The health service in Auschwitz main camp

At first glance, the fact that a health service was organised in the gloomy charnel house that was Auschwitz and that a prisoners’ hospital and outpatient clinics were established there seems utterly surprising. After all, wasn’t the camp set up as an instrument of mass extermination, so why this concern for prisoners’ health?

Yet the matter is clarified if we realise what lay behind the RSHA’s¹ motives for organising health services in concentration camps. Here are some of the mainaims of theirpolicy:

1. Almost as soon as Auschwitz was set up, news of the mass murders, terror and inhuman living conditions for prisoners started to leak out to the free world.

In view of this situation, the SS authorities used the 2,000-bed prisoners’ hospital with renowned medical authorities recruited from prisoners on its staff, and numerous specialist outpatient clinics, as their best form of counter-propaganda. Just like the brothel that was established in the camp later, the hospital was meant to mislead public opinion: anyone who learnt of such institutions operating in the camp would surely not believe that prisoners were being starved, terrorised, or still less exterminated.

2. Apart from the propaganda motive, the SS had yet another, even more important reason for organising a so-called “health service,” which in fact was quite well organised. Yet its main task was to facilitate the mass extermination of prisoners. Its outpatient clinics were to become selection sites, and its hospital wards “waiting rooms” for death; prisoners who fell sick or were emaciated by starvation were either sent there for a phenol jab or to the gas chambers. In the meantime, the hospital’s patients were to serve as human guinea pigs for all sorts of pseudo-medical experiments.
3. Finally, the Auschwitz hospital was to isolate inmates suffering from infectious diseases from the rest of the camp and prevent epidemics from spreading to the SS staff and the civilian slave labour force employed in the German industrial plants such as the Buna-Werke² and the coal mines in the camp’s environs.

The authority in charge of the Auschwitz health service was the SS commandant’s office. Its powers were exercised by the SS Standortarzt, that is the SS garrison physician, who was a high-ranking officer who had been a member of the Nazi Party for a fairly long time. In each of the camps the SS Standortarzt had a deputy called the SS Lagerarzt, the camp physician, whose subordinates were SS NCOs known as the SDGs (Sanitätsdienstgrad, SS orderlies).

That was as far as the power of the SS went. It was supposed to devolve to prisoners who were expected to run the hospital units. Every HKB (Häftlingskrankenbau, prisoners’ hospital) had a Lagerältester,³ a “senior prisoner” of its own, who was the administrative and medical manager of the prisoners’ hospital and its outpatient clinics. The Lagerältester had a deputy called a Blockältester⁴ (block elder) for each hospital ward to supervise the prisoner-doctors, nurses and clerks working in the ward.

In the initial period of the camp’s operations there was no hospital. Block 21 had a small outpatient clinic, and most of the treatment it provided was for prisoners who had been beaten up at work in their Arbeitskommando (labour commando). An inmate who contracted a serious disease got no treatment at all and died in his barrack.

The only place a sick inmate could have a moment of respite was the toilet in his barrack. This was also where prisoners usually died. At that time, however, there were few deaths of natural causes because the first transports of inmates consisted of young, strong men, not fatigued by previous prolonged imprisonment.

Sharing Bread (Weighing Justice). Artwork by Marian Kołodziej. Photo by Piotr Markowski. Click to enlarge.

Quite naturally, as the camp expanded and new transports of prisoners arrived, the number of sick inmates rose. Moreover, by that time prisoners had been on small food rations for months. The SS assumed that a prisoner who had no possibility of “organising” food for himself would not survive for longer than three months. After that time, he would develop cachexia and starvation disease. This situation made the SS set up additional premises where emaciated inmates could “wait” for death. They designated two barracks, Blocks 28 and 20, and also Block 19 in early 1941, for this purpose.

In Block 28 there was a precinct housing the central outpatient clinic, dispensary, administrative office and registry. There was also a dietary kitchen, analytical laboratory, a treatment room and a small bathhouse for “in-patients”, as well as a separate room for German patients, since according to the racist regulations, Germans were not allowed to be accommodated with “patients of inferior races.” In Blocks 21 and 28 patients usually slept two to a bed, whereas patients in Blocks 20 and Block 19 slept on mattresses laid out on the floor.

There were no patients with internal diseases in the strict sense of the word; for example, if someone developed circulatory insufficiency, he was usually killed at work or died in his barrack. Other internal diseases with no clear external symptoms were not considered diseases by the SS doctor.

Therefore, most of the patients were suffering from exhaustion due to starvation, diarrhoea and oedemas. Of course, sometimes there were healthy inmates who needed to be harboured in the hospital to keep them from being sent to the Strafkompanie (penal commando) for hard labour, or to be protected against against harassment. In the initial period, sick inmates got little or practically no treatment at all, also owing to the want of medications. The administration of a few charcoal tablets a day, with no extra food rations, to patients suffering from starvation disease could hardly be called treatment. Prisoner doctors and nurses were forced to carry out time-consuming duties such as keeping the registers or cleaning the blocks. Patients’ medical records had to be kept up-to-date, with entries made every few days for new doctor’s remarks and the results of laboratory tests, some of which were not actually done due to technical difficulties. In addition, an accurate record had to be made of every tablet and every medication given or prescribed.

One of the harassments used by the SS authorities against the medical and nursing staff was forcing them to keep the premises clean: endless airing, sweeping and washing the floors with bleach or sending emaciated patients to the washroom for an ice-cold shower, which also had a severe impact on their health. Not surprisingly, there were many deaths. For example, in less than a month of 1941 about 150 patients died in one of the rooms of Block 28 designed to accommodate 35 patients.

