Over two hundred women served the SS in KL Auschwitz. They were divided into three groups according to the duties they performed: the biggest group constituted the so-called Aufseherinnen, whose main task was to watch over women prisoners; the second group was formed by women employed in communication services described as SS-Helferinnen working in SS headquarters offices as radiotelegraph operators, stenographers and telephone operators; the last group consisted of nurses. 

Dr. Sylwia Wysińska from the Archives of the Museum talks about the women supervivors at Auschwitz

(picture: Maria Mandl as a defendant in a trail in 1947)

In the history of Auschwitz, there were instances when prisoners tried to resist. The most famous event is the Sonderkommando revolt that took place at Auschwitz II-Birkenau on 7 October 1944. This story is told in episode 21 of our podcast.

However, there were other cases of prisoners organising resistance in order to attack SS members, or to escape. These included:

-) the revolt and escape of prisoners from the Penal Company 
-) tragic events in the women's penal company 
-) mass escape of Soviet prisoners of war
-) cases of desperate resistance in the dismantling room of a gas chamber.

Dr Piotr Setkiewicz, the head of the Museum Research Centre, tells the story of different cases or organized resistance at Auschwitz.

One of the prisoners in the first transport of women to Auschwitz - 999 women transferred from Ravensbrück concentration camp in March 1942 - was Sophie Stippel. She was registered as prisoner number 619. 

She was arrested because she belonged to the group of Jehovah's Witnesses. 

A few days after arrival, Sophie was employed as a domestic helper in the villa of the camp commandant, Rudolf Höss, which probably saved her life. Her duties included shopping and cooking, and sometimes taking care of the commandant's children.

Teresa Wontor-Cichy of the Auschwitz Museum Research Centre tells about the story of Sophie Stippel.

One of the elements of the operation of the Auschwitz camp was looting of the property of people deported to the camp. This was most intensified when Nazi Germany began the extermination of Jews at Auschwitz. 

Most of the property - after being sorted and disinfected - was sent to the Third Reich, where it was handed over to various groups of the German population, organizations and institutions.

Dr. Jacek Lachendro, deputy head of the Museum's Research Center, talks about the looting process at Auschwitz.

You have arrived not at a sanatorium but at a German concentration camp in which the only way out is through the chimney. If someone doesn’t like this, he may at once go to the wires. If there are any Jews in this transport, they have no right to live longer than two weeks. If there are any priests, they may live for a month, the rest only three months.

This is how the speech given by Auschwitz camp manager Karl Fritzch was recalled by Jan Karcz in his memoirs. 

Teresa Wontor-Cichy of the Museum Research Center talks about the first moments at Auschwitz, when deportees came into contact with the world of death, terror and dehumanization, as well as factors that could help surviving the camp.

After the liberation of Auschwitz, its two main parts - the former main camp (Auschwitz I) and Auschwitz II-Birkenau - were first placed under the control of the Soviet military authorities. In the first of these, from February to September 1945, Soviet field hospitals and the Polish Red Cross hospital operated, where most of the surviving prisoners were treated. A transit camp for German prisoners of war also operated there from spring to autumn of that year. A similar camp existed at the former Birkenau camp until early 1946. Commissions investigating the crimes committed by Nazi Germany at Auschwitz also began to work at the site of the former camp.

At the same time, survivors began to make efforts to establish an institution at the site of the former camp to commemorate the victims.

Dr Jacek Lachendro, from the Museum Research Centre, talks about the process that led to the creation of the Auschwitz Memorial in 1947.

The analysis of the surviving documents of the camp administration makes it possible, on the one hand, to trace how the centralised concentration camp system administered by the SS in Nazi Germany functioned, while, on the other hand, it also shows various aspects of the functioning of the camp itself and the members of its garrison.

One example is the surviving correspondence concerning the attempt to transfer 30 women prisoners - Jehovah's Witnesses - from Ravensbrück to Auschwitz, who were to be employed as domestic helpers in the homes of SS men. Listen to Teresa Wontor-Cichy from the Research Center of the Auschwitz Museum talking about this set of documents.

The Germans incarcerated at least 464 priests, seminarians & monks as well as 35 nuns in #Auschwitz. Teresa Wontor Cichy, from the Museum’s Research Center talks about the fate of Christian clergy and about religious life in the camp.

See also our online course: http://lekcja.auschwitz.org/en_18_duchowienstwo/

The Auschwitz II-Birkenau gas chambers and crematoria never became targets for Allied bombing, despite reports about their existence forwarded both by the Polish resistance movement and some people who escaped from the camp. Instead, American bombers carried out several strikes against the IG Farben petrochemical installations located at the distance of seven kilometers from Auschwitz. 

Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz, the head of the Research Center of the Auschwitz Museum talks about the issue of bombing the camp.

One of the groups of witnesses to the crimes perpetrated at the concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz were British prisoners of war who were forced to work on the construction of the IG Farbenindustrie factory. The building site was located in the immediate vicinity of the Auschwitz III-Monowitz camp and a few kilometers from the Auschwitz I main camp. British prisoners of war were also employed at the mines in Libiąż and Jaworzno, where Auschwitz sub-camps were later established. Dr Piotr Setkiewicz, head of the Auschwitz Museum Research Centre, talks about the history of British POWs near the Auschwitz camp.