In Russia, declassified documents on the release of Auschwitz

FSB of Russia declassified unique materials about the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Basically, these are protocols of interrogations of former guards, which describe the horrors experienced by prisoners of the death camp, the newspaper writes. Rubaltic.

Фото: Depositphotos

Among the documents are diagrams of gas chambers, descriptions of how prisoners were treated, information about arrested soldiers and SS officers, among whom were Polish citizens.

An example is the case of the Pole Alfred Szczekek, who was the overseer at Auschwitz. According to him, he took part in bullying of prisoners, including his own countrymen.

The declassified case of another Pole - materials about Willy Steinborn. At first he was arrested by the Nazis, then released on condition that he would go overseer to Auschwitz. According to Steinborn, for his hard work he received the rank of rotenfuhrer, and commanded a detachment.

“Inhuman treatment of prisoners, personally shot at them,” the protocol says.

Information is also provided on the number of people killed in Auschwitz.

“During the existence of the camp, the Nazis exterminated more than 4 million citizens of the USSR, Czechoslovakia, Poland and other countries,” the documents say.

The Warsaw Uprising

The section opens with a selection of wartime documents about the Warsaw Uprising in August - October 1944. As noted by participants in historical events, this uprising was not only poorly prepared, but was also carried out with political goals that did not take into account the expectations and hopes of the majority of the Polish population, writes TASS.

The interrogation protocol of an intelligence officer from the front headquarters with the call sign "Oleg", sent to the rebels to maintain contact with the Red Army, indicates that the leadership of the rebels did not specifically carry out offensive actions, fortifications were not erected in the city, strategic objects were not taken under control, and the leadership of the Army Homeland did not try to unite the national units of Polish partisan organizations and often interfered with their military operations.

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In addition, documents indicate that units of the Home Army destroyed the Ukrainians and Jews who remained in the city, and Soviet officers escaping from German captivity were forcibly held hostage.

The liberation of Warsaw

Warsaw was liberated on January 17, 1945. The list of formations and units that distinguished themselves in battles stretched over an entire page of the order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of January 17, 1945 No. 223 on the liberation of Warsaw and the assignment of the name “Warsaw” to the distinguished units. The order also notes the role of the 1st Polish Army that took part in the liberation of the city.

Among the documents are frames from a photo album of the operational department of the 1st Belorussian Front (BF) “On artillery support for breaking through enemy defenses by troops of the 1st BF from bridgeheads south of the city of Warsaw.” It contains unique photographs of the breakthrough of the defense, the consequences of the assault and artillery preparation.

The Ministry of Defense notes that evidence of the barbarity committed by the German occupiers occupies a special place in the documents. Retreating from Warsaw, they destroyed everything in their path. “Warsaw is destroyed. There is not a single intact house on the streets; entire neighborhoods have been turned into ruins. Not a single monument remains. The city's cultural treasures were destroyed and looted. There are graves in almost every yard, and the corpses of tortured Poles are scattered along the streets,” says a political report to the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army. It describes the burial place of Poles right on the streets of the city, where “up to 120 thousand Poles killed and burned by the Germans are buried.”

Help restore Poland

Published documents indicate that the USSR was supported to restore the Polish economy. Food, property, crops, livestock were transferred, assistance was provided in the restoration of structures destroyed by German occupiers.

In addition, people were provided with medical assistance. Residents of the Warsaw suburb of Prague were given a train carload of valuable medicines, and about 3 thousand residents were hospitalized.

Brutally murdered

In one of the sections, documents on the actions of Nazi invaders on Polish territory were published.

In particular, it contains the testimony of an eyewitness to the German pogroms in the Warsaw Ghetto - a prisoner of war, German corporal Karl Weimann. He spoke about humiliations, pogroms, famine and the number of those killed. “The food supply was so poor that thousands of Jews very soon began to die of hunger. But this seemed not enough, so every eight weeks they organized round-ups, took Jews in freight cars into the forest, forced them to strip naked and shot thousands of people,” his testimony says.

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“When the SS men tried to penetrate the gates of the ghetto, machine-gun and rifle fire opened on them,” Weimann is quoted as saying. — Real street battles broke out. I saw people jumping out of the windows of burning houses... This massacre was not easy for the Germans, the Jews fought heroically.” The number of killed Jews is estimated at 30 thousand people.

On the territory of Nazi-occupied Poland, concentration camps were created.

Craiova Army

Of particular value, as noted in the military department, are documents on the terrorist activities of units of the Home Army in the rear of the Red Army in Lithuania, Belarus and Poland in 1944-1945.

According to the reports of the political administration bodies of the fronts that participated in the battles for Poland, even before the start of the battles for Warsaw, the leadership of these detachments began underground work in the areas occupied by the Soviet troops in preparation for the seizure of power by force. In May 1945, the cells of the Craiova Army launched terror against the local population, which is also documented.

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