The heaviest duty incumbent on Block 28 was running the admissions room. From five o’clock in the morning, nurses had to get hundreds of inmates ready to be presented to the SS doctor.

It was not easy to be admitted to the prisoner’s hospital. There were two options: an official presentation to the SS doctor who examined sick prisoners every day after the morning roll call, or to report to the prisoner doctor after the evening roll call. This prisoner doctor substituted for the SS doctor whenever the latter was away and exercised some of his powers.

At the beginning of the camp’s operations, it was quite hard to avoid being examined by an SS doctor; but to be presented to him an inmate had to get through many troublesome or even dangerous formalities. The procedure was as follows: when prisoners were back from their work commandos, and after the evening roll call, the Rapportführer (report leader) announced the possibility of reporting to the SS doctor. Sick prisoners had to step out of line, strip naked and say what their problem was. The report leader and two prisoner-elders, usually Germans convicted of criminal offences, assessed whether the applicant was really sick or just a malingerer. If this “medical council” found the applicant genuinely ill, he would receive a referral entitling him to see the SS doctor. But if it did not confirm the prisoner’s story,he would be taken to the camp’s office and flogged.

Conditions involving a high temperature and internal diseases were generally not considered disorders calling for treatment. To be qualified for medical treatment, a prisoner had to have a broken arm or leg or an intriguing traumatic condition that could amuse the “medical council.”

Later on, from 1942, it was relatively easy for a prisoner to obtain a referral to the SS doctor because the decision was made by a colleague – his Blockältester.

Inmates who passed the first hurdle went to admissions in Block 28, where the nurses had to delouse, bathe, wash and shave them, then write their prison numbers on their chests and on their file cards; all this had to be done for the SS doctor to qualify only a few for admission.

After the evening roll call, the outpatient unit was again full of prisoners, even more of them, many with various types of injuries and infections. As it got colder, emaciated inmates developed frostbite and abscesses which would not heal. There was no causal treatment for such conditions, so they continued to visit the outpatient clinic until they died.

Barrack 21 was for surgical patients. It housed the SS doctor’s office with the hospital’s⁵ main administrative office opposite it. There was also a poorly equipped operating theatre, a dental clinic for the entire camp, and a post-op room that was also used by the nurses. Prisoners who needed surgery were those with fractures and injuries which they got when they were beaten up, those with large abscesses, etc. At first laparotomies were not performed at all. Patients with serious conditions requiring surgery had no chance to survive. It was not until the autumn of 1940 that the first laparotomy was performed, for the removal of an appendix. It was conducted by a young doctor, Tadeusz Gąsiorowski, who is now practising in Katowice. He had only a few primitive instruments available and was assisted by a prisoner who was an architect from Warsaw, and another inmate who had done some training in the camp for nursing. The operation was performed on a bench with the patient tied to it. It was quite remarkable that the wound healed per primam intentionem and the young patient’s life was saved.

Blocks 19 and 20 were used to “stow” patients suffering from starvation. As there were no doctors and nurses in these units, their jobs were done by two Germans convicted of criminal offences.⁶ The block leader in Block 20 was Hans,⁷ who habitually stole patients’ money and excercised a ruthless form of control over the influx of patients to the block. When a prisoner was brought in on a stretcher Hans either strangled him in the washroom straightaway, or put a rubber hose connected to the water supply down his throat, turned the tap on and killed him.

Block 19 was different. The patients there were not allowed to lie in bed, except at night. During the day they had to be up on their feet, standing in rows and singing German military songs. In addition, they had to attend long roll calls with all the “healthy” prisoners in the square of the main camp.

Only the SS doctor was authorized to conduct medical procedures. His work can serve as an example of the extent to which fascism⁸ shackled the world of medicine, science and physician’s work, degrading the entire medical profession. The SS doctors did anything the camp’s authorities wanted them to do; often they were the the ones who started the criminal medical malpractices. I know of only one situation of an SS doctor resisting orders, it was Dr Lukas⁹ from Danzig, employed in Auschwitz and later in Mauthausen, who refused to carry out ruthless orders, so he was demoted and sent to the Stutthof¹⁰ penal colony for recalcitrant SS men.

SS doctors collaborated closely with the commandant’s office for the extermination of prisoners, yet at the same time they took care to keep up appearances that they were giving patients proper treatment, but in fact were masking the miscellaneous crimes committed in the camp. They considered the purportedly “quality-controlled” food rations sufficient for prisoners; they also fabricated false causes of death, selected prisoners for the gas chambers, administered toxic injections, performed sundry pseudo-experiments on inmates; and in their leisure time abused the medical and nursing staff subordinate to them.

An SS doctor’s day at work started in the morning with an inspection of prisoners wanting to be admitted to the hospital. They were presented by a prisoner-doctor, and the SS doctor decided what would happen to them. After the morning round, he inspected the block to see if it was clean and tidy and drew up a report on the inspection; sometimes he ordered corporal punishment for one of the block’s members ofstaff. Then he went to his office to sign death reports and other documents drawn up for the commandant’s office. When the gas chambers were set up and phenol injections were in use, he selected weak or seriously ill prisoners for the gas or for a phenol jab.

The SS camp physician supervised the NCO medics who were obliged to stay on the hospital premises all day long. Their special features – apart from the SS ideology and training – were the stupidity and vulgarity characteristic of the common soldiery. And of course, they had no professional qualifications. Instead, they were experts at sniffing out breach ofdiscipline. They used to crawl under the beds to look for litter and dust, and they were incessantly checking the nurses’ belongings, suspecting them of sabotage. Moreover, they often stole medications and equipment from the hospital as well as food from the kitchen.

