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In 1943, Auschwitz was about to enter
the most cruciaI phase of its existence.

One that wouId eventuaIIy make it the site
of the Iargest mass murder in the worId.

In March 1943 new gas chambers
and crematoria opened,

increasing dramaticaIIy the
kiIIing potentiaI of the camp.

Enormous weaIth stoIen from the arriving
Jews fIooded through Auschwitz.

And contrary to the direct orders
of the Nazi Ieadership,

individuaI members of the SS
took great personaI advantage.

They were taking home Iots of goId
and other vaIuabIes,

nobody counted it
- it was a bonanza for them.

This is the surprising and shocking story
of Iife and death at Auschwitz,

during what for the Nazis at the camp
was the start of the boom years.

Of how corruption pervaded aII aspects
of the extermination process,

and why for many of the SS, Iife was good.

The speciaI situation at Auschwitz
Ied to friendships

of which I`m stiII saying today
I Iike to Iook back on with joy.

Auschwitz main camp was on the banks of
the SoIa river in Southern PoIand.

And it was here that the Commandant,
SS Lieutenant CoIoneI RudoIf Hoss,

worked hand in hand with businessmen to
grow a giant industriaI compIex.

UItimateIy, about 60 miIIion Reichmarks
- 125 miIIion Pounds in today`s money

- wouId be generated here
for the Nazi state.

For there was not one Auschwitz camp,
but many.

-Danke. Wieadershen
-Wiedersehen

EventuaIIy there were 45 sub camps dotted
round the region,

most providing sIave Iabour
for armaments factories

and other industriaI concerns.

And at the centre of this web
of sIave Iabour

and industry was the giant camp
of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The vast Auschwitz compIex
was now a seIf-contained universe.

A pIace to Iive, a pIace to work,
a pIace to die.

At the heart of Birkenau
were the gas chambers,

one of which stood on this site.

SeIections were made from arriving
transports of Jews.

Those thought fit enough were taken away
to be worked to death.

The remainder - the oId, the weak,

the chiIdren were murdered immediateIy
in buiIdings Iike these.

There are, there were peopIe

``That they were starting to understand
that something was funny going on there,

but nobody couId do anything.

The process had to go you know

they had everything was done
from the German point of view.

They were aII precise.

There were the peopIe screaming at the,
the Germans screaming,

`SchneII, schneII!`

The Jews were ordered to undress,

and then forced towards a room
further down the buiIding

and toId they wouId take a shower.

CouId you imagine what, what was done
with the chiIdren and their,

their famiIies, their thinking,

they didn`t know what to do scratching
the waIIs,

crying untiI the,
the the gas take effect.

And when everything stopped you know
and they opened

the doors and I see these peopIe
I saw a few minutes,

haIf an hour before
that they were going in,

I see them aII standing up,
some bIack and bIue from the gas,

no pIace where to go, dead.

A few hundred yards from the gas chambers

was the area of the camp known as `Canada`

- because Canada was thought to be a Iand
of untoId riches.

This is where the beIongings snatched

from the arriving transports were sorted

before being repacked and sent to Germany.

For the inmates, working in Canada

was one of the few sought afterjobs
in the camp.

Working in Canada saved my Iife
because we had food, we got water

And that was the best working unit
for Iife for us

because we were not beaten.

The majority of inmates who worked
in Canada were women.

They couId grow their hair
and were abIe to snatch extra food

from the beIongings as they sorted them.

Against the expIicit ruIes of the SS

- friendIy reIationships couId deveIop
in Canada

between the German guards
and the women prisoners.

HeIena Citronova, a SIovakian Jew
who`d been sent to Auschwitz in 1942,

became the object of attention of one
of the SS who worked in Canada.

When he came into the barracks
where I was working,

he passed me by and threw me a note.

I destroyed it right there and then,

but I did see the word `Iove`,
`I feII in Iove with you`.

I thought I`d rather be dead than be
invoIved with an SS man.

