This part of the website provides an overview of some of the prosecutions with which Vrba was involved.
Some of the Nazis from Auschwitz that Rudolf Vrba mentioned in his testimony at the 1964 trial in Frankfurt am Main are identified and introduced below. As well, Vrba testified at a trial in Frankfurt in 1965, and at a follow-up trial in 1969, to ensure the conviction and incarceration of SS-Obersturmbanhfuhrer in the Waffen, Herman Krumey, a leading figure within Adolf Eichmann’s operations in Hungary [Information provided below].
Vrba also testified for the prosecution against SS-Unterscharfuhrer Otto Graf, who wasn’t arrested until 1971 even though he had been living openly in Vienna as a house painter. Although Graf was tried on thirty criminal charges, he was only found guilty on a charge that exceeded the statute of limitations so Vrba’s efforts were for naught.
The 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann (above) in Israel led to the publication of Rudolf Vrba’s memoir in 1963.
When Rudolf Vrba was attending an opera performance in Essen, Germany in the company of two other Auschwitz survivors from Toronto, Stanley Golvin and Dennis Urstein, he recognized one of the soloists. Having worked in the special “cleaning commando” for the Kanada warehouse from from August of 1942 to March of 1943, Vrba was absolutely certain the vocalist was the same man he had witnessed many times on the ramp at Auschwitz, making selections as to who should live and who should be murdered. This was SS Unterscharfuehrer Heinrich Johannes Kuehnemann (or Kühnemann). He became the the Nazi who Rudolf Vrba was most responsible for bringing to trial and gaining a conviction.
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Vrba’s two companions at the opera were willing to corroborate Vrba’s formal accusations. Legal proceedings against Kuehnemann were subsequently convened by judge Dr. Batz at Seigen, 150 kilometres northwest of Frankfurt. On the witness stand, the opera singer from Essen admitted he had been an SS Unterscharfuehrer for the Canada section of Auschwitz but he claimed he was only concerned with collecting luggage. When asked if he knew what happened to most of the arrivals after their luggage was taken, Kuehnemann said, “They went straight to the gas chambers.” To further explain his role, Kuehnemann said, “I was responsible for picking out those would not go the gas chambers right away.”
Vrba had described Kuehnemann’s role more succinctly in the Vrba-Wetzler Report: “He would mercilessly split families, sending some to quick death in the gas chambers and others to slow deaths in the quarries of Auschwitz.” Kuehnemann earned the ironic nickname “Angel of Auschwitz” because he tried to convince the judge that he was kindly and innocent of wrongdoing–someone who was worthy of pity. “It was a difficult time,” he said. “I had to drink heavily to forget what I’d seen, and the extensive drinking has virtually destroyed my liver.”
Although it was Rudolf Vrba who would corroborate his identity, Kuehnemann’s cover was first blown in court by his SS underling Otto Graf who had identified him as the “koenig” or king of Canada. In Frankfurt, the chief prosecutor said they had pondered taking action against Kuehnemann but had held off. The chief prosecutor’s press spokesman, Jochen Schroers, had to explain why the prosecution office had somehow overlooked Kuehnemann. He claimed the prosecutors had heard rumours; Kuehnemann’s past was deemed “suspicious.” It came to light that Kuehnemann and his SS underling Otto Graf had been arrested already–during the war–by the Nazis. Each man had been sentenced to two years in jail for theft of jewels, including gold from teeth, but the pair were released by the Nazis after two weeks and returned to their jobs at Auschwitz.
Michel Mielnicki
Vrba’s successful efforts to bring Kuehnemann to trial were enhanced by the testimony of another Vancouverite, Michel Mielnicki, as outlined in his disturbing memoir co-written with John Munro, Bialystock to Birkenau: The Holocaust Journey of Michael Meilnicki (Ronsdale 2000) wherein Mielnicki provides harrowing, first-hand accounts of Birkenau, Buna, Mittelbau-Dora and Bergen-Belsen. Even though Vrba and Mielnicki lived close to one another, Mielnicki first learned the ramp selection officer SS Unterscharfuehrer Heinrich-Johannes Kuehnemann had been identified singing opera by Vrba from a Simon Wiesenthal newsletter in 1989.
In 1991, Michel flew to Germany with his wife, June Frischer Mielnicki, another Holocaust survivor, in order to corroborate evidence against Kuehnemann at a trial in Duisberg, Germany. Initially, Mielnicki had worried that he might be murdered by “some old Nazi or some new neo-Nazi skinhead” if he testified in public. Kuehnemann, known for his brutality, was identified by Mielnicki and other witnesses for his role in selecting inmates for the gas chambers and he was convicted after the defendant had argued unsuccessfully that he was unaware of any systematic process for murdering inmates at Auschwitz. The German prosecutor asked Mielnicki if there was any favour to be done in return. Mielnicki told this prosecutor, named Feld, that he remained troubled by never learning the fate of his brother. About a year later, the German prosecutor called Mielnicki and told him he’d come across the contact information for a Ukrainian named Aleksei Mielnicki who had visited Auschwitz seeking documentation of his imprisonment there. Perhaps this was a relative of some sort? Felt gave Mieilnicki the contact info. Aleksei is not a Polish name. Mielnicki was unaware of other branches of his family beyond Poland. But as soon as Mielnicki made the phone call to Aleksei Mielnicki, he knew he had found his brother who had simply adopted a different first name. Michel Mielnicki and his wife flew to Poland where he was re-united with his brother after a 50-year separation.
