Artigenda
International Holocaust Remembrance Day
When: annually, January 27.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day is not only a lasting reminder of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. It is also a lasting reminder of the Holocaust. One of the darkest pages in history. The day came about thanks to a United Nations resolution.
On the day when the soldiers of the Soviet army observed the horrors of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp and thereby liberated the camp, International Day of Remembrance in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust takes place. This is a day of remembrance established by the United Nations (UN), known in English as the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust. It is sometimes referred to as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Resolution 60/7
The first International Holocaust Remembrance Day took place on January 27, 2006. The official name of this day is the International Day of the Victims of the Holocaust. The resolution associated with this day is not even that old. The resolution was passed in 2005. This was Resolution 60/7, the day was formalised on 1 November 2005. The question is whether victims other than Jewish victims should also be commemorated on that day. Besides the approximately six million Jewish victims of the Nazis, another five million were murdered. When it comes to the term Holocaust, there is debate among scholars about this. That would include Roma and Sinti, Slavic peoples, Russian prisoners of war, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, people with physical or mental disabilities and political opponents. All of them also became victims of the Nazi regime. Moreover, the question is which period is central. Was this the period from the moment World War II broke out (1939) or was it the moment the NSDAP came to power (1933)? Or, on the contrary, was it to be looked at after 20 January 1942? That was the day the Wannsee Conference took place and when the Nazis discussed the “final solution” to the “Jewish question.” That alone would mean that certain events would not count.
The UN maintains that six million Jews, along with countless minorities, were murdered at the hands of the Nazis and are commemorated on this day. That was indeed the day Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz. Besides, the day is a constant reminder to reject anything related to Holocaust denial, reject religious intolerance, along with incitement, intimidation or violence against persons based on ethnicity or religion. Besides, the day is a lasting reminder and a protest against genocide. At least that is what the day should be.
Website
January 27 was set as The International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust by the United Nations (UN). There is a link with the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. This organization was responsible for drafting the Stockholm Declaration in 2000. This declaration was a follow-up to the establishment of the Task Force for International Cooperation for Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research. This was the name by which the Holocaust Remembrance Alliance was known until 2013. The organization uses IHRA to go public. Incidentally, the organization and its definition of anti-Semitism is not uncontroversial. More information about the definition is available on this page of the IHRA. Based on this definition, criticism of the state of Israel is also classified as anti-Semitism, which need not be the case. To be clear, anti-Semitism has led to horrors. Horrors that are visible at a site like Auschwitz.
The UN has provided a special website for the day, which includes information about the day and links to the resolution and a resolution condemning Holocaust denial. This is Resolution 76/250, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 20 January 2022.
The Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau
Naturally, one organisation should not be missing from this list: the Museum of Remembrance of Auschwitz, Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau. Now there are more sites to visit. Only on this day was it originally about the liberation of this concentration and extermination camp. Hence the separate mention. A complete overview of all camps set up by the Nazis can be found on this Wikipedia page.
Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Not the first camp
Auschwitz was not the first camp set up by the nazis. The first camps were those that opened in Dachau, Oranienburg and Osthofen. Most of these camps were opened as punishment camps or assembly camps. This was not long after the Nazis took power in 1933. The first extermination camp was Majdanek in Poland and it was opened in July 1941. That camp was solely focused on extermination. Auschwitz-Birkenau had opened earlier, in April 1940. This camp had a dual function—both a concentration and extermination camp. In addition, part of the camp served as a labour camp. This is because Auschwitz was a concentration complex. It consisted of several locations.
Auschwitz-I/Stammlager
It all started in the old military barracks, once owned by the Polish army. No, with that, it was never a Polish concentration or extermination camp. At the time the Polish military made use of that location, it was what it was: a shelter for Polish soldiers. This changed after the German invasion of 1 September 1939. There was a need to house prisoners. Initially, these were Polish opponents of German rule. Shortly after the occupation of Poland, orders were given to set up a new camp. On 27 April 1940, the order was given by Heinrich Himmler (7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) to use the former military complex in Oświęcim for this purpose. The German name Oświęcim was Auschwitz. The commissioning of the complex as a site for Polish resistance fighters began the commissioning of Auschwitz. First as a concentration camp, later as a concentration and extermination camp. The first prisoners were housed there from 5 May 1940. These were not only Polish resistance fighters. Criminals convicted by the Nazis were also housed in Auschwitz.
Source: Unsplash.
