The Shocking Liberation of Auschwitz: Soviets ‘Knew Nothing’ as They Approached

On January 27, 1945, Soviet troops liberated the Auschwitz Concentration Camps in Poland. Auschwitz consisted of 3 large camps, Auschwitz I, II, and III, and 40 smaller satellite camps. Auschwitz II-Birkenau was the death camp. Auschwitz I was the main camp while Auschwitz III-Monowitz was a slave labor camp that made products for the chemical company, IG Farben. From the article:

"The Shocking Liberation of Auschwitz: Soviets ‘Knew Nothing’ as They Approached

Eighty-eight pounds of eyeglasses. Hundreds of prosthetic limbs. Twelve thousand pots and pans. Forty-four thousand pairs of shoes. When Soviet soldiers poured into Auschwitz in January 1945, they encountered warehouses filled with massive quantities of other people’s belongings. Most of the people who owned them were already dead, murdered by the Nazis in the Holocaust’s largest extermination and concentration camp.

But though the camps that made up Auschwitz seemed silent and abandoned at first, soldiers soon realized they were filled with people—thousands of them, left to die by SS guards who evacuated the camps after trying to cover up their crimes. As they saw the soldiers, the emaciated prisoners hugged, kissed and cried.

“They rushed toward us shouting, fell on their knees, kissed the flaps of our overcoats, and threw their arms around our legs,” remembered Georgii Elisavetskii, one of the first Red Army soldiers to step into Auschwitz. After five years of hell, Auschwitz was liberated at last.

The Germans had long known they might have to abandon Auschwitz, but they planned to use it as long as possible, further exploiting the workers whose slave labor they rented to companies that produced chemicals, armaments and other materials. By late 1944, they were still unsure if the Allies would make it to Oświęcim. As they waited, they moved forward with a preliminary evacuation, even founding a new sub-camp at a steel mill.

Even as they waited to determine if a mass evacuation was needed, the Germans began to destroy evidence of their crimes. They murdered most of the Jews who had worked in Auschwitz’s gas chambers and crematoria, then destroyed most of the killing sites. The destruction didn’t end there: The Germans ordered prisoners to tear down many buildings and systematically destroyed many of their meticulous records of camp life. They also took steps to move much of the material they had looted from the Jews they murdered elsewhere.

Nazis Evacuate Camp, Force Prisoners on Death Marches
Then, the Soviets broke through German defenses and began to approach Krakow. As the Red Army marched closer and closer, the SS decided it was time to evacuate.

They planned what prisoners thought of as death marches—lengthy, forced journeys from Auschwitz toward other concentration and death camps. Starting on January 17, prisoners were forced into long columns and told to walk westward toward territory still held by Germany. Only those in good health (a relative term in camps racked with malnutrition and disease) could participate, and those who fell were shot and left behind. The death marches, which occurred in extremely cold conditions, killed up to 15,000 prisoners. Those who remained were forced into open freight cars and shipped further into the Reich, where they were relocated to various camps still under German control.

The guards who remained continued to cover up evidence, including burning warehouses full of plundered possessions. By January 21, most SS officers had left for good.

Most of the 9,000 prisoners who remained at Auschwitz were in dire health. Others had hidden in the hopes they could escape. Conditions were appalling—there was no food, no fuel, no water. Some prisoners scavenged among the possessions the SS had not managed to destroy. A small group of healthier prisoners attended to the sick."