Born in Wasilkow, a few kilometres from Bialystok in north-eastern Poland, in 1927, Mielnicki was one of 1,500 Jews in a town of 5,000 people. Following the conquest of his area of Poland by Germany in 1941, he lived in the Bialystock Ghetto, then was sent onto the Pruzany Ghetto for fourteen months, before he was deported, at age 16, with his brother Aaron, his parents Esther and Chaim, and his sister Lenka, in a cattle car to Auschwitz-Birkenau. His mother died on the train and his father was beaten to death shortly after arriving at Auschwitz. He witnessed both deaths. At the concentration camp, Mielnicki’s sister was sent off with the other women. Aaron became ill and was sent to the so-called hospital. The siblings promised they would try to return to Bialystock if they were separated. Michel survived a death march, worked in the slave labour camp at Buna, then at Mittelbau-Dora in Germany and was finally liberated by the British Army from Bergen-Belsen in 1945. He had survived the death camps, he said, due to memories of his mother’s cooking that gave him “the saliva necessary to chew bread that was at least twenty-five percent sawdust.”
Arrested in April of 1990 on charges of multiple murder, robbery and active participation in mass murder, Kuehnemann was finally put on trial by a German court at Duisburg, from 1991 to 1993. The proceedings were suspended due to the poor health of ill health of the accused. He was subsequently released from trial by the German court system and was never convicted.
Jacob Fries, “one of the most brutal men ever spawned by Auschwitz.”
Upon his arrival at the main Auschwitz “mother camp” at 9 p.m. on June 30, 1942, Rudolf Vrba was optimistic when he saw the signage atop the gate, in large brass lettering, Arbeit Macht Frei — Work Brings Freedom. He was strong. He was young. He could work. Here, instead of squalor, he saw statuesque SS men in faultless green uniforms. As the gates swung open, and a red-and-white pole was lifted as if they were crossing a border, he was not averse to marching forward, in rows of five, assuming Auschwitz would be preferable to the wooden shacks at Majdanek. Auschwitz had trees and bushes. His wooden shoes made an unfamiliar but welcome sound on the cement road. It wasn’t until he realized the camp was surrounded by a double row of high voltage, electrified fencing that he became apprehensive.
Then he saw SS Oberscharführer Jacob Fries and he became fearful.
“Standing watching us was an SS Oberscharführer–roughly sergeant major–one of the tallest men I had ever seen, a craggy human mountain. well over six feet tall, resting both hands on a huge club that nearly reached his chin. It was not, however, merely the physical bulk of the man or his broad gangster’s face, his unblinking eyes or the detached indifference with which he watched us, which set him apart, those all these made an impact. It was the aura around him, an aura of evil, of death, something which told me instinctively that in that massive frame there was not one ounce of pity or decency or good.
“This time, my first impressions were accurate. Here was Jakob Fries, one of the most brutal men ever spawned by Auschwitz, mother of so many murderers. For me, in fact, Fries was Auschwitz and always will be.”
When the Kanada compound was transferred from the neat and organized, red-brick buildings of Auschwitz I to the more chaotic atmosphere of Auschwitz-Birkenau, built atop soggy marshland, Vrba was also transferred on January 15, 1943. But the unforgiveably brutish character and actions of the avid smoker with a very low voice, Jacob Fries, would never be forgotten. Even Nazi colleagues disliked Fries. SS Oberscharführer Max Schmidt said: “This man was a giant. We were all afraid of him.” And Schlupper said similarly: “When he was at the gate, everyone was afraid.”
Eventually, on January 30, 1952, at the Nuremberg-Fürth Regional Court, he would be sentenced to 14 years in prison for violent crimes committed against German political prisoners in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Only eight years later he was released early from prison on September, 29, 1960, on a conditional discharge, by Adenauer’s Ministry of Justice. He was re-arrested on June 12, 1961 for alleged crimes at Auschwitz, but was allowed to remain outside of prison bail, pending his trial. Bizarrely, the public prosecutor opted to drop the charges against one of the most notoriously evil Nazis in Auschwitz because he had already served part of his sentence for lesser crimes committed at Sachsenhausen. On July 16, 1964, Fries testified as a prosecution witness in the Frankfurt Auschwitz trial. He died in his hometown in Albertshofen on October 20, 1964.