The SS camp physician could not administer the hospital on his own, let alone run it in a professional capacity, since all the time he had to worry about keeping his job. Coping on his own with writing up the records for patients and deaths as required by the commandant’s office was out of the question, too. According to the recommendations issued by the camp’s executive, every patient who died had to have an “appropriate” cause of death and a carefully compiled medical record – regardless of whether he was shot or tortured to death in the Gestapo’s Bunker,¹¹ or killed by a kapo at work, or whether he died of starvation, which was qualified as death of natural causes. This was how all the sundry kinds of homicide were covered up.

So it was in the SS camp physician’s interest to delegate a large part of his powers and authority to prisoners who could administer the hospital and produce the required documents. His direct powers stopped at this link in chain of the camp’s administrative machine, and another power emerged – the power of the prisoners.

The main representative of prisoners’ power was the Lagerältester of the hospital, along with his subordinates and assistants, the block elders, clerks, ward heads and clerks working in the hospital’s main office. The Lagerältester and his prisoner staff wielded considerable power, which they could exercise in various ways. They could rigorously enforce the orders of the SS doctor and the regulations of the commandant’s office; they could carry them out loyally or indifferently; or they could attenuate the power of the SS; or even sabotage and subvert SS orders. It all depended on the ideological and ethical standpoint of the Lagerältester and his subordinates. The Lagerältester had a say on appointments to posts subject to his authority; he could influence hospital policy and the general atmosphere of the hospital. Of course, his position was very difficult, and so were those of all the senior jobs held by inmates. If the Lagerältester wanted to help prisoners, he had to pretend to be loyal to the SS authorities while sabotaging their ordinances.

Since the office of Lagerältester and other administrative posts were crucial and of great practical importance, in all concentration camps there was a fierce struggle for them between individual prisoners and groups of prisoners.

In some camps like Dachau and Buchenwald located in Germany, with a majority of political prisoners, i.e. anti-fascists (mainly Communists), these offices were held by anti-fascists. On the other hand, in camps where most of the inmates were convicted criminals (mainly fascists), power devolved on their representatives.

Auschwitz was slightly different in this respect. Until 1942, 95% of its inmates were Polish political prisoners, but despite this strong Polish presence, the SS authorities appointed German convicted criminals to the top jobs, fearing that a Polish influence on Polish territory could be dangerous. From the beginning of Auschwitz until 1942, the office of Lagerältester was held by Hans Bock,¹² a German convicted criminal. He was not a bad man, although he had no ideals and was fairly loyal to the SS. He had German deputies. Bock had certain “weaknesses” that had a bad effect on relations in the hospital. He was a morphine addict and fond of young boys, whom he kept about him, demoralizing them, and worse still, entrusting them with the most responsible functions in the hospital. That was the origin of all the Stössels, the Pańszczyks¹³ and their likes, who did a lot to spoil the good reputation of Polish prisoners.

At that time the hospital had a general rule not to employ prisoner doctors because the SS system prohibited them from practising medicine. Yet de facto the hospital could not do without the help of prisoner doctors to create its records and keep up appearances of providing genuine treatment. So a certain number of doctors were employed, but officially they were listed as nurses. Besides, the Lagerältester, an omnipotent simpleton officially in charge of the hospital and its services, did not fancy seeing too many prisoner doctors around or watching them gain too much influence. Consequently, in this period prisoner doctors did blue-collar jobs in the camp and most of them died of exhaustion or were killed.

The uninventive atmosphere of the camp’s initial period did not foster action on a wide scale to protect sick inmates, who were effectively left to die. It was the peak of the SS reign of terror in the concentration camps, coinciding with the biggest Nazi German victories on the battlefield, and had a bad effect on relations in the camp. Prisoners died en masse of starvation or typhus. Many were “helped” to die by violent means or a phenol injection.

The second period, beginning in mid-1942, brought changes to the hospital. Germany’s setbacks on the Eastern Front played a decisive role in improving relations in Auschwitz, and the Soviet victory at Stalingrad was a turning point for us prisoners as well. In the new conditions, the camp authorities were forced to use their workforce, mainly the professionals, in a more economical way. The hospital could now officially employ prisoner doctors as professional medical staff.

The changes began with the arrival of the new chief physician, SS Sturmbannführer Dr Eduard Wirths,¹⁴ who came from Dachau. Dozens of Austrian and German political prisoners who were Communists arrived with him and worked as nurses. They were all close friends and had spent a lot of time in underground combat units and concentration camps. After the Spanish Civil War, they had been held in French concentration camps,¹⁵ and were later turned over to the Germans, who imprisoned them in Dachau. Wirths treated these prisonerspreferentially; although a German fascist himself, he hated criminals. The newcomers soon became familiar with the conditions in Auschwitz, and got to know a group of Polish democrats. With Wirths’ tacit support, they carried out a revolution in the hospital. Bock and his minions were removed. Anti-fascists took over the hospital jobs of the German criminals and dangerous youths. At this time, many Polish prisoner doctors and nurses, mature and reasonable individuals with a democratic outlook got jobs in the hospital.

The German Communist Ludwig Wörl¹⁶ became Lagerältester, and other German and Austrian Communists became block seniors. The Communists from Dachau made an important contribution to improving conditions in the hospital. On the other hand, some of them, especially Wörl, who was an honest man, took a series of clumsy and sometimes harmful decisions. They did so owing to the habits they had developed as nurses over many years of professional experience, which led them to believe they could be a match for the doctors. The result was a series of regrettable incidents, for example, Dr Rudolf Diem,¹⁷ a renowned Polish doctor, had to leave the hospital. The conflicts between the nurses and doctors, though rare, were water to the SS mill, undermining the prisoners’ unity and potential for resistance. In turn, the democratically-minded Poles were grouped in the hospital’s administrative office. The influence of prisoner doctors rose. German nurses from Dachau were now administrative heads and their deputies were Polish prisoner doctors. By this time, the hospital wards had become organised well enough to deserve the name. Block 28 became an internal medicine ward, while Block 21 was a surgical ward with a fairly well equipped operating theatre. Infectious and TB patientswere treated in Block 20. Block 19, and later Block 9, treated those suffering from emaciation and convalescents.

