Setting up Auschwitz

On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland. The occupation of Poland rested on racism, exploitation and extreme terror. Concentration camps played an important part. Many Poles were taken to camps deep inside Germany. Many more were forced into new camps in occupied Poland. The first of these was Auschwitz. Opened in June 1940 on the grounds of an old army barracks, it quickly grew into a major camp. Early on, the great majority of inmates were Polish political prisoners; there were only a small number of Jews. The first commandant was Rudolf Höss, who had joined the Camp SS in 1934. Arrested after the war, Höss wrote lengthy recollections. The following extract was written in early 1947, not long before he was executed in Poland.

015 – The former commandant Rudolf Höss on Auschwitz in 1940

Auschwitz main camp

The Wiener Library

Thus I was made commandant of Auschwitz […]. It was off the beaten track, far away in Poland. […] I myself had never expected to make it to commandant so quickly, especially because some very senior bosses of protective custody camps had been waiting for a long time for a commandant’s post to come up. And it was not an easy task. I was supposed to create a transit camp for 10,000 inmates from the existing complex, which, although its buildings were sound, was completely run down and swarming with vermin. From the point of view of hygiene there was almost nothing there […].

All I thought about was my work

Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss (second from left) stands next to camp doctor Josef Mengele (left) and Josef Kramer (right), the later Bergen-Belsen commandant (summer 1944)

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Anonymous Donor

From the start I realized that Auschwitz could be turned into something workable only through the tireless efforts of everyone from the commandant down to the last inmate. […] From the very beginning I was completely absorbed, in fact obsessed, by my work, by the task I had been given. All the difficulties that arose made me redouble my efforts. I was determined not to be defeated. I was too ambitious for that. All I thought about was my work. […] If I was going to be equal to my task I had to be the powerhouse who tirelessly, relentlessly pushed on with getting things set up. I had to be the one who was always driving everything forward and sweeping everything along with me […].

Source: R. Höss, Kommandant in Auschwitz (Munich, 1994), pp. 134–5, 142, 146

Translation: Lesley Sharpe and Jeremy Noakes