For a Iong time afterwards
there was just hatred

- I couIdn`t even Iook at him.

But over time HeIena`s feeIings changed,

especiaIIy with the arrivaI of one
particuIar train at Auschwitz Birkenau.

HeIena`s sister was on board,
aIong with her daughter and baby son.

After they arrived at Birkenau,

HeIena Iearnt that they were being
taken to the gas chamber.

Her SS admirer - Franz Wunsch,
ran to see if he couId heIp.

So he said to me,

`TeII me quickIy what your sister`s name
is before I`m too Iate.`

So I said, `You won`t be abIe to,
she came with 2 IittIe chiIdren.`

He repIied, `ChiIdren, that`s different.
ChiIdren can`t Iive here.`

So he ran to the crematorium
and found my sister.

Wunsch couId not save the chiIdren,
but he rescued HeIena`s sister

cIaiming that she was a member of his work
detaiI in Canada.

``Here he did something great.``

``There were moments when I forgot
that I was a Jew

and that he was not a Jew and honestIy,

in the end I Ioved him, but it couId not
be reaIistic.``

Both HeIena and her sister
survived Auschwitz.

And aIthough nothing came of
her reIationship with Wunsch,

she did give evidence on his behaIf at his
war crimes triaI many years Iater.

There were other temptations for the SS
in Canada.

``Every piece had to be searched
- underwear,

everything, and we found Iots of diamonds,
goId, coins ah,

money, doIIars, foreign currency from
aII over Europe.``

Workers in Canada were meant
to put any vaIuabIes

they found in a Iocked box in the centre
of the barracks.

But their SS guards often managed to
interfere with this procedure.

``They were taking home Iots of goId
and other vaIuabIes

because they were steaIing,
nobody counted it.

And it went on aII the time
whiIe I was working in Canada.``

``If a Iot of stuff is piIed up together,

then you can easiIy stash away something
for your personaI gain.

SteaIing things for yourseIf was
absoIuteIy common practice in Auschwitz.``

In 1943 Oskar Groning was a 22 year oId
corporaI in the SS.

He`d been empIoyed in a bank before the
war and so was put to work in Auschwitz

managing the foreign money stoIen
from the incoming transports.

Every few months, he`d pack up the
currency and take it to BerIin.

Supervision was so Iax that he had the
chance to steaI some of it for himseIf,

using it to buy goods on the thriving
bIack market in Auschwitz.

One day Groning decided he`d Iike to buy
his own hand gun.

So I said: ``My dear friend,
I need a pistoI with ammunition.

And he said: ``WeII how much
do you want to spend?``

- ``I don`t know what does it cost?``

- ``WeII, you as the DoIIar King
shouId pay in DoIIars,

so I`d say it`II cost you 30 DoIIars.

And then he came back with the pistoI
and got his 30 DoIIars.

The ready avaiIabiIity
of foreign currencies

and vaIuabIes to piIfer
was just one of the reasons

that Auschwitz was a surprisingIy
attractive posting

for many members of the SS.

Auschwitz was notjust a profitabIe pIace
to be for them,

it was aIso a good deaI more comfortabIe

than fighting with their comrades against
the Red Army on the Eastern Front.

``The main camp of Auschwitz
was Iike a smaII town,

with its gossiping and chatting.

There was a grocery, where you couId
buy bones to make broth.

There was a canteen, there was a cinema,

there was a theatre
with reguIar performances.

And there was a sports cIub
of which I was a member.

It was aII fun and entertainment,
just Iike a smaII town.

AIcohoI pIayed a big roIe there.

Every day we were aIIocated a ration
of aIcohoI,

which sometimes we`d aII coIIect to have
a reaIIy big drinking bout.

Far from being driven to psychoIogicaI
torment by the knowIedge

that they were participating

in the mass murder of men,
women and chiIdren,

the majority of SS working at Auschwitz

seem to have carried out theirjobs
with few quaIms.

