The SS (Schutzstaffel) maintained a prison block at the Auschwitz concentration camp from July 1940 to January 1945. The inmates sent there were subjected to particularly cruel conditions. Many died during their time in the cells, and thousands were shot in the courtyard between the two-storey brick buildings known as Block 10 and Block 11. Sinti and Roma were also among the victims.
The ‘Bunker’
The camp prison—officially known as the ‘Kommandanturarrest’ [command post detention block], but referred to by prisoners as the ‘bunker’ or ‘death block’—was located in the cellar of Block 11 (known as Block 13 until August 1941). The 28 cells had only tiny barred windows that let in very little light and air.
Prisoners who were placed in standing or dark cells suffered a form of torture. Cell No. 22 was divided into four standing cells, each with a floor space of 90 by 90 centimetres, which made it impossible for the prisoners to sit or lie down. The standing cells were barely ventilated and the prisoners held there were usually given neither water nor food, causing many to die. Cells 7 and 9, and at times two other cells, had no windows, only air holes covered by tin screens, so that they could be used as dark cells.
Incarceration in the camp prison was ordered by the camp commandant, the protective custody camp commander or the head of the political department. Reasons for imprisonment included violations of camp regulations, contact with civilians, sabotage, participation in camp resistance, escaping, attempting to escape, or helping others to escape. The mere suspicion of having committed one of these challenges to the SS’s claim to omnipotence was sufficient grounds for admission to the prison.
The ‘Death Wall’
Blocks 10 and 11 had a sealed-off inner courtyard. Access from the camp was via a double wooden gate, which faced a high blank brick wall. Executions took place at this wall, and it was equipped with a bullet screen made of black material; this explains why the wall is referred to as the ‘Black Wall’ or ‘Death Wall’. Those sentenced to death had to undress before they were led individually from the prison into the courtyard and murdered with a shot to the back of the neck.
From autumn 1941 to autumn 1943, an estimated 1,000 prisoners were killed at the ‘Death Wall’ after being held in Block 11. Two portable gallows stood in the courtyard, which was also fitted with beams from which prisoners were suspended as a form of torture.
The Political Department was responsible for selecting the victims for execution. Until the end of November 1943, it was headed by SS-Untersturmführer Maximilian Grabner (1905–1948), who regularly carried out selections in the prison together with the camp commander and other SS men.
An unknown number of prisoners, including Soviet prisoners of war, were also led from various camp sections of Auschwitz and Birkenau into the inner courtyard and shot immediately upon arrival. The ‘Death Wall’ was also used to murder around 4,500 Polish civilians and resistance fighters who had been brought to the camp as police prisoners specifically for this purpose.
The mass shootings were discontinued at the end of 1943 when Arthur Liebehenschel (1901–1948) replaced the previous camp commandant Rudolf Höss (1901–1947). Although Liebehenschel had the ‘Death Wall’ dismantled, shootings continued to take place at Crematorium IV on the Birkenau camp grounds.
The ‘Bunker Book’
Records of admissions to the camp prison were kept by prisoners who were assigned as ‘block clerks’. The ‘Bunker Book’, which was kept first unofficially and then officially, has been preserved in two volumes covering the period from 9 January 1941 to 1 February 1944, because inmates secretly made copies and smuggled one original volume and one copy out of the prison.1For more details on this source, see Brol et al., “Das Bunkerbuch des Blocks 11.” The three authors, former Polish political prisoners Franciszek Brol (1919–unknown), Gerard Włoch (1919–unknown) and Jan Pilecki (1913–unknown), were themselves largely responsible for the creation, maintenance and later rescue of the ‘Bunker Book’.
The ‘Bunker Book’ contains information on 2,137 prisoners, although some men are listed more than once because they were sent to prison more than once. It should also be noted that numerous prisoners—especially women, police prisoners, prisoners brought directly from the camp for execution, prisoners punished with standing bunker,2They were locked up overnight in standing cells and taken back to work the next morning. Soviet prisoners of war and other groups—were not registered in the ‘Bunker Book’. The ‘Bunker Book’, which also covers only a limited period of the camp prison’s existence, therefore provides no information on how many inmates passed through the prison or how many were murdered at the ‘Death Wall’.