At this time, numerous transports strated to arrive from Western countries, and most of the camp’s inmates were no longer Polish: Auschwitz became an international community. Sick prisoners admitted to the hospital came from France, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Norway, Greece, etc. Gradually, members of these nationalities were appointed as doctors and nurses. More and more fascists lost senior posts, both in the camp and in the hospital.

An international democratic resistance movement committed to the internationalist ideology was established in the camp¹⁸ and started to engage in educational work.¹⁹ It became an important moral force. The organisational core of this movement was based in the prisoners’ hospital, which had an effect on staff relations in the hospital. The doctors, nurses and clerks developed a collective sense of responsibility and struggle for inmates’ survival. An atmosphere of friendly co-operation was created in the hospital wards. There were no bigwigs or nobodies on the staff, no self-conceited superiors and timid underlings. Everyone understood that they had a common duty: to take their fellow inmates safely through their period of illness and to do all they could to help them recover and continue fighting for survival. Just one infectious ward (Block 20), which I was in charge of at that time, convinced me that even in the most primitive conditions a patient could recover if everyone – from the head of the ward down to the nurses, administrative staff and orderlies – had him in mind and was working on his behalf. The nurses and clerks had a particularly important role. At this point in the history of the hospital, these jobs were held by educated people who were moral authorities with inmates.

However, this was also the time when the commandant’s office was carrying out its biggest wave of extermination operations. There were frequent selections of inmates for the gas chambers and phenol injections. Many more would have died if it had not been for the conduct of the majority of the medical, nursing and administrative staff. Before every “choosie for the gas” that was expected, stronger patients were discharged and sent out to work. The list of those discharged was sent to the doctor of admissions, to have them back to as soon as the danger was over. Extremely emaciated patients were instructed how to behave during a selection. They were taught how to respond to the questions the SS doctor asked and how to look strong. The prisoner doctor due to present sick inmates to the SS doctor was not to provide patients’ real medical data and keep quiet about unfavourable diagnoses, not to admit that some patients had spent a long time in hospital, and try to persuade the SS doctor that they would all recover. Just before an expected selection the most vulnerable patients were hidden in attics or other nooks, or moved from the rooms which the SS doctor had not yet inspected to those he had already visited. An example of the doctors’ behaviour was the anti-malaria operation carried out in Block 20 (the infectious diseases ward). Late one evening in the spring of 1943, we received secret information that the next morning the camp authorities would send all the malaria patients to the gas chamber in Treblinka. So during the whole night the staffof the infectious diseases ward fabricated about 50 new medical records for these prisoners, removing even the slightest symptoms that could have indicated malaria. As a result, all the malaria patients were saved.

The commandant’s office did not like the patient-oriented attitude prevailing in the hospital, so they sent a pack of spies and provocateurs into the hospital. The autumn of 1943 was an incredibly intensified reign of terror (the Germans were sort of “coming to terms with” their defeat at Stalingrad). And despite the fact that most of the Gestapo informers in the hospital units were neutralized, as the camp commandant Rudolf Höss²⁰ writes in his memoirs, many doctors and nurses fell victim to this spree of violence. The Bunker filled up with members of the hospital staff (Cyrankiewicz,²¹ Diem, Fejkiel, K. Kowalczyk,²² Langbein,²³ Mosdorf,²⁴ and Sokołowski²⁵).

Lagerältester Wörl was moved to a similar job in the SS hospital. His successor in the office was Dr Władysław Dering,²⁶ a gynaecologist from Warsaw. Although he did not pursue an open anti-fascist policy, he did not disturb, but on the quiet supported all the democratic actions. Moreover, it must be admitted that within the short period of just a few months of his work as Lagerältester, the influence of doctors increased significantly. After the war, Władysław Dering’s name was put on the list of war criminals, casting an unfavourable light on the Auschwitz prisoners’ hospital, and since the matter is connected with the history of the hospital, it calls for an objective explanation. Dering was appointed Lagerältester not because he was collaborating with the Germans but because Dr Wirths, the SS chief physician, wanted the office held by doctors, not nurses. As there were no German prisoner doctors in the camp (the Gestapo discovered that Dr F. Gralla,²⁷ who was a German citizen, was a Polish patriot and considered him a renegade), so Dering was appointed. Until 1941, Dering had been a physician in the dispensary. Next, he organised and ran the surgical ward very well in difficult conditions. Although he was a gynaecologist, not a surgeon, he managed to acquire surgical skills in the camp (he was forced to operate, as there was no surgeon). Dering was an anti-fascist by conviction, but he was full of complexes. He was cowardly, in constant fear of being thrown out of the hospital, of losing his job and being “finished off.” The camp owed him a lot for his surgical skills; he saved many prisoners from harassment. Due to his cowardly, haughty nature and awkward behaviour, he had a “talent” for getting on people’s nerves. On the orders of the SS doctors and probably out of cowardice, fearing reprisals if he refused, he carried out the surgical removal of the testicles or ovaries of several prisoners who had been irradiated with X-rays (as part of the sterilization experiments carried out by Dr Schumann, a Wehrmacht doctor). Obviously, these operations were criminal, and many of his fellow prisoners regarded the specific situation in which he found himself, under pressure from the SS doctors, only as a mitigating circumstance, but not enough to exonerate him for breaking the Hippocratic oath. In this context, it was perhaps too harsh to treat him on an equal footing with the SS doctors and put him on the war crimes list.