-Prost
-Prost

With death and starvation around them,
they gorged themseIves on food and drink,

much of it stoIen
from the arriving transports.

They drank everything there.

It was Iike some kind of gangsters` feast.

They drank, they sang,
they patted each other.

There was an assortment of aIcohoI
on the tabIe

- a whoIe variety of French cognacs.
And we served them food.

It aII Iooked so disgusting, this feast,
that when the prisoner overseer,

Paschke, saw one of them vomiting,

he said with contempt:
`These pigs sure know how to vomit.`

It was onIy the prisoners
who were to be starved to death.

Being at the camp was a sIow execution
through starvation,

beatings and hard Iabour.

The SS, however, Iacked for nothing.

And when we Iook at this feast,
they had everything.

Throughout Auschwitz miIitary discipIine
was actuaIIy very Ioose.

The Iack of discipIine meant that we went
to bed compIeteIy pissed

and we had our pistoIs in their hoIsters
hanging off the bed frame,

and when somebody was too Iazy
to turn off the Iight,

we just shot it out.

And nobody said anything about the buIIet
hoIes in the waIIs.

Getting wiIdIy drunk was onIy one symptom
of a widespread attitude among the SS

- that the circumstances of Auschwitz
aIIowed them to behave however they Iiked.

Even, on occasion, commit sexuaI assauIt.

The women most at risk worked in the
sorting area in Canada.

`Fat swines`, that`s what the SS officers
caIIed us.

We Iooked good.

We Iooked as though we were
from the normaI worId.

Not Iike the others.

Once there was a very good Iooking woman,
she wasn`t thin, she had a fuII body.

An SS man came in. He raped her.

There was no God in Auschwitz.

There were such horribIe conditions that
God decided not to go there.

It wasn`tjust men who expIoited
the situation

they found themseIves in
- women did as weII.

Irma Grese was one of 1 70 femaIe SS staff
at Auschwitz.

She was just 20 years oId in 1943,

and her combination of beauty and crueIty
was to make her notorious.

But there was nothing in her background

before she came to the camp
to give any hint

of the monster that she was to become.

She didn`t go to schooI.
She was a farmer`s daughter.

I thought she was a smaII
siIIy country bumpkin.

She became someone just because
she was wearing a uniform

and had a whip in her hand.

Irma Grese was one of the SS

who supervised the women`s camp
at Auschwitz Birkenau.

By the end of 1943, in the southern part
of the camp compIex,

there were 30,000 women,

housed in 62 barracks in some of the worst
conditions in the whoIe of Auschwitz.

There was IittIe running water,
and disease was rampant.

For Irma Grese the women`s camp
became a sadistic pIayground.

She shot one woman dead
who was standing in front of me.

Her brains Ianded on my shouIder.

The next day, after the seIections,
Irma came to see me.

I refused to taIk to her. She asked,
``Are you angry with me? ``

I repIied,
``You nearIy kiIIed me yesterday``.

She answered:
``One down, it doesn`t matter...``

After the war Irma Grese was tried for
war crimes and sentenced to death.

She was executed two months
after her 22nd birthday

But it was a member of the SS
who worked on this site,

where crematorium 2 in Birkenau
once stood,

who became most infamous for expIoiting
the opportunities Auschwitz had to offer.

Dr Josef MengeIe arrived at Auschwitz
in May 1943.

There had been medicaI experiments
conducted at the camp before his arrivaI.

At Ieast two German doctors had been
examining new methods of steriIising men

and women at Auschwitz since 1942.

And in the process hundreds
had aIready suffered.

But MengeIe began a variety
of new experiments,

each reIated to his own obsessions.

He saw Auschwitz as a human Iaboratory,

one which aIIowed him to pursue
any idea he had,

no matter how bestiaI or inhumane.

He experimented on chiIdren
- particuIarIy on twins.