SS-Hauptsturmführer Josef Mengele arrived at Auschwitz in May 1943, at his own request, having been wounded at the front with the 5th SS Panzer Division Totenkopf. As one of the most demonic personalities at Auschwitz; he became arguably the most notorious member of the SS in World War II. The SS took its abbreviated name from a small unit that was first established in 1923 to protect Adolf Hitler. The security detail or organization called Die Schutzstaffeln der NSDAP can be roughly translated as Protection Eschelon. Expanded into various “security” branches in 1925, it coalesced into the Schutzstaffeln – SS. Its driving force, Heinrich Himmler, was appointed commander (Reichsführer) in 1929 after he had convinced Adolf Hitler that Storm Troopers (Sturmabteilungen, SA) were too undisciplined. Ten years later he called the shots for 50,000 followers.
After the SS chiefly orchestrated the “Night of the Long Knives,” they became integral for the creation of a network of concentration camps for alleged political prisoners and Jews, functioning in tandem with the oppressive judicial and penitentiary systems. Increasingly important for intimidation, the SS evolved three primary formations: sentry units (SS-Totenkopfverbände or “Death’s Head Battalions” for the concentration camps), dispositional troops (“armed SS” or Waffen-SS for military purposes) and the general SS (Allgemeine-SS) as reserves for the SS-Totenkopf and Waffen-SS. Injured Waffen-SS, declared unfit for service, were often transferred to concentration camps to control and intimidate prisoners.
Mulka volunteered for the SS in 1941 after the Wehrmacht had refused to accept him as an officer because of a criminal record. In March 1943, he was promoted to adjutant to Auschwitz commandant Rudol Höß and deputy camp director.
Known as the Eichmann of Auschwitz, Mulka was sentenced to 14 years hard labour for complicity in the murder of 750 persons each on at least four separate occasions. There was some outrage when he was released early on January 14, 1966, due to illness. It was thought he should have been sent to the prison hospital, not released outright. This link says he was responsible for the deaths of “several hundred thousand.”
Boger was infamous for the appalling crimes which he committed at Auschwitz under the command of the camp’s Gestapo chief Maximilian Grabner. After several-eyewitness accounts he was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder in at least five cases, collective murder in at least 109 cases and aiding in collective murder. He died on April 3, 1977, aged 70 in prison. Known as the Tiger of Auschwitz, Wilhelm Boger invented the “Boger swing,” an instrument of torture. As reported after the war by his secretary, Frau Braun: “It was a meter-long iron bar suspended by chains hung from the ceiling … A prisoner would be brought in for “questioning,” stripped naked and bent over the bar, wrists manacled to ankles. A guard at one side would shove him—or her—off across the chamber in a long, slow arc, while Boger would ask “questions,” at first quietly, then barking them out, and at the last bellowing. At each return, another guard armed with a crowbar would smash the victim across the buttocks. As the swinging went on and on, and the wailing victim fainted, was revived only to faint howling again, the blows continued—until only a mass of bleeding pulp hung before their eyes. Most perished from the ordeal–some sooner, some later. In the end a sack of [sic] bones and flayed flesh and fat was swept along the shambles of that concrete floor to be dragged away.” [For more on the Boger swing, visit MALKA’S ESCAPE section of this site.]
The Boger Swing
HANS KOENIG or König
Hans Koenig, 94, sits in the sun in the twilight of his life….before his trial. Photo courtesy of The Daily Mail.
Known as “a bruiser” because he liked hurting people, Hans Wilhelm König (13 May 13, 1912 – c. 1991) was a German Schutzstaffel Obersturmführer and a Lagerarzt (camp doctor) at the Auschwitz and Neuengamme concentration camps who had initially joined the Allgemeine-SS in the 1930s. He joined Waffen-SS with the onset of war. He was not assigned to Auschwitz until 1944. He first worked at the so-called hospital at Auschwitz I, conducting electro-shock experiments in the name of therapy, until he was transferred to Birkenau to work alongside Mengele and he observed Mengele’s experiments on twins. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour.
Born in Stuttgart, Hans-August König was the first Nazi convicted for the mass murders of so-called Gypsies (now known as Roma). He was a German Schutzstaffel Obersturmführer and a Lagerarzt at the Auschwitz and Neuengamme concentration camps. A former steamship doctor, he became a camp doctor at both Auschwitz I and Birkenau where he selected prisoners for the gas chambers, conducted drug experiments on prisoners for IG Farben and Bayer, and tested electro-shocks on female prisoners. Under the pseudonym Ernest Peltz, he had continued to practice medicine after the war until he was forced into hiding. He was never captured or prosecuted until he was arrested at age 94 in 2014, according to an article in the Daily Mail. He was arrested simultaneously with two other Nazis, aged 88 and 92, in the wake of the German trial of John Demjanjuk in 2011, during which it was determined that eyewitness accounts were not required to prosecute those who were known to have worked at a concentration camp. Demjanjuk was found guilty as an accessory to murder. The case against König seemingly was never prosecuted due to his advanced age and waning health.