In January 1944, Dering was released from the camp. I was appointed Lagerältester thanks to the representations made by the international democratic resistance movement to Dr. Wirths.

Compared to my predecessors, I found myself in much better conditions, as I could count on the support of the community of inmates at large, regardless of nationality. I was supported by the international underground resistance movement and other prisoners’ groups. As a veteran prisoner, I had a good idea of the policy pursued by the commandant’s office and the Gestapo thanks to my contacts with inmates employed as clerks in the office and the Gestapo political department. However, the most important thing was that I found or appointed many morally upright and politically reliable prisoners on the hospital staff, who were friendly to me. The general situation in the camp, though still difficult and grim, was changing all the time.

Throughout 1944 until the evacuation of the camp (17 January 1945), i.e. the period when I was responsible for the hospital, prisoners’ resistance to the orders of the commandant’s office and the Gestapo was constantly rising, which reflected both the growing democratic and anti-fascist influences in the camp as well the setbacks and military defeat of Nazi Germany, mainly on the Eastern Front. The camp authorities had less and less insight into, and less influence over what was going on in the hospital, thanks to the fact that the prisoners managed to clear the hospital of marauding Gestapo informers. They even got rid of Stefan Ołpiński,²⁸ the most infamous provocateur and spy working for the Nazis, who had beena dignitary in pre-war Poland, notorious for his inflammatory remarks against Stefan Starzyński, the mayor of Warsaw who took a heroic stance when the Germans invaded the city. Curiously enough, the commandant’s office did not launch an in-depth inquiry into the matter, although the SS chief physician knew of the incident. Not much later, there was a substantial improvement in relations in the camp, and mainly in the hospital, after a large transport of hundreds of prisoners consisting of informers, demoralised and criminals was sent away. This transport was organised by the camp resistance movement and “endorsed” by the commandant’s office.

One of the hospital’s spectacular achievements was in the battle to stop the sadistic practices of the kapos and overseers. Under pressure from the hospital staff, especially Hermann Langbein, the SS chief physician got the commandant to issue an order that cases of prisoners being beaten up at work were to be reported by prisoner doctors and the perpetrators were to be held accountable. Of course, the order was not issued for humanitarian reasons, since it said that the wilful curtailment of inmates’ potential for work was sabotage, nonetheless it put a stop to one of the camp’s biggest plagues.

Another important fact was that the Austrian Communist lawyer Heinrich Dürmeyer²⁹ was Lagerältester at the time. Dürmeyer worked with the hospital to put pressure on prisoners in administrative jobs to co-operate with the hospital in the interests of all the prisoners.

A number of beneficial changes came about as a result of prisoners planning and taking action, for example, to turn some of the SS men into a convenient tool in their hands. Langbein decided to lay his cards on the table with the SS chief physician and get him to consider his prospects in the event of Germany losing the war, and extorting a number of important concessions in the prisoners’ interests. Józef Cyrankiewicz, another nurse, publicly accused the former SS commandant Rudolf Höss to the new commandant Liebeshenschel³⁰ of crimes committed against prisoners, urging the new commandant not to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor. Needless to say, these were very risky moves. The hospital’s main administrative office was an extremely enterprising unit that exerted a strong political influence on the camp. Its staff included J. Bistric, E. Toch, H. Reineck, W. Bieda, J. Cyrankiewicz, T. Hołuj, J. Burakiewicz, T. Paczuła, T. Jurkowski, A. Zacharski, P. Reinke, and Jakubowicz. It was the main collection point for kites and other materials due to be taken out of the camp illicitly; it was also a point of contact for the leaders of the resistance movement, and the place which sent out encrypted reports to Kraków, and out into the free world.

The clear signs of disintegration among the SS allowed us to “suborn” individual SS men in various ways, for example by offering them private treatment, giving them advice on how to avoid being sent to the front, or giving them bribes in the form of cigarettes, food, etc. We engaged in such practices not only with respect to the SS rank-and-file; we also had prisoner doctors running training courses for SS physicians. Roman Łaba gave an internal medicine course; and Józef Grabczyński and Tadeusz Orzeszko trained them in surgery, providing the hospital with extra leverage. To give an idea of the practical significance of our drive to suborn individual SS men, I shall add that thanks to it we managed to prevent selections, or at least reduce the number of patients sent to the gas chambers. Our operations were not just one-off events; the idea was to use every chance we got to protect the hospital in case the sudden appearance of Allied troops right in front of the camp’s barbed wire should prompt the SS authorities to exterminate the entire hospital staff along with their patients.

Along with all these resistance undertakings, the contribution of prisoner doctors in treatment was growing. To improve the care available to patients, they organised nursing courses for young inmates. Treatment outcomes improved considerably and mortality for natural causes fell. In addition, Prof. Jan Olbrycht³¹ encouraged some prisoner doctors to engage in scientific work.

It would be well-nigh impossible to list the names of all the hospital staff – doctors, nurses and administrative staff, because such a list would entail hundreds of people, due to high staff mobility caused by deaths, deportations to other camps, etc. Nevertheless, I would like to mention a few persons who made a substantial contribution to the prisoners’ health service and hospital, and whose moral and political stance and courage helped to protect patients against SS brutality.

The office of block senior inparticular hospital blocks (wards) as held by two Poles, Stanisław Oszacki, and Stanisław Ratajczak, and two Austrians, Hans Sauer and Josef Rittner, as well as one German, Adolf Laatsch. They were excellent administrators and genuine carers for their patients.

