Blocks 1-10 of the main camp, where from March 26 to mid August 1942 female prisoners were held.


Aerial photograph taken by the Allied forces on June,26 1944.

Source: A-BSMA

Building of Stabsgebäude (headquarters):  from August 1942 until May1944 approx. 300-500 female prisoners were held there.


Aerial photograph taken by the Allied forces on June,26 1944.

Source: A-BSMA

The so called Lagererweiterung (camp extension) – in May 1944 some female prisoners from the block 10 of the main camp destined to be a subject of experiments and female prisoners from the Stabsgebäude were transferred there. Women from the camp Birkenau were gradually relocated into selected blocks. On October 1, 1944, a new camp subordinated to the KL Auschwitz commander was created here. 


Aerial photograph taken by the Allied forces on June,26 1944.

Source: A-BSMA

In the blocks 22-23 over 1000 female prisoners were living from October 30, 1944, until January 1945 as the evacuation and liquidation of the Auschwitz concentration camp began.


Places of imprisonment of female prisoners (area of the camp Birkenau):

Aerial photograph taken by the Allied forces on June, 26 1944.

Source: A-BSMA

Female camp in Birkenau: mid August 1942 female prisoners from the main camp Auschwitz were allocated in the section Bia. In July 1943 the female camp was extended by the section BIb.


Aerial photograph taken by the Allied forces on June, 26 1944.

Source: A-BSMA

From May until October 1944 section BIII (the so called “Mexico”), sector BIIc and some separated barracks of the sectors BIIb and BIIe served as the so-called temporary camps (Durchgangslager) for Jewish women from RSHA (Reich Security Main Office) transports described as “deposit prisoners”. In the section BIIb in September 1944 were held Polish women deported after the Washaw Uprising and in October also Jewish women from the Płaszów camp. 


Aerial photograph taken by the Allied forces on June, 26 1944.

Source: A-BSMA

Familienlager Theresienstadt (BIIb) – from September 1943 until July 1944 roughly 9 thousand Jewish women from the Theresienstadt Ghetto in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia were imprisoned there.


Aerial photograph taken by the Allied forces on June, 26 1944.

Source: A-BSMA

The so-called gypsy camp (Zigeunerlager) (BIIe) in the time from February 1943 to August 1944 approx. 11 thousand Roma women and girls were detained there. In November 1944 female prisoners from section BIa were relocated there.


Aerial photograph taken by the Allied forces on June, 26 1944.

Source: A-BSMA

BIIg (the so-called „Canada”) in the time from April to December 1944 in some of its barracs were accommodated female prisoners working on sorting the property confiscated from Jewish victims of the Holocaust.


Aerial photograph taken by the Allied forces on June, 26 1944.

Source: A-BSMA

Since the second half of 1943 these barracks served as a so -called output quarantine.


After women had been transferred to Birkenau, the management structure of the female camp remained practically unchanged. Direct control over prisoners were exercised by female SS guards (Aufseherinnen) together with subordinate prisoner functionaries. During the time of existence of the female camp approximately 170 SS guards were on duty, some of them left very bad impression in the memories of the inmates. Apart from SS guards also SS Men, exercising leading functions in various camp divisions and offices, and guards of extern work commandos were in charge of the female camp.


At the end of August 1943 SS-Hauptsturmführer Franz Hössler became the supervisor of the female camp, replacing thus SS-Obersturmführer Paul Heinrich Theodor Müller. SS-Untersharführer Adolf Taube was appointed as non-commissioned rapport officer. Both Taube and Hössler were known among prisoners for being ruthless criminals responsible for death of hundreds of female prisoners.   

SS-Hauptsturmführer Franz Hössler wearing a German uniform with a swastika on his arm.

Source: Fritz Bauer Institut

SS-Hauptsturmfürer Franz Hössler.

From all what happened in the camp, the selections on the so called “Wiese” stuck in my memory. I do not remember how often it was conducted but the schema was always the same. Morning, just after the roll- call we assembled on the meadow outside the camp, where we were forced to stay until late night without food. Afterwards we were forced to run back to the camp. Prisoners considered weak, sick or unable to run were picked out of the row by the camp commander (Birkenau commander was then Hössler […]).

Source: Jadwiga Kopeć, A-BSMA, Testimonies Collection, vol. 66, p. 148.

I witnessed as Taube killed a prisoner, who arrived late to a roll call. He mistreated her by beating, kicking and trampling over her with shoes. 

Source: Wanda Marossányi, A-BSMA, Testimonies Collection, vol. 7, p. 1030.