Ernst-August Koenig, “Angel of Auschwitz”
A quarter of a million Roma or Gypsies were murdered during the Holocaust. Following a 44-month trial in Siegen, Germany, a town east of Bonn, Ernst-August Koenig, 71, a retired forester who referred to himself as an “angel of Auschwitz” who never hurt anyone, was finally found guilty of killing three Roma (“gypsies”) with his own hands and of aiding in two instances of mass gassing of 3,258 Roma after some 160 witnesses gave testimony at the first trial to sentence a Nazi explicitly for killing Roma. Previous trials against Nazis accused of killing Roma, conducted in the 1950s, were abandoned for various reasons.
The judge in the trial, Dirk Batz, responded to allegations against Koenig made by the German Sinti and Romany Council representing two ethnic groups of Roma in Germany, dismissing claims from defense attorneys that it was too late to prosecute Koenig for the gassing of 21,000 Gypsies and 50 Jews between 1943 and 1944.
It was Rudolf Vrba who had raised the matter of Ernst-August’s complicity in genocide with prosecutors at the Frankfurt Trial [see his testimony transcript on this website within VRBA TESTIFIES]. At that Frankfurt trial, survivors who were summoned to testify as witnesses for the trial of Hans Koenig confirmed Hans Koenig “killed untold numbers of Gypsies, but he wasn’t the Canada Koenig of the SS.” Three Canadian Holocaust survivors, including Vrba, were summoned as witnesses and confirmed Koenig “killed untold numbers of Gypsies.” Ernst-August Koenig, at age 72, was convicted in Siegen, Germany, following a 44-month trial. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and he was imprisoned in Bochum, western Germany, between Essen and Dortmund. He hanged himself in his jail cell on September 19, 1991.
At this trial, one of the prosecution witnesses was none other than the aforementioned the opera singer from Essen, Heinrich Johannes Kuehnemann, who falsely informed the court that he had simply served as a mere guard at Auschwitz and therefore had nothing to do with murders. Even after the judge had forewarned him that it would not be necessary to testify, Kuehnemann brazenly took the stand, not counting on the fact that Rudolf Vrba was present to recognize him.
RICHARD WIEGLEB
Rudolf Vrba’s descriptions of his encounters with SS Scharführer Richard Wiegleb, who was in charge of the first Kanada warehouse at Auschwitz, might be the most extensive descriptions of Wiegleb’s actions and character in print. According to Wikipedia, “The first warehouses, Kanada I, were originally in block 26 of Auschwitz I, the main camp in the complex, but were expanded in December 1943 to Kanada II, 30 wooden buildings near the gas chambers in the BIIg section of Birkenau.”
Josef Klehr in court
SS Sturmscharführer Josef Klehr (17 October 1904 – 23 August 1988) was an SS-Oberscharführer (master sergeant), supervisor in several Nazi concentration camps and head of the SS disinfection commando at Auschwitz concentration camp. On 19 August 1965, the court convicted him of murder in at least 475 cases, assistance in the joint murder of at least 2730 cases, and sentenced him to life imprisonment with an additional 15 years. A witness, surnamed Głowacki, testified in court that Klehr killed the women who survived the massacre after the alleged uprising at the Budy female subcamp by phenol injection. “Klehr was renowned for killing by phenol injections into the heart, something he essentially took over as of some time in 1942. He devised ways to optimise the speed of the killing process, such as experimenting with the positioning of prisoners before their injection” — Wikipedia
Polish hero Witold Pilecki, also testified, “Klehr used to murder with his needle with great zeal, mad eyes and sadistic smile, he put a stroke on the wall after the killing of each victim. In my times, he brought the list of those killed by him up to the number fourteen thousand and he boasted every day with great delight, like a hunter who told of the trophies of the chase.” –Wikipedia
Klehr was sentenced to life imprisonment but on January 25, 1988, Klehr’s sentence was suspended due to unfitness for custody. On June 10, he was ordered to serve the remainder on probation. After seven months of freedom, he died at age 83.
In 1960, two Polish Auschwitz survivors who, after being interrogated by the Frankfurt public prosecutor, were on their way back to Poland, recognized Bednarek at the Schirnding border station. In November 1960, the informed Frankfurt public prosecutor’s office executed the previously issued arrest warrant. In the first Auschwitz trial , which began on December 20, 1963 in Frankfurt am Main , he was sentenced to life imprisonment in August 1965 for 14 counts of murder and deprivation of civil rights for life.
During the trial, Bednarek was incriminated by many witnesses. Bednarek is said to have beaten the inmates in his block for the slightest offense so that some died. Bednarek was released from custody in Butzbach in 1975 after an appeal for clemency was granted . Some Polish Auschwitz survivors also supported the petition for clemency, pointing out that the Polish children had survived the evacuation transport to Mauthausen and that Bednarek was silent about secret prayers.