The duties of treatment were in the hands of prisoner doctors and nurses;I shall mention Stanisław Kłodziński, Franciszek Gralla, J. Zielina, Tadeusz Orzeszko, Władysław Tondos, I. Kwarta,Prof. S. Kropveld, Prof. Klein, S. Steinberg, A. Smerek, J. Suchomel, Z. Hofman, S. Stolarzewicz, Rudolf Diem, H. Suchnicki, J. Mężyk, T. Szymański, W. Ławkowicz, Z. Sobieszczański, J. Lewin, S. Suliborski, J. Pakowski, T. Śnieszko, J. Krzywicki, R. Szuszkiewicz, L. Głogowski, T. Gajewski, Prof. Marian Gieszczykiewicz, Czesław. Gawarecki, F. Augustyn, J. Gordon, J. Gałka, S. Dziurski, J. Reichman, J. Gadomski, C. Dominikiewicz, S. Pizło, E. Nowak, J. Nowak, S. Żabicki, W. Türschmidt, and A. Przybylski. The nurses whose work the inmates regarded as first-rate and self-sacrificing included F. Dannimann, L. Kowalczyk, A. Kuryłowicz, N. Stern, J. Panasewicz, A. Papalaci, J. Młynarski, W. Kosztowny, M. Monderer, P. Marschalek, J. Pierzchała, H. Rafalik, J. Momont, C. Sowul, J. Wolny, S. Zelle, J. Weber, K. Lill, the Tabeau brothers, the Müller brothers, S. Lichański, S. Głowa, Z. Rogowski, W. Mucha, C. Głowacki, H. Górkiewicz, K. Fronczek, B. Głębowicz, W. Barcz, P. Drelichowski, C. Duzel, L. Bas, E. Pyś, I. Golik, S. Czubak and E. Ciesielski.

Prof. Olbrycht conducted the anatomopathological examinations.

The hospital did not experience any major shortages of medications at this time. We owed this mainly to the energy and initiative of the prisoners working in the camp pharmacy, namely Marian Toliński,³² J. Janssen³³ and Marian Dybus. The “organisation” was a very important source for the supply of drugs and consisted of the systematic pilfering of the SS pharmacy, conducted on a virtually wholesale level by two prisoners, Jan Sikorski and Tadeusz Szewczyk. Both were qualified pharmacists.

In addition, we had drugs smuggled in from Kraków through an international underground resistance organisation. Parcels with medications were sent by post to Kwiatkowski’s pharmacy in Oświęcim, or to Bobrzecka’s³⁴ pharmacy in Brzeszcze. They were then smuggled into the hospital through the services of Kommando Gärtnerei (the gardeners’ labour unit) and other groups working outside the camp. The operation was coordinated in Kraków by Teresa Lasocka-Estreicher,³⁵ who worked with Cyrankiewicz and Kłodziński. In addition, some individual prisoners who worked outside the camp smuggled in large quantities of drugs donated by Polish civilians living in the vicinity of Auschwitz main camp. Most of the medications which arrived in this way were supplied by two prisoners,“Skrzetuski” (his real name was Janusz Pogonowski, and he was a son of a physician from Kraków),and Henryk Bartoszewicz.

It was more difficult to augment the hospital’s food supply. The “illegal” provision of extra food for patients was done by many nurses and doctors, who pilfered the SS warehouses on an individual basis. Special merit in this regard was earned by Janusz Młynarski (now a doctor), Julian Kiwała, Tadeusz Paudyn, Tadeusz Paolone (aka Lisowski), Władysław Bielawski, and many others.

The autumn of 1944 saw the start of huge evacuation transports in preparation for the camp’s final evacuation pending the approach of the front. The first to leave were the healthy prisoners, including Poles. This fact signified the defeat of Nazi Germany and promised an imminent end to the war, but at the same time evoked mixed feelings – hopes and fears – inthe hospital and in the whole camp. Healthy inmates, those who were being evacuated or preparing to evacuate were in good spirits, looking forward to imminent liberation. On the other hand, the hospital staff and patients were convinced that the commandant’s office would not bother to evacuate the hospital, but would destroy it at the last moment.

We heard through various channels thatwe should take such a horrifying possibility seriously. It was only in the late autumn of 1944 that we learned that at a meeting in the SS commandant’s office the opinion prevailed against the extermination of the entire hospital. Today it would be difficult to say what influenced such a decision: was it the technical difficulty ofcarrying out such an operation, or perhaps the activities of the resistance movement, thanks to which world opinion already knew enough about the atrocities and terror of Auschwitz to make the SS authorities realise that they could not count on concealing their crimes?

In the event, patients who were able to walk were evacuated, and the rest were liberated by the Soviet Army.

***

Translated from original article: Fejkiel, W., “O służbie zdrowia w obozie koncentracyjnym w Oświęcimiu I (Obóz główny).” Przegląd Lekarski – Oświęcim, 1961.

The above article retains academic value mainly as a historical source. The author does not mention or discuss the situation of the Jewish prisoners. He does not refer to their deportation to the camp and does not list the Jewish prisoner doctors while writing about the staff of the prisoners’ hospital. Fejkiel’s later book on the prisoners’ hospital in Auschwitz, „Więźniarski szpital w KL Auschwitz” (1994), however, provides the missing information about the Jewish prisoners.^a