This complex was the original camp. The camp that was already there. The camp that was later renamed. So the name Auschwitz I or Auschwitz Stammlager (base camp) was the camp that was given a new function. It would continue to exist after the other camps were set up and be used mainly as the administrative centre. That said, at least 70,000 people were killed in this part of the camp before construction of that new camp even began.
The remarkable thing was that during the period of commissioning, the camp was not yet completed. So the first batch of prisoners was responsible for further “completing” the camp. This happened mainly after the arrival of prisoners on 20 May 1940. These were convicted German criminals. Together with about three hundred Jews from Oświęcim, they had to further complete the camp. The three hundred Jews ensured the first arrival of Jewish deportees to the camp.
An old ammunition bunker was converted into a crematorium. This, incidentally, did not make it an extermination camp. The function of this crematorium was only to cremate deceased prisoners. This is not to say that living conditions in the camp were good at the time or that there was no large-scale mass murder at all. That mass murder took place in the newly built camp. That camp had only one purpose, the mass murder of the people who arrived in that camp.
Auschwitz-II/Auschwitz-Birkenau
Source: Unsplash.
Most people think of Auschwitz by the text above the entrance gate to the Stammlager reading “Arbeit Macht Frei” and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Yet these are two different locations. The new camp was aimed at mass murder and this began as soon as the deportees arrived at the camp. Then the selections began. Who was still of any use and who had to die immediately? To make everything even easier, in that second camp, Auschwitz-II, it was decided to extend the track into the camp itself. This was to ensure that everything did not have to take up too much time.
In addition to the persecution of Jews in Europe, what the Nazis described as “gipsies” were also persecuted. Then they were Roma and Sinti. They too ended up in concentration and extermination camps and thus in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Part of the camp was set up as a Gypsy camp, especially for this purpose. In addition, other “enemies” of the Third Reich also ended up in this camp. Yet there was a difference from the other extermination camps such as Bełżec, Treblinka and Sobibór. At Auschwitz-Birkenau, for those who were not immediately selected, there was a delayed death. These generally lasted longer than in the other death camps.
Auschwitz-II/Auschwitz-Monowitz
Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Unlike the other extermination camps, Auschwitz-Birkenau may have been commissioned (from 1942) but was never actually completed. The order for the construction of this part of the camp, three kilometres from the Stammlager, was given in March 1941. It was allegedly done during a visit by Heinrich Himmler to Auschwitz-I. This is not entirely certain, as there was a longer period between the implementation of the plans. In the meantime, work began on another priority, namely setting up another satellite camp. That was the so-called Buna Lager. We know this satellite camp, which is too large to bear the name satellite camp, as Auschwitz-III or Auschwitz-Monowitz. Monowice (German-speaking name at the time was Monowitz) is located near Oświęcim (Auschwitz). The name Buna Lager is a reference to the synthetic rubber (Buna). The factories were under the control of IG Farben, so they would not be hit by the Western Allies.
Between February and April 1941, IG Farben was responsible for planning the factory, followed by the expropriations of Monowice residents. IG Farben would “hire” workers for an amount of up to four Reichsmark per day per worker. This amount benefited the SS.
According to the website of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, Himmler visited the camp. Not only that, it was also planned to set up an office for the Reichsführer-SS. Those plans never materialised. More information can be found at this link (archived version). The website does not mention an exact date. However, that date is mentioned on this page (archived page). It is then 1 March 1941 and does not refer to a visit to the Stammlager. Any other date or any mention that Himmler would have visited Auschwitz-Birkenau around that time is categorically incorrect. Auschwitz-Birkenau was commissioned in 1942, not before. Work began in the autumn of 1941. That the date of 1 March is the correct date is endorsed via The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (source, archived link).
The centre of the Holocaust
Auschwitz-I, Auschwitz-II and to a lesser extent Auschwitz-III are considered the centre of the Holocaust. Why? Firstly, because of their visibility. The traces are visible. Other places where the mass killings took place have been destroyed by the Nazis. The evidence has been tried to cover up. Consider, for example, the Majdanek concentration and extermination camp in eastern Poland. This camp was inaugurated on 21 July 1941 and several weeks before Red Army troops approached, attempts were made to erase all traces. The camp was liberated on 24 July 1944. Only a few hundred prisoners were found in the camp. An estimated 78,000 people were killed in the period between 1941 and 1944.