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HERMANN KRUMEY
Hermann Krumey
Hermann Krumey is mostly known–if he is remembered at all–for being convicted, in Frankfurt, for his role in the murder of 300,000 Jews (that was the figure cited in his trial) as one of the two foremost aide of Adolf Eichmann in Hungary. Krumey had also arranged transports of Croat and Polish Jewry. Even though Krumey was known to have “efficiently” overseen at least six transports of Jews from the Zamosc area to Auschwitz, the Jewish lawyer Rudolf Kasztner had signed an affidavit on his behalf on May 5, 1948, that successfully resulted in Krumey’s release from Allied custody. As an Obersturmbanhfuhrer in the Waffen–SS, Krumey had helped Kasztner facilitate the rescue of Rabbi Michael Dov Weissmandel and twenty-seven others from their hiding place in or around Bratislava in February, 1945, enabling them to reach a safer refuge in Switzerland.
After Krumey was arrested again in 1960, Rudolf Vrba agreed to testify against his fellow countryman in 1965, and again in 1969. According to a New York Times report, when Krumey was placed on trial alongside Eichmann’s legal expert Otto Hunsche, Krumey wept with self-pity and claimed he had only done “minor administrative tasks.” He claimed he only knew Jews were being deported to labour camps, etc. He had joined an anti-Slav nationalist youth movement in 1916 in his home town of Maehrisch‐Schonberg, when it was still part of Moravia. After the establishment of the Czechoslovakian republic he became a druggist in Slovakia and used his spare time organizing pro‐Nazi chapters among the German minority. His hometown in the Olonouc region, north of Bratislava, became known as Šumperk.
For supporting Hitler’s Third Reich, Krumey was rewarded with the rank of SS lieutenant colonel by 1938 and posted to Lodz in 1939 as head of a “resettlement bureau” to supposedly only assist in the settlement of Germans in the Lodz area (as Jews lost their homes and disappeared). In his defence, Krumey said he had only worked for Eichmann from March to June of 1944. He claimed he had passed the remainder of the war in Vienna, “where I did what I could to alleviate the lot of the Jews in nearby internment camps.” The 1965 prosecution of Krumey and Hunsche for “collective murder in an unspecified multitude of cases” was dubbed the Krumey-Hunsche trial. Sentenced to five years hard labour, Krumey was soon released because he had already spent so much time in custody. When his defense team appealed the conviction, a federal court examined the case and instead Krumey was eventually re-sentenced to life imprisonment in August of 1969, with Rudolf Vrba as a prosecution witness. Krumey died in 1981 shortly after being released from prison due to illness.
Born north of Bratislava, in a town renamed Šumperk, Hermann Krumey could be considered a Slovakian countryman of Rudolf Vrba.
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The SS did not dress exclusively in black uniforms as is often depicted in movies. Various shades of grey were used, with the Waffen-SS using the greenish Feldgrau of the German Army. Feldgrau (field grey) is a gray-ish green colour.
In the Vrba-Wetzler Report, Vrba also cites SS Sturmfuehrer Wikleff:
“SS Sturmfuehrer Wikleff, commander of this detachment, was a brute who often beat the girls. These girls came daily from Birkenau to work. They told us unbelievable stories about conditions prevailing there. They were beaten and tortured. Mortality was higher among them than it was among men. “Selections” were made twice weekly, and there were new girls daily to replace those who had been “selected” or had died in some other way.
“On my first night shift I had occasion to see how transports coming to Auschwitz were treated. A transport consisting of Polish Jews arrived. They had traveled without water and about a hundred were dead on their arrival. When the doors of the cars were opened, the Jews, completely weakened by the long journey and privations, were driven out wailing. Quick beating by SS men speeded up the unloading. Then the unfortunates were lined up in rows of five. Our task was to remove the corpses, those half dead, and parcels from the railroad cars. We placed the bodies at a collecting point. All those unable to stand on their feet were declared dead. Parcels were thrown into one stack. The cars had to be thoroughly cleaned so that no trace of the transport remained. A commission of the political division then selected ten percent of the men and five percent of the women, who were assigned to camp. The remainder was loaded on trucks and taken to the birchwood, where they were gassed. Corpses and those half dead were also loaded on trucks. These were burned in the birchwood without being gassed first. Small children were often thrown on the truck with the corpses.”
“The ugliest murder in the history of crime cannot surpass the atrocities of National Socialism. What happened 47 years ago in Auschwitz puts everything else in the shadow and is beyond any human comprehension” — closing statement, Hans-Joachim Roseler, prosecutor general of the Cologne Office for the Prosecution of Nazi Crimes
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Here is a National Film Board of Canada Film about the case of several of the Auschwitz guards. It mentions various personalities already mentioned herein.