This footage shows some
of the chiIdren he seIected,

fiImed by the Soviets immediateIy
after the Iiberation of the camp.

It is thought that MengeIe
used these chiIdren

to research the power of
genetic inheritance,

an area of interest
to many Nazi scientists.

ChiIdren were instaIIed
in speciaI barracks,

for MengeIe`s excIusive use.

Every day MengeIe came and every day

he brought some toys, sweets, chocoIates,
and new cIothes.

The chiIdren caIIed MengeIe
the `good uncIe`.

But his treatment of them
was entireIy cynicaI.

Because he wanted them to co-operate

when he came to pick them
for his experiments.

MengeIe came in every morning after roII
caII to count us.

He wanted to know every morning
how many guinea pigs he had.

Three times a week both of my arms
wouId be tied to restrict the bIood fIow,

and they took a Iot of bIood
from my Ieft arm.

On occasion enough bIood untiI we fainted.

At the same time that
they were taking bIood,

they wouId give me a minimum of
5 injections into my right arm.

After one of those injections
I became extremeIy iII

and Dr MengeIe came in next morning
with four other doctors.

He Iooked at my fever chart and he said,
Iaughing sarcasticaIIy,

he said: ``Too bad, she is so young.
She has onIy 2 weeks to Iive.``

I wouId fade in and out of consciousness,

and in a semi-conscious state of mind

I wouId keep teIIing myseIf:
I must survive, I must survive.

They were waiting for me to die.

WouId I have died, my twin sister Miriam

wouId have been rushed immediateIy
to MengeIe`s Iab,

kiIIed with an injection to the heart

and then MengeIe wouId have done
the comparative autopsies.

That is the way most of the twins died.

For the comparative examination from
the viewpoint of anatomy and pathoIogy,

the twins had to die at the same time.

So it was, that they met their death
at the hand of Dr. MengeIe.

This phenomenon was unique
in worId medicaI history.

Twin brothers died together,

and it was possibIe to perform autopsies
on both.

Where, under normaI circumstances,

can one find twin brothers who die at the
same pIace and at the same time?

You cannot ask WHY! There was no WHY
in Auschwitz. OnIy WAS

I was asked by somebody,

``You`re very strong.
How did you become very strong?``

And I said, ``I had no choice:
I overcame or I wouId have perished.``

MengeIe experimented notjust on twins,

but aIso on dwarves and prisoners
with the form of gangrene

of the face known as Noma,
which was common in Birkenau

because of the privations
in which inmates were heId.

He worked cIoseIy with an anthropoIogicaI
institute in BerIin,

sending them human body parts,
especiaIIy eyebaIIs.

The parceIs were stamped
`Urgent - war materiaIs`

Doctor MengeIe was a member
of Heinrich HimmIer`s SS.

And, Iike MengeIe,
every member of the SS was toId

to pride themseIves on their hardness
and Iack of pity.

But during 1943, HimmIer reaIized
that he must try harder

to prevent the SS from being

- as he saw it corrupted by the
extermination of the Jews.

In a speech he gave at Pozna?

on the 4th October 1943,

HimmIer speIt outjust how he wanted the
SS to feeI about the murders.

But it was aII Iies, because in a pIace
Iike Auschwitz,

Commandant RudoIf Hoss was presiding

over an institution that was riddIed
with corruption.

So much so that in the Autumn of 1943
another SS officer,

Lieutenant Konrad Morgen, arrived to Iook
into the running of the camp.

There was to be no investigation,
of course,

into the fact that every week thousands
of innocent peopIe

were being murdered in the gas chambers.

In HimmIer`s eyes that was a sacred duty.

Instead Morgen`s investigation was to be
centred on theft

- on ensuring that the money
and goods stoIen

from the incoming transports ended up
in the coffers of the State,

not the Iockers of individuaI members
of the SS.

Morgen was shocked by what he found.

`Examination of the Iockers yieIded
a fortune in goId,

rings, pearIs and money,
in aII kinds of currencies.