1. The Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Main Security Office). Heinrich Himmler, Chief of German Police, and head of the Nazi Party’s Schutzstaffel (SS), was the chief of this organization, whose aim was to fight all the “enemies of the German Reich.”^b
2. Auschwitz III (also known as “Auschwitz III-Monowitz” or more simply as “Monowitz,” “Buna” or “Buna-Werke”) was the site of a large synthetic rubber factory operated by I.G. Farben using camp prisoners as slave labour, located on the western outskirts of the former village of Monowice, about 7 km east of Auschwitz I, the main camp.^c
3. A camp elder, camp senior or senior camp inmate, was an SS-appointed prisoner who served as a sort of leader with disciplinary powers over other prisoners, and reported to the SS Lagerführer.^c
4. A block elder (also translated as “block senior” or “senior block inmate”) was an SS-appointed prisoner responsible for the barrack or block, with disciplinary powers over other prisoners; he reported to the block leader, an SS man subordinate to the Rapportführer (report leader) responsible for everyday operations of a designated section of a concentration camp, such as holding roll calls, dividing prisoners into work groups and overseeing the labour perfomed by the Arbeitskommandos.^c
5. The Schreibstube of the Häftlingskrankenbau or HKB (prisoners’ hospital) in Auschwitz I. See Tadeusz Paczuła, “The organisational structure of the prisoners’ hospital at Auschwitz I,” on this website.^c
6. Or more precisely Germans who were Erziehungshäftlinge, “labour re-education prisoners,” for being “work-shy” as provided bya decree issued by Himmler in May 1941 to set up “re-education labour camps” for workers who “refused to work or were lazy individuals.” The first re-education prisoners were sent to Auschwitz I in July 1941 and had the letter “E” sewn on their prison gear. See http://70.auschwitz.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=244&Itemid=179&lang=en.^c
7. Most probably Hans Nierzwicki (1905-1967), SS-Unterscharführer, Nazi German war criminal. Initially he worked in the Auschwitz SS hospital, and later in the prisoners’ hospital of Auschwitz I and in the Birkenau women’s camp. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Nierzwicki.^c
8. From the historical point of view, the term “fascism” properly applies to the Italian Fascist Party and is a misnomer if used of Nazi Germany. However, it was often used in this way by Soviet commentators and their counterparts in the Warsaw Bloc countries.^b
9. Franz Bernhard Lucas (1911-1994), a German concentration camp physician who served in Auschwitz I, the Auschwitz Roma camp, Mauthausen, Stutthof, Ravensbrück, and Sachsenhausen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Lucas.^c
10. The SS- und Polizeigericht Strafvollzugslager at Matzkau, a sub-camp of Stutthof for members of the SS and police service who were accused of disciplinary offences. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aussenstelle_Matzkau.^c
11. The Bunker of Auschwitz was a dungeon for solitary confinement. Few inmates survived it.^b
12. Hans Bock (“Tata,” camp number 5), a criminal and morphine addict. Arrived in Auschwitz from Sachsenhausen and held the post of supervisor in the prisoners’ hospital. Transferred to the Łagisza sub-camp for drug addiction, where he died in 1944.^c
13. Mieczysław Pańszczyk (No. 667) boasted of “jabbing 13,000 inmates”; he used to say that he was available only to camp doctor Obersturmführer Entress. Alfred Stössel (No. 435) enjoyed murdering prisoners. See Tadeusz Paczuła’s article on this website.^c
14. Eduard Wirths (1909–1945), SS-Standortarzt (SS chief physician) of Auschwitz from September 1942 to January 1945. Involved in gynaecological and typhus-related experiments on prisoners. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduard_Wirths.^c
15. Numerous internment camps and concentration camps were located in France before, during and after World War II. Beside the camps created during World War I to intern German, Austrian and Ottoman civilian prisoners, the Third Republic (1871–1940) opened various internment camps for Spanish refugees fleeing the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). Following the prohibition of the French Communist Party by the government of Édouard Daladier, they were used to detain Communist political prisoners. The Third Republic also interned German anti-Nazis (mostly members of the Communist Party of Germany). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_camps_in_France.^c
16. Ludwig Wörl (1906–1967). German male nurse and political prisoner of several Nazi German concentration camps; in Auschwitz he was Lagerälteste (camp elder) of the hospital barracks and protected numerous prisoners against SS violence. Awarded the Yad Vashem title of Righteous Among the Nations. https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/righteous-auschwitz/woerl.asp.^b
17. Rudolf Diem was a Polish army physician. During his captivity in Auschwitz he was a member of Witold Pilecki’s resistance group. See Zdzisław J. Ryn, “Lekarze więźniowie w Auschwitz-Birkenau,” https://www.polska1918-89.pl/pdf/lekarze-wiezniowie-w-auschwitz-birkenau,5141.pdf.^b
18. As the Auschwitz prisoner population changed, prisoners of other ethnic backgrounds, mostly Jews, joined the resistance movement and gave it a more diverse nature. Some groups were organized on an ethnic basis, and others were mixed. Many such groups arose at the turn of 1942/1943, not only Jewish but also Austro-German, Czech, French, Russian, and Yugoslavian. Most were leftist. In 1943, some of them joined with Polish leftists and socialists to create an international organization under the name Kampfgruppe Auschwitz (Auschwitz Combat Group). In 1944, the Home Army (the main Polish resistance group and the largest movement of the kind in occupied Europe) and Kampfgruppe Auschwitz set up a joint Auschwitz Military Council, tasked with preparing an uprising in the camp. http://auschwitz.org/en/history/resistance/organized-reistance. Although there were many resistance organizations in Auschwitz, most of them had similar goals and used similar methods, focusing on the prisoner hospital and the records office as major centers of resistance. The camp administration’s policy was to keep the different groups of prisoners from forming close ties or organizing into an international resistance. To accomplish this, they ensured that any group of prisoners from one nationality would have prisoners of a different nationality in charge of them. https://aquila.usm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1440&context=honors_theses.^c