Sinti and Roma
The ‘Bunker Book’ lists the names of 86 Sinti and Roma who were sent to the camp prison between 16 February and 3 December 1943.3Additional research was conducted in the Auschwitz Chronicle, the Memorial Book and the Arolsen Archives. These include 75 men from camp section BIIe who had been deported on the basis of the Auschwitz decree, and eleven Sinti and Roma from other camp areas. Among the 86 men were two Romanians, three stateless persons (deported from Germany), four Austrians, 15 Poles, 24 deportees from the German-occupied Czech lands, and 38 Germans.
The youngest was Johann Winterstein (born 1928) from Germany, who had escaped and been recaptured and was shot on 25 June 1943 at the age of 14. Anton Glowatzki (born 1894), the oldest among them and a Polish national, was transferred to the ‘bunker’ at the instigation of the camp commandant and was also shot there on 11 June 1943 at the age of 49.
The average age of this group was 25, with just under a fifth aged 18 or younger. These were presumably still strong and determined teenagers and young men who rebelled against the inhumane conditions despite the cruel practices in the camp and the superior strength of the armed SS guards. This can be inferred from the reasons for the admissions noted in the ‘Bunker Book’. More than half were admitted to the camp prison for aiding and abetting escape (one man), attempted escape or suspected escape (17), or after having escaped (28). The Political Department was responsible for the admission of twelve men, and the camp commandant was responsible for 28 other cases; the reasons are not documented.
The data on escape attempts shows that it was usually several men who attempted to escape—so these were less individual actions and more collective actions with the aim of escaping the camp regime. On 7 May 1943, for example, six Roma from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia were taken to the camp prison after escaping. The camp commandant or the Political Department also usually sent small groups to the ‘bunker’, and this suggests both coordinated resistance on the part of the prisoners and collective and arbitrary punishments by the SS.
Of the 86 men, 19 survived imprisonment, which usually lasted several days. Seven of them were sent to the penal company, where six are known to have died. Of the remaining twelve men, two died in Camp Section BIIe and ten were later transferred to the Buchenwald, Flossenbürg (two) or Natzweiler (one) concentration camps.
The subsequent fate of nine men cannot be determined. Although their release is noted in the ‘Bunker Book’, this does not guarantee that they left the camp prison alive.4Brol et al., “Das Bunkerbuch des Blocks 11,” 34, refer to two prisoners who were noted as having been released from the ‘bunker’ but who were murdered after roll call on the day of their alleged release. It is also conceivable that they were returned to the place from which they had escaped to be executed. Former Polish political prisoner Eugeniusz Ciećkiewicz (1914–unknown) reported on such a case that had occurred in the Janinagrube satellite camp in Liebenz [Polish: Libiąż]: ‘The gypsy who had attempted to escape was first locked up in the bunker in the satellite camp and later transferred to Block 11 in Auschwitz. After about two months, a gallows was erected on the grounds of the Janina pit and the gypsy was publicly hanged.’5Archive of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Reports Collection, vol. 30, 94–100. Quoted from The Destruction of the European Roma in KL Auschwitz, 31.
Executions
58 Sinti and Roma who were imprisoned in the ‘bunker’ were murdered. Only Karl Devis (born 1928) died in the prison itself under unexplained circumstances shortly after his 16th birthday. All the others were eventually led into the courtyard and shot.654 Sinti and Roma are listed by name, prisoner number and date of death in Parcer and Grotum, “Die Analyse der erhaltenen Dokumente”, 217–219. However, it is not stated that all but one were shot. The names of the four Polish Roma who were shot on 19 February 1943 are also missing. The first victims of the shootings among the Sinti and Roma were four Polish Roma who were shot on 19 February 1943 on suspicion of attempting to escape, three days after their arrival in the ‘bunker’: Asafan Czerwieniak (1912–1943), Józef Mirga (1913–1943), Władysław Olszewski (1912–1943) and Władysław Szczerba (1922–1943). The last to be murdered was the Czech Wenzel Holomek (born 1925) on 9 November 1943.
In most cases, several Sinti and Roma were chosen for execution during the selections in the ‘bunker’. The killings of 22 May 1943 stand out in particular: among the 26 people shot, 15 were Sinti and Roma, including ten Czechs who had fled. Another group of twelve Sinti and Roma were murdered on 25 June 1943; they too had all fled or were suspected of attempting to escape. Shortly afterwards, on 28 June 1943, five Polish Roma who had been sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau a few days earlier were shot. On the same day, two Roma of Romanian nationality, who had been among the first to be registered in camp section BIIe, were killed: Josef Kasperowicz (born 1923), registered as Z-8, and Franz Kasperowicz (born 1925), registered as Z-9.
