Auschwitz: The Slovak Jews

The state of Slovakia was created in 1939 after the Czech portions of the 1919-formed Czechoslovakia were incorporated into the German Reich. Slovakia was allowed a “client state” or protectorate status, not unlike that of Vichy France. The new government was led by Josef Tiso, a Roman Catholic priest and his Hlinka party, a fiercely nationalistic right-wing group that like the Nazis, allied nationalism to hatred of the “extra-national,” the Jew. Laws put in place after their access to power reflect precisely those enacted in Germany after 1933, rapidly stripping their 90,000 Jews of their citizenships, their basic rights, their dignity, property, and sometimes, their lives. As the need for slave labourers grew in areas directly governed by the Nazis, a request was made for Slovakia to deport 10,000 Jewish men to assist with the ever-present short-fall. Tiso was not adverse to this possibility, however, the loss of Jewish “breadwinners” would throw the care of their families onto the state. The Slovakians countered with an offer of the men, if the Nazis would accept the families as well. At a February, 1942 meeting in the Slovak capital of Bratislava cynical negotiations proceeded, masked by the Slovaks “concerned” about the unchristian fate of the families separated from their men. Ultimately the issue was settled in Berlin: the Slovak government would send men and families into German-held territories, paying the Germans 500 marks for the “upkeep” of each family member, on the conditions that the emigrants never be returned to Slovakia, and, that Germany would not seek to claim any of the properties or other valuables of the people exported. The Slovaks would thus rid themselves of their Jews and at the same time reap enormous profits by scooping up their properties.

In preparation for their enforced deportation many Jews were rounded up in March and placed in a holding camp policed by Hlinka guards. Like the various incarnations of German Nazi enforcers, these men had swallowed the linkage of their ethnic hegemony with the hatred and demonization of those different from themselves. Laurence Rees’ interviews with former Hlinka guards sixty years later demonstrate the persistence of the belief that the Jews were parasites on the body politic and that their treatment and their fates were justified. One recalled that as he later recognized that the Jews were being sent to their deaths, “I was feeling sorry for them, but on the other hand, I was not sorry for them considering they were stealing from the Slovaks. We were not very sorry. We thought it was good that they were taken away. That way they could not cheat us anymore. They were not going to get rich at the expense of the working class anymore.” In Hlinka custody the Slovak Jews were robbed, beaten, systematically humiliated and brutalized. Then came their transportation.

At this time Auschwitz Birkenau was under construction, constantly in need of new labour sources. As well, its Bunker 1, the “Little Red Cottage” was newly available for mass killing. Himmler, always adept at finding solutions to new eventualities, had the Slovakian Jews forwarded there. This was the first time that Jews brought from outside Poland came to Auschwitz.  With clear dual purposes of labour and for killing, it was the true beginning of Auschwitz as the facility for death with which we most associate it. The selection process at arrival had not yet begun, however. All members of the initial contingent were admitted into the camp, that is, those who were able to run in groups of five the relatively short distance from the railway station to the main camp. Those unable to do so were shot. The following morning all of the roughly 1000 newly imported men were forced to run the three kilometres to Birkenau. About 70 or 80 of those who faltered were shot along the route.  This process itself became the “selection,” the means of ensuring who was capable of work and who would be unproductive, a drain on the resources of the camp.

In the following month some immediate selections occurred as more Slovak Jews arrived, though the regular and systematic selection by members of the SS at the moment of arrival on the ramp at Birkenau began only in July. The system had been perfected to allow as smooth as possible transitions from the trains to the labour camp facilities or to the gassing sites. Those arriving were told to separate into groups of men and of women and children, then to line up five across to pass by the “inspecting committee.” Those who looked fit for work were motioned in one direction; those who did not, or who had young children in tow, in another. Prospective workers were marched away; the others were taken to a far corner of the facility. Guarded by SS and their dogs they were allowed to sit on the ground while they awaited what they were told would be their initiation into the camp. The rapid processing of these large numbers to be killed with each transport depended upon keeping the victims in the dark about their actual fates. The guards were trained to be scrupulous about keeping their group together but also to speak with them in a reassuring fashion about their futures. “You will be given a shower and new clothing. What kind of work did you do previously? Yes, undoubtedly we have need of those workers.” If one of those waiting appeared hysterical or likely to set up a panic reaction in the group, the guards would manage to separate this person, taking him or her to another area where a discrete low calibre shot to the head could pre-empt any difficulty.

Though bunker 1 and later, bunker 2 could together “process” about 2,000 persons at a time by mid-July, 1942, the ordered crematoria ovens had not yet arrived. The mammoth task of disposing of the bodies was a constant difficulty for Rudolf Hoess, Auschwitz’ indefatigable commander.  An initial solution was to bury them in shallow pits also placed at the upper boundaries of the Birkenau camp. Bodies were covered with lime and a thin layer of soil to hide them from view. In the heat of the summer, however, decomposing bodies began erupting through their coverings. Hoess’ prisoners were now charged with disinterring the remains and committing them to enormous pits in which continual fires were maintained. Otto Pressburger, one of the very few Slovakian Jews to survive Auschwitz, told Rees: “The dead bodies were becoming alive. They were rotting and coming out of the holes...The smell was unbearable. I had no choice (but to do this work) if I wanted to live. Otherwise they would kill me. I wanted to live. Sometimes I was questioning myself whether this life was worth living.....We built a big fire with wood and petrol. We were throwing them (the bodies) right into it. There were always two of us throwing the bodies in – one holding the bodies on the legs and the other on the arms. The stench was terrible. We were never given any extra food for this. The SS men were constantly drinking vodka or cognac or something else from their bottles. They could not cope with it either.”

Aside from the gradual initiation of immediate “selections,” the arrival of the Slovak Jews brought another change to Auschwitz: the admission of women. Several of the blocks in the main camp were emptied and prepared for them before the first group came in March, 1942. Their treatment was as rough and barbaric as that given to the men. Stripped of their clothing and hair they were clothed in prison garb, ruled by newly imported women SS guards, and utilized primarily in the building of roads, tasks realized through hard labour and without equipment. Later, a women’s camp was constructed at Birkenau as its enormous confines proliferated.

In my next post I will look more closely at the person and career of Heinrich Himmler, the man who had accumulated enormous power from the beginning of Nazism, the man who by 1942 controlled all of the policing functions of the German state and of its conquered territories, and who was thus able to make decisions that streamlined and exploited the killing functions of Auschwitz.