The Public Executions at Auschwitz Are Hard to Stomach! JJ
Auschwitz. Just hearing the name brings horror. Over a million people died there, gassed, starved, beaten, or worked to death. But one part of its cruelty is often overlooked: the public executions. They were carried out in front of terrified prisoners, hangings and shootings meant to punish, to scare, and to crush any hope. In May 1940, Auschwitz was opened by the Nazis as a concentration camp for Polish political prisoners. It was built on the site of a former Polish army barracks near the small
town of Oświęcim in southern Poland. The location was chosen because it was isolated but had a working railway line, which made transporting prisoners easier. The first group of 728 Polish men arrived on June 14, 1940. Many of them were teachers, lawyers, officials, and members of the resistance. They were registered as numbers instead of names, a system that stripped them of identity from the moment they entered. Rudolf Höss was appointed the first commandant. Under his leadership, the SS created strict rules
backed by brutal punishment. Beatings were common. Food rations were tiny. Medical care didn’t exist. Within months, the place turned into a violent system of forced labor and psychological torture. One of the earliest tools of control was public execution. They happened in the open, on roll-call squares, or near the barracks, so other prisoners would see what happened to anyone who disobeyed. By the end of 1940, at least 40 prisoners had been publicly hanged or shot. Some were caught trying to escape, and others were punished for acts like giving water
to fellow inmates or hiding food. A few were accused of sabotage, though no proof was needed. The SS didn’t always investigate. They just acted. Executions were sometimes announced in advance. Prisoners were called to line up and watch. SS guards stood nearby with rifles, ready to shoot anyone who moved or looked away. The bodies were often left hanging for hours or laid out on the ground as a warning. By the start of 1941, Auschwitz was changing fast. Originally meant for Polish political prisoners,
it now began to take in a wider mix of people. New transports began arriving almost every day. The small camp couldn’t keep up. Wooden bunks were packed with bodies, often three to a bed. Sanitation collapsed. Disease spread. Food was scarce. Violence from guards increased. In June 1941, Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. Soon after, the Nazis began sending Soviet prisoners of war to Auschwitz. These men were treated even worse than other prisoners. The SS saw them not just as enemies,
but as subhuman. Many of the Soviet POWs were exhausted from long transports, often arriving with no shoes and torn clothes. Some were dragged off the trains unconscious. From the start, their chances of survival were nearly zero. Those who were weak, injured, or considered “political threats”, such as Soviet commissars or officers, were often taken straight to execution sites behind the camp fence and shot. There were no records kept, no trials, and no explanations. These early shootings were done in small groups, usually at the edge of open pits. Other Soviet
POWs were forced to dig the graves first, and then stand next to them before being killed. Those who were not executed immediately were sent into forced labor units. They built fences, cleared roads, and helped with the construction of Auschwitz II-Birkenau, a massive expansion site being built just a few kilometers away. The working conditions were brutal. The men were beaten constantly. They were given almost no food. Many dropped dead after only a few days. But some executions weren’t hidden. In fact, the SS started using them
as warnings. Soviet POWs were sometimes publicly hanged or shot in the main camp square in front of the roll-call yard. These events were meant to intimidate everyone. Regular prisoners were forced to line up and watch. They were not allowed to look away, speak, or move. Some executions were done slowly, hanging from short ropes that caused suffering before death. The bodies were left out for hours, sometimes overnight. One turning point happened in July 1941, when a prisoner from Block 14
escaped. The escape triggered immediate panic among SS officers. As punishment, camp commandant Rudolf Höss ordered the execution of ten random men from the same block. The chosen prisoners were locked in a starvation cell in Block 11, deep in the camp’s punishment zone. There, they were left without food or water. This event shocked the entire camp. It was the first time prisoners were killed not for what they did, but simply because someone else had escaped. It set a brutal new standard. One of the ten men,
Franciszek Gajowniczek, was spared at the last moment when another prisoner, a Polish priest named Maximilian Kolbe, volunteered to take his place. Kolbe later died in the cell after weeks without food. His act became one of the few known moments of compassion inside the camp, but the message from the SS was that no escape would go unpunished. Around this same time, Birkenau started operating in a limited way. Though still under construction, it was already housing thousands of prisoners, mostly Soviet POWs and Jews.