19. Here “educational work” means “raising political awareness” in the leftist sense.^b
20. Rudolf Höss (1901–1947) was the longest-serving commandant of Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp (from 4 May 1940 to November 1943, and again from 8 May 1944 to 18 January 1945). He tested and implemented means to accelerate Hitler's order to systematically exterminate the Jewish population of Nazi-occupied Europe, known as the Final Solution. Höss introduced the pesticide Zyklon B for use in gas chambers, where more than a million people were killed. Höss was hanged in 1947 following a trial before the Polish Supreme National Tribunal. During his imprisonment, at the request of the Polish authorities, he wrote his memoirs, released in English under the title “Commandant of Auschwitz: The Autobiography of Rudolf Hoess.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Höss.^c
21. Józef Cyrankiewicz (1911-1989) – a prominent member of the PPS before the War, involved in the wartime underground resistance movement both at liberty and when held in Auschwitz. After the War Cyrankiwicz joined the PZPR (Communist ) Party and served for many years as Prime Minister of People’s Poland.^b
22. Perhaps August Kowalczyk (1921-2012), later a Polish actor, who escaped from Auschwitz. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Kowalczyk.^b
23. Hermann Langbein (1912–1995), was an Austrian Communist resistance fighter against National Socialism. He fled Austria after the Anschluss to fight in the Spanish Civil War for the International Brigades, and was later interned in France and sent to German concentration camps after the fall of France in 1940; he arrived in Auschwitz in 1942, classified as a non-Jewish political prisoner (camp No. 60355) and assigned work as a hospital clerk. Langbein later used his concentration camp experience to help establish the International Auschwitz Committee and trials at which he testified. He was the author of several books on Auschwitz. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Langbein.^b
24. Jan Mosdorf (1904-1943) was a member of the Polish Nationalist Party ONR before the War and had the reputation of being anti-Semitic. He changed his views when he was sent to Auschwitz and saw what the Germans were doing to Jewish prisoners, whom he tried to help. He was sent to the Bunker and was executed by the firing squad of Block 11 on 11 October 1943. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Mosdorf.^b
25. Jerzy Władysław Sokołowski, nom-de-guerre Mira (1910-1980), a major in the Polish Army, in exile after Poland’s occupation; trained for undercover operations and parachuted into occupied Poland, caught by the Germans and sent to Auschwitz. Survived Auschwitz, (incl. a failed attempt to escape), Buchenwald, and Dora-Nordhausen. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Władysław_Sokołowski.^b
26. Dr Dering was a member of the ZOW Military Organization Union, an underground resistance group set up in Auschwitz by Capt. Witold Pilecki in 1940. ZOW was organized in a cell network grouped in fives, whereby the five agents did not know their comrades. Dr Dering belonged to the first Five. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Związek_Organizacji_Wojskowej. Dr Dering’s activities in Auschwitz are also described at www.nowamedycyna.pl/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/nm_2019_070-076.pdf and http://auschwitz.org/en/museum/about-the-available-data/medical-documentation/surgical-ward-book.^c
27. See Dr Gralla’s biography on this website.^b
28. Stefan Eugeniusz Ołpiński (1898-1944) arrived in Auschwitz on a transport from Paris on 10 October 1942 and died in the prisoners’ hospitalon 4 January 1944, apparently due to a “medical error” by prisoner-nurse Stanisław Głowa, who was a member of the underground resistance movement in the camp. Ołpiński was admitted to the hospital with epidemic typhus after wearing a pullover infested with lice which he received as a gift.^b
29. Heinrich Georg Peter Dürmayer (1905-2000). Veteran of the Spanish Civil War, fighting in the International Brigades. Active as a journalist. When the Republicans were defeated he fled to France, was interned and later handed over to the Vienna Gestapo. He was imprisoned in several concentration camps, arriving in Auschwitz in January 1944. A leading member of the international Auschwitz Combat Group. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Dürmayer.^c
30. SS-Obersturmbannführer Arthur Liebenhenschel (1901-1948), Nazi German war criminal. Commandant of Auschwitz I (the main camp of Auschwitz), succeeding Rudolf Höss in December 1943 until Höss’ return in May 1944. Arrested by the Americans after the War, extradited to Poland, stood trial before the Polish Supreme Tribunal, convicted of war crimes, sentenced to death and executed. Ernst Klee, Das Kulturlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945. S. Fischer: Frankfurt-am-Main, 2007. Hermann Langbein, "The Auschwitz Trials: Background and Overview (1947-1968)." English version of Der Auschwitz-Prozess: eine Documentation, (1965); Brand, in Yad Vashem Bulletin, 15 (1964), 43–117. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/background-and-overview-of-the-auschwitz-trials.^b
31. Jan Olbrycht (1886-1968), Polish forensic scientist and university professor. Arrested by the Germans in 1942, he spent the rest of the war in Auschwitz and Mauthausen-Gusen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Stanisław_Olbrycht. For more information, see this website for Tadeusz Paczuła’s article and Jan Olbrycht, “A forensic pathologist’s wartime experience in Poland under Nazi German occupation and after liberation in matters connected with the war.”^c
32. In the Polish text the name “Toliński” is misprinted “Toliski.” See Toliński’s biography (by Tadeusz Hołuj) on this website.^c
33. Probably Jean Janssens. http://auschwitz.org/muzeum/informacja-o-wiezniach/.^c
34. See the potted biography of Maria Bobrzecka (by Danuta Pytlik) on this website.^b
35. See the biography of Teresa Lasocka-Estreicher on this website.^b

a—introductory note by Teresa Wontor-Cichy, Expert Consultant for the Medical Review Auschwitz project; b—notes by Teresa Bałuk-Ulewiczowa, Head Translator for the Medical Review Auschwitz project; c—notes by Maria Kantor, the translator of the text.

      

A publication funded in 2020–2021 within the DIALOG Program of the Ministry of Education and Science in Poland.