The conduct of the SS staff was beyond
any of the standards

that you`d expect from soIdiers.

They gave the impression of being
degenerate and brutaI parasites.`

I was on a business trip to BerIin
to deIiver EngIish pounds

and American doIIars and just at that time

they raided the quarters of the NCO`s
and other ranks.

And when I returned my Iocker was seaIed.

Groning knew that two of his comrades
had aIready been arrested

because contraband had been found
in their possession.

One of them Iater hanged himseIf
in his ceII.

Knowing his own Iocker
contained stoIen goods,

Groning came up with an ingenious way out
of his predicament.

The Gestapo had seaIed the front of
his Iocker,

so Groning simpIy took off the back.

I went to the Gestapo and said,

``Look, what nonsense are you up to,
I can`t get into my Iocker.``

- ``Oh, we are sorry.``

- `Listen, I`ve just returned from a trip
and I need it.``

-``WeII, we`ve got to check it first.``

So they came, took the 3 seaIs off,
opened the Iocker,

found nothing, patted me on the shouIder
and said, ``It`s ok. Carry on.``

But Iooking back, aren`t you sorry

that you made your own Iife more
comfortabIe whiIe miIIions actuaIIy died?

AbsoIuteIy not. Everybody is Iooking out
for themseIves.

So many peopIe died in the war,
not onIy Jews.

So many things happened, so many were shot
so many snuffed it.

PeopIe burnt to death, so many were burnt,

if I thought about aII of that I wouIdn`t
be abIe to Iive one minute Ionger.

This attitude that it was acceptabIe
to profit personaIIy

from the Jews wasn`tjust common
at Auschwitz,

it became entrenched throughout the area
of the kiIIings.

This footage, of Jews being robbed in
Eastern Europe,

shows how easy it was for the Nazis
and their coIIaborators

to pocket money
and jeweIIery for themseIves.

And it was the corruption
of individuaI Nazis

which enabIed Jews to fight back
in the autumn of 1943.

A major act of resistance occurred
in the East of PoIand,

at a Nazi death camp caIIed Sobibor,

where the SS were just as corrupt
as they were at Auschwitz.

They did steaI despite everything,
they had a good time,

they weren`t, they didn`t go to the Russia

where their comrades were kiIIed
in the in the Russia, ah,

in the Russian Front under StaIingrad,
they kiIIed innocent babies,

that`s a good Iife for them.
They couId Iive Iike kings.

Sobibor was a tiny camp,
hidden in a forest.

This is an impression of what
it Iooked Iike.

SeveraI hundred Jews were given
a temporary stay of execution

and forced to work here, most sorting
the beIongings of those

who had been murdered in the gas chambers
of the camp.

A group of them reaIised they might be
abIe to take advantage

of the Germans` greed and Iure them
to nearby workshops.

There`s a beautifuI Ieather coat
in the sorting area,

wouId you Iike to ah,
to take a Iook at it?

Of course they were very greedy;
they picked up goId,

they picked up cIothing they sent it
Iater home.

When the taiIor made appointment
with this officer

to come 3 o`cIock to try on his uniform,

you couId be sure he was 3 o`cIock
exactIy there.

So we were abIe to pIan approximateIy
a new divided time

of the kiIIing, you couId see
that every few minutes,

every 50 minutes, a German was kiIIed.

Me and Lerner went to the cobbIers` shop
and we hid behind some cIothes.

I had an axe and he had an axe too.

A German came in to try on some boots that
the prisoners had made for him.

They sat him down opposite
my hiding pIace.

At that moment I stepped out and hit him.

I didn`t know that you shouId do it with
the fIat side of the axe,

I hit him with the bIade.

We puIIed him away
and put some cIothes over him.

AImost immediateIy another German came in.

He waIked up to the corpse,
kicked him and said

``what is this, what is this mess over here
what`s going on?``

At that moment I hit him with the axe
and Lerner hit him as weII.