In a period of barely three years, things could be worse. Much worse. After Auschwitz-Birkenau, there was an extermination camp where even more people were killed. These were the two camps we know as Treblinka. Treblinka I was the labour camp, and Treblinka II was the extermination camp. The three-year period is not quite correct. Treblinka II was in operation from 1942,
The figure of 900,000 might, incidentally, be a low or conservative estimate. Indeed, by the end of 1942, the number of people killed at Treblinka was already 713,555. This figure comes from Hermann Höfle’s intercepted telegram of 15 January 1943. This telegram summed up the totals of all camps in 1942. That is, all the camps that were part of Aktion Reinhard, in which between one and a half and two million Polish Jews have murdered in the Bełżec, Sobibór and Treblinka death camps in 1942 and 1943. The climax took place between August and October 1942, when 1.3 million people were murdered in the camps in a hundred days.
Unlike those camps, Auschwitz-Birkenau was not purely aimed at extermination, although it was. Yes, selections took place. Some people were gassed immediately upon arrival and thus murdered. Others were sent to the camp and had to stay there in appalling conditions. Those conditions were so bad that people could not survive there. At least, only those who were strongest. The others died, and there were so many of them that this created a problem. Rudolf Höss (25 November 1901 – 16 April 1947), the camp commander, decided on drastic measures. He contacted the architect of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Karl Bischoff (9 August 1897 – 2 October 1950).
Bischoff was responsible for the design of Auschwitz-Birkenau and he came up with the solution. An improvement of the crematoria. That’s why Bisschoff recommended Topf & Söhne’s ovens. That Erfurt-based company just didn’t have anything at all yet. Something still had to be developed for that, which is why Kurt Prüfer (21 April 1891 – 1952) was put in charge of it. Now it is not as if it was unknown territory for the Erfurt-based furnace builder. Since 1937, the company has been responsible for building furnaces for the crematoria of concentration and extermination camps. Prüfer in turn, as a convinced NSDAP member, probably considered it an honour to be allowed to do this. He had been a member of the party since 1933.
The furnaces manufactured by Topf & Söhne for the Nazi exterminator were extremely efficient. Not only were they stripped of all fuss (no decorations), they did not need to be switched off to store the ashes. They were also equipped with a system to adjust the discharge. The option to discharge odourless and clear smoke had been omitted. This says something about the conditions inside and immediately outside the camp.
Actually, after these modifications, Auschwitz-Birkenau was still not complete. There were new plans to complete the camp each time. These only failed to materialise because the camp was liberated. Or was it because it was decided that the camp had to be evacuated and everyone who was not of value had to be eliminated? Because that was actually what happened. When this part of Auschwitz was liberated by Red Army soldiers in the afternoon of 27 January 1945, a fraction of the prisoners were still there. The death marches had begun weeks before. Heading west. By order of Heinrich Himmler. People were used as change. This was how he wanted to ensure that the Western Allies would sign a peace agreement. Using people from those camps as change. The Western Allies refused this. First, part surrender was not negotiated. Secondly, there was no negotiation with Himmler.
The liberation
On 27 January 1945, the Stammlager was the first to be liberated. This was followed by Auschwitz-Birkenau. There was no real liberation of Auschwitz-Monowitz, as this camp was no longer in operation before the Red Army soldiers arrived. One week remained functioning until a week before the soldiers arrived in the area.
Victims
Although precise records were largely kept of who entered the camp through registration by the Nazis, not everything was kept. In addition, certain items were destroyed in the last days before the camp was liberated. These are therefore estimates. One estimate assumes at least 1.1 million victims.
Nacht und Nebel/Nuit et Brouillard
The term Nacht und Nebel had nothing to do with Auschwitz. It was a term used by the Nazis to get rid of certain opponents, mainly resistance fighters and political opponents. It was supposed to produce something terrifying. In addition, it was supposed to raise questions. What happened to the persons concerned?
The persons concerned ended up in concentration camps through special courts or sometimes even without having seen a court. For example, in the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp in Alsace. This camp was not specially built for this purpose, only that it was used to carry out the Nacht und Nebel Erlaβ. This was a Führer Erlaβ, i.e. an order from Adolf Hitler. Only no one officially knew anything about it. That was the intention. Therefore, the name. To make people disappear in the fog of night. Besides, it was a death sentence carried out at term.
The French translation of Nacht und Nebel, Nuit et Brouillard, is also the name of a very poignant documentary made in 1956 by Alain Resnais (3 June 1922 – 1 March 2014). The original title of the documentary is Nuit en Brouillard. The voice-over is that of Michel Bouquet (6 November 1925 – 13 April 2022). The film shows footage of Auschwitz at a time just after the war. In addition, authentic footage from just after liberation was used.
Nuit et Brouillard is considered one of the most penetrating documentaries on the Holocaust and is therefore only mentioned as a link.