In this film, Bernard Laufer, a glass cutter from Toronto accompanied by his son, Joe, returned to Germany. He had been in 11 camps, the last one being Bergen-Belsen
Notable points in the timeline:
17:15 William Bolger beat men’s testicles until they died
22:00 War Criminals arrive to court
22:50 Klehr
22:53 Bednarek “who interrupted torture for prayer.”
22:59 Boger
23:39 discussion of Boger
25:10 they used the ashes from the crematoria to sprinkle on icy roads
26:40 “After Auschwitz all things are possible.”
30:00 Simon Weisenthal
31.24 He says he knows of three Ukrainian Nazis living in Saskatchewan
32:20 Trapmann (sp?) “We swore never to forgive not just the Nazis, but the Pope in Rome, who did nothing… Churchill, Roosevelt and many of our brothers- Jews who lived comfortably and did nothing…
40:44 Josef Rosensaft from New York, who escaped Auschwitz three times but has never told his story. It is unclear from which of the Auschwitz camps he escaped. There were 40 Auschwitz sub-camps, housing 100 to 3,500 prisoners. [Rosensaft was born to an affluent scrap-metal dealer in Będzin in Poland and was in his youth active in the Zionist Labor Movement. He was deported to Auschwitz in 1943 but escaped the transport by jumping into the Vistula River. He was injured by gunfire during the escape but walked back to Będzin, where he was captured again, given 250 lashes and confined to a chicken cage, before being sent to Auschwitz and several other concentration camps until he was sent on a death march to Bergen-Belsen, where he was liberated on April 15, 1945. He weighed 76 lbs when he was liberated.]
55:20 Haunting Birkenau footage.
A LIST OF NAZIS AT AUSCHWITZ
Commandants
1.SS Hauptsturmführer Karl Fritzsch (Killed in Action)
2.SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Fritz Hartjenstein (1944, when Vrba and Wetzler escaped. Died in jail, waiting for execution in France.)
3.SS Hauptsturmführer Rudolf Höss (Executed by the Poles)
4.SS Obersturmführer Arthur Liebhenschel (Executed by the Poles)
SS & Civilian Doctors
Dr Carl Clauberg (Died in a West German Prison)
Dr Arnold Dohmen (Fate Unknown)
SS Hauptsturmführer Dr Friedrich – Karl Entress (Executed by the Allies)
Dr Kurt Gutzeit (Fate Unknown)
SS Hauptsturmführer Dr Willy Jobst (Executed by the Allies)
SS Obersturmführer Dr Bruno Kitt (Executed by the Allies)
SS Hauptsturmführer Dr Fritz Klein (Executed by the Allies)
SS Untersturmführer Dr Hans – Wilhelm König (Fate Unknown)
SS Hauptsturmführer Dr Eduard Krebsbach (Executed by the Allies)
SS Untersturmführer Dr Johannes Kremer (Life Imprisonment)
SS Obersturmführer Dr Franz Lucas (3yrs Imprisonment)
Female SS Oberaufseherinen Dr Maria Mandel (Executed by the Poles)
SS Hauptsturmführer Dr Josef Mengele (Escaped Abroad – Died in a Swiming Accident)
SS Obersturmführer Dr Hans Munch (Acquitted)
SS Obersturmführer Dr Werner Rohde (Executed by the Allies)
SS Sturmbannführer Dr Horst Schumann (Escaped Abroad)
SS Obersturmführer Dr Horst Thilo (Committed Suicide)
SS Hauptsturmführer Dr Alfred Trzebinski (Executed by the Allies)
SS Hauptsturmführer Dr Helmuth Vetter (Executed by the Allies)
SS Hauptsturmführer Dr Eduard Wirths (Committed Suicide in Prison)
Dr Helmut Wirths (Fate Unknown)
Guards
SS Hauptsturmführer Benno Adolf (Died – Not Prosecuted)
SS Unterscharführer Bruno – Hugo Albrecht (7yrs Imprisonment)
SS Obersturmführer Hans Aumeier (Executed by the Allies)
SS Hauptsturmführer Richard Baer (Escaped Abroad – Died in Prison)
SS Rottenführer Karl Bainski (Fate Unknown)
SS Unterscharführer Karl Bara (3yrs Imprisonment)
SS Rottenführer Stefan Baretzki (Life & 8yrs Imprisonment)
SS Sturmmann Josef Baumstark (Fate Unknown)
SS Unterstumführer Emil Bednarek (Life Imprisonment)
SS Obersturmführer Otto Blaschke (Fate Unknown)