Then we took his weapons

- I took one pistoI, Lerner took
the other one and we ran away.

The inmates rushed to the wire fences
that surrounded the camp,

aII the time under fire from Ukrainian
guards in the watch towers.

They pushed the fences down

and ran straight towards the forest,
crossing a minefieId.

I was, was probabIy the Iast one to run

- I faII down about
two or three times down,

each time I thought I`m hit,
but I did get up,

nothing happened to me
and I did run to the forest

- 100 metre, 50 metre...
finaIIy the forest.

300 of the 600 Jews in Sobibor
managed to escape that day.

In the end about 50 of them evaded capture
and survived the war,

many of them former Red Army SoIdiers
who had been imprisoned in the camp.

OnIy those who fIocked together
couId survive.

The onIy thing that saved me
and my friends

was that we were Iike brothers
to each other.

In the wake of the Sobibor revoIt HimmIer

ordered the cIosure of a number of camps
in PoIand,

and the murder by shooting
of over 40,000 peopIe.

But the Nazis` ``FinaI SoIution``
was not progressing

as HitIer and HimmIer wouId have wished.

The ItaIians,
aIthough aIIies of the Nazis,

had consistentIy refused
to deport their Jews.

It wasn`t untiI the Germans occupied
their country that deportations began.

In BuIgaria, aIthough the government
had aIready given up 1 1 ,000 Jews

from occupied territories,
there were protests during 1943

about proposaIs to deport BuIgarian Jews.

And in Romania, Prime Minister Antonescu,

having permitted the destruction
of many Jewish communities,

refused to co-operate further.

For everyone knew that the Germans
were Iosing the war.

In the East, in the fight against
the Red Army,

whoIe German units had been captured.

But one occupied country in Europe

did more than any other
to protect Jews - Denmark.

The Germans had first occupied Denmark
in 1940 but it was onIy now,

in August 1943, after Danish resistance
had increased,

that they imposed fuII miIitary ruIe.

Now German brutaIity was practiced
in the open

and the Danish Jews were hugeIy at risk.

In September 1943 HitIer`s representative
in Denmark,

Dr Werner Best of the SS,

a man whose hands were aIready bIoodied

by the persecution of Jews in France
and PoIand,

met with the German dipIomat,
Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz,

a known sympathiser of the Danes.

According to their Iater testimony,

Best first informed him that 8000 Danish
Jews wouId shortIy be rounded up.

It was at this point that Best acted
seemingIy out of character.

Best`s heavy hint about a bridge
for the Danish Jews

to neutraI Sweden was cIearIy understood
by Duckwitz.

He immediateIy warned Danish poIiticians
who in turn warned the Jews.

As a resuIt on Wednesday
the 29th of September 1943

in the centraI synagogue
in Copenhagen Rabbi MeIchior

made a surprise announcement.

During the service
of that morning my father

stopped the service and ah,
repeated the message that he had received.

Don`t be at home on Friday night.

On Friday, the 1st of October,

when German Security PoIice visited
the homes of Danish Jews,

they found that the vast majority
had fIed.

Most had traveIIed to Danish ports where
they sought a crossing to Sweden.

And at every stage of their escape the
Jews were heIped by their feIIow Danes,

even by members of the Danish PoIice.

I wouId go out and find one
of the fishermen

that I knew
and teII him how many I had

and we wouId have to beg
and borrow enough money

to pay the fishermen as much as we couId
to get everybody on board.

Once in neutraI Sweden, the Danish Jews
were given food and sheIter.

AItogether 95% of Danish Jews were saved
in a rescue action

that is without paraIIeI in the history
of the Nazis` ``FinaI SoIution``

The Danes considered the Jewish popuIation

as a part of the Danish popuIation

and they couId not understand why these
peopIe shouId have separate treatment.

And I think it was very much a question
of fairness and justice,

I wouId even say more that than Iove.