The conditions were even worse than in the main camp. The barracks had no insulation, no proper floors, and almost no medical care. The prisoners here were often forgotten by the main SS office, which allowed guards to act without oversight. Public hangings began at Birkenau almost immediately. The SS installed wooden gallows in open fields, where prisoners worked and walked daily. Sometimes, prisoners were hanged for trying to escape, but often there was no real reason given. Accusations like “sabotage” or “disobedience” were enough. There were even cases where prisoners were
executed for “looking at guards the wrong way” or for taking an extra piece of bread. The executions followed a pattern. A group of prisoners would be marched to the gallows area. The condemned were brought in separately, often already beaten. The SS officer in charge would read out the name, camp number, and accusation. Then, the execution would happen immediately. Sometimes, the condemned were forced to make a short speech, often under threat or pain, to try to discourage others from copying their actions. Other times,
they were just kicked off the platform and left to hang. Afterward, the bodies stayed in place. Prisoners on work details were made to march past the corpses on their way to roll call or labor sites. The SS knew this was one of the most effective ways to keep control. It made people afraid to speak, to think, or to dream of resistance. By late 1941, executions were happening almost every day. The killing had become routine. Whether it was in Block 11, the main camp square, or out in the open fields of Birkenau, death became part of the system. Prisoners
no longer wondered if someone would be killed, they only wondered who and when. By early 1942, Auschwitz had shifted into full-scale extermination. Gas chambers were now in use at Birkenau, and mass deportations of Jews from across Europe had begun. But even under constant surveillance and extreme starvation, some prisoners still made desperate attempts to escape. In September 1942, two men from a Polish work detail slipped away during a routine labor assignment outside the perimeter fence.
They had stolen civilian clothes and slipped through a weak point in the wire. The escape triggered a major response. The SS immediately locked down the camp and launched searches in nearby villages. But even more brutally, they turned on the escapees’ fellow prisoners. Fifteen men who worked in the same unit were dragged out of the barracks and forced onto the main square. Thousands of prisoners were lined up and kept standing for hours without food or water. One by one, the selected men were hanged from wooden gallows
erected in the middle of the square. Each time the trap opened, the camp was silent. No one dared move. If anyone averted their eyes, they were beaten by guards with rifle butts or sticks. Some executions lasted several minutes, as the prisoners slowly suffocated. Just a few weeks later, on October 15, 1942, another escape attempt ended in failure. Four young Jewish prisoners were caught hiding near a service gate close to Birkenau. They had been planning to flee at night through an old drainage ditch but were discovered before they could leave.
The SS made a point of turning their punishment into a message. Loudspeakers called all nearby prisoners to the camp square. The four were tied with ropes and marched to the gallows. The execution was quick, but the preparation was long. Prisoners stood in freezing conditions while SS officers gave speeches warning of “zero tolerance.” The four bodies were hung side by side and left dangling for hours. Throughout 1942, the number of public hangings increased. Even prisoners caught exchanging messages or food between barracks risked execution. On several occasions,
prisoners were accused of “sabotage” just for damaging tools or working too slowly in the factories. In one case, three men were hanged for being suspected of passing notes to the women’s camp, although no notes were ever found. By 1943, the camp was operating like a machine. Transports arrived daily. The gas chambers were running at full capacity. But alongside mass extermination, the SS still focused on crushing internal resistance. That year, their attention shifted heavily toward Soviet prisoners of war who had been inside the camp
since 1941 and 1942. Many of these men were former Red Army soldiers. Some had military training. And the Nazis believed they were trying to form underground groups inside Auschwitz. In March 1943, a secret investigation by the camp’s political department, run by the Gestapo, led to the arrest of dozens of Soviet POWs from Block 11. Seventy-four Soviet prisoners were taken from their cells and marched into the courtyard between Block 10 and Block 11, where they were shot in the back of the head one by one. The bodies
were removed in carts and buried in mass graves near the crematorium. Though the execution wasn’t public, the aftermath was visible. Other prisoners noticed the sudden silence in Block 11 and the increased presence of SS officers. Word quickly spread across the camp that those men had been killed for suspected resistance work, whether or not any real resistance ever existed. In August 1943, another group was targeted. Over 100 prisoners, Poles, Germans, and Soviet POWs, were accused of helping to organize a protest over food rations and the treatment of sick
inmates. The camp authorities treated this as a direct threat. SS officers stormed several barracks during the night and pulled prisoners from their bunks. The men were marched at gunpoint to the “Black Wall,” the camp’s main execution site. Most were shot immediately, without trial or warning. Those who weren’t killed on the spot were returned to Block 11 for interrogation and killed in the following days. Around the same time, in Birkenau, executions of women increased sharply. Several women were
hanged in September 1943 after being accused of helping other female prisoners plan an escape. Wooden gallows had been built just outside the women’s barracks. These executions were done in the early morning, with hundreds of other prisoners forced to watch from the parade ground. The SS made the women walk to the gallows barefoot and with signs around their necks listing their “crimes.” The bodies were left hanging for hours. After all of this, their fear of rebellion was still there, and they began hunting for even the smallest signs of resistance.