SS Rottenführer Richard Böck (Acquitted)
SS Obersturmführer Franz Bodmann (Died – Not Prosecuted)
SS Hauptscharführer Wilhelm Boger (Life & 15yrs Imprisonment)
SS Unterscharführer August Bogusch (Executed by the Poles)
SS Unterscharführer Georg Bonigut (Fate Unknown)
Female SS Aufseherinen Juana Bormann (Executed by the Allies)
SS Oberscharführer Hans Bott (5yrs Imprisonment)
Female SS Aufseherinen Therese Brandl (Executed by the Poles)
SS Unterscharführer Arthur Breitwieser (Life Imprisonment)
SS Rottenführer Pery Broad (4yrs Imprisonment)
SS Unterscharführer Karl – Reinhard Broch (Fate Unknown)
SS Unterscharführer Anton Brose (Fate Unknown)
SS Scharführer Hermann – Balthasar Buch (Fate Unknown)
SS Sturmmann Alexander Bulow (15yrs Imprisonment)
SS Unterscharführer Fritz Buntrock (Executed by the Poles)
SS Obersturmbannführer Wilhelm Burger (5yrs & 8yrs Imprisonment)
SS Hauptscharführer Viktor Capesius (9yrs Imprisonment)
SS Sturmscharführer Lorenz Carstensen (Died in Prison)
Female SS Aufseherinen Luise Danz (Life Imprisonment)
SS Obersturmführer Hans Delmotte (Committed Suicide)
SS Hauptsturmführer Oskar Dienstbach (Died – Not Prosecuted)
SS Sturmmann Erich Dinges (5yrs Imprisonment)
SS Unterscharführer Andreas – Hans Draser (Fate Unknown)
Female SS Aufseherinen Margot Dreschler (Fate Unknown)
SS Scharführer Klaus Dylewski (5yrs Imprisonment)
SS Unterscharführer Josef Dziersan (Fate Unknown)
SS Unterscharführer Josef Eckhardt (Fate Unknown)
SS Unterscharführer Gerhard Effinger (Fate Unknown)
SS Scharführer Karl Egersdorf (Acquitted)
Female SS Aufseherinen Herta Ehlert (15yrs Imprisonment)
SS Oberscharführer Wilhelm Emmerich (WIA – Died in Hospital)
SS Hauptsturmführer Horst – Paul Fischer (Executed by West Germany)
SS Hauptsturmführer Karl – Josef Fischer (Fate Unknown)
SS Sturmmann Willi Florschütz (Fate Unknown)
SS Unterscharführer Gustav Frank (Fate Unknown)
SS Hauptscharführer Willi Frank (7yrs Imprisonment)
SS Hauptscharführer Jakob Fries (Fate Unknown)
SS Hauptscharführer Wilhelm Gehring (Executed by the Poles)
SS Obersturmführer Gerhard Gerber (Fate Unknown)
SS Oberscharführer Emanuel Glumbik (Fate Unknown)
SS Unterscharführer Herbert Göbbert (Fate Unknown)
SS Unterscharführer Johann Gorges (Died – Not Prosecuted)
SS Rottenführer Paul Gotze (Executed by the Poles)
Female SS Aufseherinen Irma Grese (Executed by the Allies)
SS Oberscharführer Maximilian Grabner (Executed by the Poles)
SS Rottenführer Ladislaw Gura (Acquitted)
SS Unterstumführer Ferdinand Hammer (Escaped Abroad)
SS Rottenführer Emil Hantl (3 ½yrs Imprisonment)
SS Hauptscharführer Friedrich Harder (Fate Unknown)
SS Obersturmbannführer Fritz Hartjenstein (Died of a heart attack while awaiting execution)
SS Hauptsturmführer Erwin von Helmersen (Executed by the Poles)
SS Hauptsturmführer Erwin Heschl (Fate Unknown)
SS Rottenführer Karl Höcker (7yrs Imprisonment)
SS Oberscharführer Franz – Johann Hoffmann (Life Imprisonment)
SS Rottenführer Hans Hofmann (15yrs Imprisonment)
SS Hauptsturmführer Rudolf Horstmann (Fate Unknown)
SS Obersturmführer Franz Hössler (Executed by the Allies)
SS Oberscharführer Josef Houstek (Life Imprisonment)
SS Unterscharführer Wilhelm Hoyer (Fate Unknown)
SS Oberscharführer Karl Jeschke (3yrs Imprisonment)
SS Obersturmführer Heinrich Josten (Executed by the Poles)
SS Hauptsturmführer Julius Jung (KIA by Russians)
SS Unterscharführer Oswald Kaduk (25yrs Imprisonment)
SS Unterscharführer Johann Kamphus (Fate Unknown)
SS Unterscharführer Hans – Walter Kapper (Died – Not Prosecuted)
SS Unterscharführer Edward Kelm (Fate Unknown)
SS Unterscharführer Hermann Kirschner (Executed by the Poles)
SS Sturmscharführer Josef Klehr (Life & 15yrs Imprisonment)
SS Oberscharführer Kurt Knittel (Fate Unknown)
SS Unterscharführer Hans Koch (Life Imprisonment)