But whiIe the motive of the Danes
who heIped the Jews was cIear,

it`s Iess easy to understand
why Werner Best acted as he did.

One possibIe expIanation is
that he wanted the Jews

to escape to save him the troubIe
of deporting them himseIf.

Best sent a report to BerIin on
October the 5th. He said:

``As the objective goaI of
the Jewish action in Denmark

was the de-Judification of the country
and not a successfuI headhunt

it must be concIuded that
the Jewish action has reached its goaI.``

Even committed Nazis Iike Best were Iacing
their ideoIogicaI hatred with pragmatism.

And in 1943 here
within Auschwitz main camp,

there was the most extraordinary exampIe
of that same thinking.

And so, in 1943 I and many others
were Iiving in BIock 24A.

The bIock eIder came in and said:

``We`re moving out because there`s going
to be a brotheI here.

`` We aII started Iaughing.

But it wasn`t a joke.

It was bizarre - but true

BIock 24 just beside the main gate of
Auschwitz was to become a brotheI.

And the decision to make it happen had
come from the very top of the SS.

Heinrich HimmIer had been considering
for some time

how to provide incentives to prisoners
within the concentration camp system.

He`d written to Otto PohI
of the SS Economic Division:

`I consider it necessary to provide
in the most

IiberaI way hard working prisoners
with women in brotheIs.`

These instructions were passed
onto commandants

Iike Hoss in a directive from PohI
in 1943.

The idea wasn`t for every prisoner
to use the brotheI

- certainIy not the Jews,
but for vouchers for the brotheI

to be issued onIy to those prisoners

whom the Nazis considered
of speciaI vaIue.

Prisoners Iike Ryszard Dacko,
a member of the Auschwitz fire brigade.

If I wanted to get a voucher,
I had to sort things out with an SS-man

And they onIy gave vouchers
to heaIthy prisoners,

they wouIdn`t give them to prisoners
who were on their Iast Iegs.

Prisoners who worked as cooks for the SS,
as hairdressers for the SS

- the speciaI prisoners got those vouchers
I got 2 vouchers.

LittIe is known about the women who were
forced to work in the brotheI

- this whoIe subject is one many prefer
not to taIk about.

But it`s beIieved they were seIected from
non-Jewish prisoners aIready in the camp.

They were given these rooms
on the first fIoor of BIock 24

where prisoners who had
the necessary vouchers visited them.

``I wanted to cuddIe up to her
as much as I couId,

because it was three and a haIf years
since I`d been arrested,

three and a haIf years without a woman.``

In the brutaIized atmosphere of Auschwitz,

prisoners Iike Ryszard Dacko found it hard

to have sympathy for the women
who worked in the brotheI.

``The girIs were treated very weII,

they had good food, they went for waIks.

They just had to carry out the work
that was required of them.``

The brotheI Iasted untiI January 1945

- and the suffering endured by the women

who worked in these rooms is one
of the Ieast acknowIedged

aspects of the history of Auschwitz.

ShortIy after supervising the opening
of the brotheI,

Hoss Iearnt that he was to be removed
as Commandant of Auschwitz.

He didn`t want to Ieave.

He and his famiIy had manufactured a
comfortabIe Iife for themseIves.

The SS investigation had uncovered cIear
evidence of corruption at the camp.

But Hoss wasn`t disgraced; he was promoted

- to a desk job in Concentration Camp
Administration back in BerIin.

He Ieft on his own.

Rather than move to BerIin,

his famiIy preferred to stay on after

he`d gone in the Commandant`s house
on the edge of Auschwitz main camp.

But Hoss was not finished
with Auschwitz yet.

Just 2 months after he Ieft the warehouse
in Auschwitz,

where much of the evidence
about corruption

at the camp was being stored,
mysteriousIy caught fire.

Hoss wouId return to the camp in 1944,

where he wouId oversee the dramatic months

that made Auschwitz into
the biggest kiIIing centre

the worId has ever seen.

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