One of the areas they watched most closely was the munitions plant inside Auschwitz. Prisoners worked long hours manufacturing weapons and ammunition for the German war effort. But some of those prisoners were part of a secret resistance network. Most of them were young Jewish women assigned to work in the Union-Werke munitions factory. They were carefully monitored, but they used every chance they could to collect gunpowder in tiny amounts. Even a few grams could be deadly if used the right way.
Roza Robota, one of the leaders, wasn’t assigned to the factory itself. She worked in the clothing detail, but she helped coordinate the transfer of the smuggled gunpowder from the factory to the Sonderkommando. She did this by using hidden pockets in prisoners’ uniforms and by slipping messages during brief interactions. The women involved had to be extremely careful. They hid powder in scraps of cloth, in their hair, under fingernails, and sometimes inside hollow buttons. Ala Gertner, Regina Safirsztajn, and Ester Wajcblum were factory workers who carried
the actual powder out. The smuggling process took nearly eight months, and they gathered just enough explosives to damage the crematorium’s machinery. The gunpowder was delivered to members of the Sonderkommando in Birkenau. These prisoners worked inside the gas chambers and crematoria, forced to handle the bodies of those murdered. They were among the few with access to the core parts of the death machine, and they knew what was happening better than most. The Sonderkommando knew they would eventually be executed to keep the camp’s secrets hidden. So,
in October 1944, they decided to act. Using the gunpowder smuggled to them, they launched a revolt on October 7, 1944, at Crematorium IV. They managed to destroy part of the building by setting off explosives and using tools and stones to fight off the SS guards. A few even managed to grab weapons. They killed three SS officers and injured several others before being overwhelmed. Several Sonderkommando escaped the crematorium during the chaos and tried to flee into the nearby woods, but they were quickly captured or shot. The
uprising caused confusion, and for a few minutes, prisoners across Birkenau heard the explosions and screams. Some believed a full rebellion had started. The SS reacted with full force. More than 450 prisoners were arrested within 24 hours. Some were taken directly to Block 11 and tortured for days. Others were executed on the spot, lined up against walls, or near the destroyed crematorium. The remaining suspects were hanged in front of the men’s camp. Gallows were set up, and prisoners were once again forced to watch.
Though the damage to Crematorium IV was only partial, the message was clear. Prisoners were willing to risk everything to fight back. The SS, in turn, responded with even more fear and cruelty. After the revolt, the SS launched a deep investigation to find out how explosives had reached the Sonderkommando. They focused on the women in the munitions plant. Roza Robota was arrested first. She was brutally beaten and tortured, but she refused to name others. Soon after, Ala, Regina, and Ester were also taken.
They were held in isolation and tortured in Block 10 and Block 11. According to later camp records, Roza was so badly beaten that she lost consciousness multiple times. Still, none of the four gave up the names of others involved. The SS kept them alive for several weeks during their investigation, but in the end, they were sentenced to death. On January 6, 1945, with Soviet troops less than 100 kilometers away, the four women were brought to a small square near the women’s camp in Birkenau. There, wooden gallows had
been prepared. Hundreds of female prisoners were forced to gather in the cold. It was winter, and snow covered the ground. The women had no coats or shoes. Some collapsed from cold or exhaustion. SS guards beat them to their feet and kept them in place while the executions happened. Each of the four was hanged slowly and one by one. There were no words. No announcement. Just silence and the creak of rope. Afterward, their bodies were left hanging for hours before being removed. By the end of 1944, the Nazi system inside Auschwitz began to fall apart. Soviet forces
were advancing quickly through Poland, and the SS knew the camp would soon be taken. But instead of easing their grip, they became more violent. Executions rose sharply. Paranoia ran deep. The guards believed that prisoners might turn on them, try to escape, or contact the enemy. So, they responded with more public killings. In November 1944, six Czech prisoners were discovered trying to pass messages to a resistance group outside the camp. They had been secretly writing letters and slipping them out through civilian workers. The plan was discovered when
one of the letters was intercepted. The six were arrested, beaten, and hanged publicly near the main entrance of Birkenau, just steps away from the infamous gatehouse. The SS made the executions into a display. All nearby prisoners were ordered to leave their work and march past the hanging bodies. Some were forced to walk in silence, others were made to stand for hours and look at the corpses. It was meant to send a clear message that any contact with the outside world would mean death. A few weeks later, in December 1944, another group was targeted.
