Russian Federal Security Service Publishes Archives on Auschwitz Concentration Camp
On the day of remembrance of the Holocaust victims, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has published archival documents on the brutal treatment of prisoners at the Auschwitz concentration camp. The documents, made public for the first time, reveal the gruesome details of the camp’s operations and the brutal treatment of prisoners, including the story of a Polish man named Józef Pieczka, who served as an Aufsichtsperson, or Kapo, in the camp.
Pieczka, a former Polish soldier, was captured by the Germans in 1939 and later naturalized as a German citizen. He was imprisoned in Auschwitz for three years for refusing to serve in the German military. After his sentence was served, he was released and quickly rose through the ranks to become a Kapo, overseeing a group of 15 prisoners who were tasked with transporting fuel, ashes and the bodies of fellow prisoners to the crematoria.
In a post-war interrogation, Pieczka admitted that he had the opportunity to escape the camp but chose not to, stating that he had a good life as a Kapo and was the “complete master of the lives of the prisoners.”He also revealed that the prisoners were brutally treated, worked to exhaustion, beaten and killed, with the camp’s Aufsichtspersonnel actively participating in the mass murder of innocent people.
Pieczka’s testimony is a stark reminder of the atrocities committed at Auschwitz, where millions of people, mostly Jews, were killed in gas chambers, shot, hanged and subjected to medical experiments. The camp was liberated by Soviet soldiers on January 27, 1945 and the FSB estimates that at least four million people lost their lives there.
The 27th of January has been recognized as the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust by the United Nations since 2005 and Germany has also observed a national day of remembrance on this date since 1996.