Ten Polish prisoners from the men’s camp were accused of digging an escape tunnel behind their barracks. Whether or not the tunnel even existed didn’t matter. The SS declared that it was an organized escape plot and responded the same way they always did, with death. The ten men were selected at roll call. They were brought to Block 11, stripped, tied, and hanged in front of the rest of the barrack. By now, the gallows had been permanently set up in several parts of Auschwitz. They no longer had to build them for each execution. The structures were ready at all times. The bodies
of those ten prisoners were left hanging for the rest of the day before being thrown into a pit. Then came January 1945. The Nazis knew the war was almost lost. They began destroying gas chambers and crematoria, especially at Birkenau, to hide the evidence of mass killings. Documents were burned. Barracks were emptied. But executions did not stop. On January 18, 1945, just seven days before the Red Army arrived, the SS began evacuating the camp. These were the infamous death marches. Thousands of prisoners were forced to march in
freezing weather, with no food and barely any clothing. Anyone who refused to go was shot. That day alone, at least 30 prisoners were executed. Some were shot on the spot for collapsing or refusing to walk. Others were caught hiding in cellars or barracks, hoping to escape the marches. A few were accused of helping others hide. The SS hanged several of them near the camp fence, some in groups of three or four, using the last remaining ropes. Even as the camp emptied, the killings continued. In these final days, the SS
didn’t care about rules. They didn’t need proof. Suspicion was enough. The fear they had built over five years was now being used in its final form, random, public, and fast death. When Soviet soldiers arrived at Auschwitz on January 27, 1945, they found around 7,000 prisoners still alive, barely. Many were too weak to move. Some were lying in piles of bodies, not yet dead. But most of the SS guards and commanders had already escaped. They left a few days before, taking tens of thousands of prisoners with them on death marches toward camps deeper in Germany.
Although the guards had tried to destroy evidence, much was still left behind. Soviet troops found gallows, bullets, and execution sites. Survivors gave detailed testimonies. They remembered names, faces, and places. Those stories would later help track down the killers. In the years that followed, many of the SS men and women responsible for the executions were hunted down and put on trial. Some were caught quickly. Others lived in hiding for years. But many were eventually brought to justice.
One of the most infamous was Rudolf Höss. After the war, he disguised himself and fled. He used a false name and worked on a farm in Germany. But in March 1946, British soldiers tracked him down. After his arrest, he confessed in great detail. He didn’t just admit to mass killings in gas chambers, he also admitted to personally signing off on many public hangings and shootings inside the camp. He was handed over to Polish authorities and put on trial in Warsaw in early 1947. The trial lasted several weeks. Survivors testified. Documents were shown. Photos were presented.
He was found guilty on all counts, genocide, forced labor, torture, and ordering executions. On April 16, 1947, Höss was hanged at Auschwitz I, in a small area just a few steps from the gas chamber. It was the same place where he had sent thousands to die. Another major figure was Arthur Liebehenschel, who became commandant of Auschwitz after Höss left in 1943. Under his leadership, the gas chambers continued to run, and public punishments did not stop. He was arrested in 1945, tried in Kraków,
and found guilty of crimes against humanity. He was executed by hanging on January 28, 1948. Maria Mandel was another powerful figure. She led the women’s camp in Birkenau and had direct control over many of the public executions involving female prisoners. She was arrested in August 1945 by U.S. forces and later handed over to Poland. At her trial in 1947, survivors testified about how she selected women for death and oversaw their hangings. She was hanged on January 24, 1948. Hundreds of other SS members were tried over the years. Some received long prison
terms. Others were executed. However, many lower-ranking guards disappeared after the war and were never caught. Still, the major figures responsible for the public executions at Auschwitz were brought to justice, slowly but surely. Witnesses who survived said the public executions were some of the hardest things to live through. Not just for the horror, but for the helplessness. Knowing that even if you looked away, or cried, you might be next. Today, Auschwitz is a memorial. A museum. A warning. Visitors can still see the remains
of the gallows. The execution wall. The blocks where people were tortured and hanged. These were not accidents of war. These were choices, made by people who wanted to control others through terror.