SS Obersturmführer Josef Kollmer (Executed by the Poles)
SS Unterscharführer Ernst König (Life Imprisonment)
SS Hauptsturmführer Josef Kramer (Executed by the Allies)
SS Obersturmführer Theodor Kraetzer (Fate Unknown)
SS Sturmbannführer Franz Kraus (Executed by the Poles)
SS Hauptscharführer Eduard Kreibisch (Fate Unknown)
SS Unterscharführer Bernhard Kristan (Fate Unknown)
SS Sturmbannführer Adolf Krömer (Died – Not Prosecuted)
SS Hauptsturmführer Georg Kudriawtzow (Fate Unknown)
SS Rottenführer Romuald Kunzelmann (Fate Unknown)
SS Untersturmführer Alois Kurz (Fate Unknown)
Female SS Aufseherinen Hildegard Lachert (15yrs Imprisonment)
SS Unterscharführer Gerhard Lachmann (Fate Unknown)
SS Unterscharführer Franz Laister (Fate Unknown)
Female SS Aufseherinen Johanna Langefeldt (Fate Unknown)
SS Unterscharführer Otto Latsch (Executed by the Poles)
SS Rottenführer Anton Lechner (Life Imprisonment)
SS Unterscharführer Eduard Lorenz (15yrs Imprisonment)
SS Oberscharführer Herbert Ludwig (Executed by the Poles)
SS Untersturmführer Georg – Franz Mayer (Fate Unknown)
SS Unterscharführer Adolf Medefind (Life Imprisonment)
SS Untersturmführer Max Meyr (Fate Unknown)
SS Obersturmbannführer Karl Mockel (Executed by the Poles)
SS Unterscharführer Otto Möll (Executed by the Allies)
SS Oberscharführer Erich Mühsfeldt (Executed by the Poles)
SS Hauptsturmführer Robert Mulka (14yrs Imprisonment)
SS Unterscharführer Kurt Müller (Executed by the Poles)
SS Hauptscharführer Detlef Nebbe (Life Imprisonment)
SS Oberscharführer Hinrich Oppelt (Fate Unknown)
SS Oberscharführer Walter Otto (Acquitted)
SS Hauptscharführer Gerhard Palitzsch (Dissapeared)
SS Obersturmführer Bruno Pfuetze (Fate Unknown)
SS Unterscharführer Hans Pichler (Fate Unknown)
SS Oberscharführer Ludwig Plagge (Executed by the Poles)
SS Sturmbannführer Max Popiersch (Died of Typhus)
SS Hauptsturmführer Elimar – Lüder Precht (Fate Unknown)
SS Rottenführer Heinrich Pyschny (Fate Unknown)
SS Oberscharführer Walter – Konrad Quakernack (Executed by the Poles)
SS Unterscharführer Karl Reichenbacher (Fate Unknown)
SS Unterscharführer Franz Romeikat (15yrs Imprisonment)
SS Rottenführer Johann Roth (Fate Unknown)
SS Hauptsturmführer Erich Sautter (Fate Unknown)
SS Hauptscharführer Willi – Rudolf Sawatzki (Acquitted)
SS Rottenführer Willi Schatz (Acquitted)
SS Oberscharführer Herbert Scherpe (4 ½yrs Imprisonment)
SS Oberscharführer Bruno Schlange (6yrs Imprisonment)
SS Hauptsturmführer Friedrich Schlüter (4 & ½yrs Imprisonment)
SS Untersturmführer Karl Schmidt (Fate Unknown)
SS Unterscharführer Johann Schobert (Acquitted)
SS Unterscharführer Heinrich Schoppe (Fate Unknown)
SS Obersturmführer Vincenz Schöttl (Executed by the Allies)
SS Unterscharführer Richard Schröder (10yrs Imprisonment)
SS Untersturmführer Wilhelm Schulte (Fate Unknown)
SS Unterscharführer Heinz – Arthur Willi – Schulz (Fate Unknown)
SS Unterscharführer Hans Schumacher (Executed by the Poles)
SS Untersturmführer Hans Schurz (Died – Not Prosecuted)
SS Hauptsturmführer Heinrich Schwarz (Executed by the French)
SS Obersturmführer Johann Schwarzhüber (Executed by the Allies)
SS Hauptsturmführer Siegfried Schwela (Died of Typhus)
SS Hauptsturmführer Fritz Seidler (KIA by Russians)
SS Unterscharführer Robert Seitz (Fate Unknown)
SS Obersturmführer Max Sell (Died – Not Prosecuted)
SS Hauptscharführer Karl Seufert (Life Imprisonment)
SS Schütze Emil Simczek (Fate Unknown)
SS Oberscharführer Willi Stark (10yrs Imprisonment)
SS Unterscharführer Karl – Fritz Steinberg (Fate Unknown)
SS Unterscharführer Friedrich Stiewitz (Died – Not Prosecuted)
SS Unterscharführer Paul Szczurek (Executed by the Poles)
SS Unterscharführer Adolf Taube (Fate Unknown)
SS Sturmbannführer Karl Heinz – Joachim Tauber (4yrs Imprisonment)
SS Unterscharführer Adolf Theuer (Executed by the Czechs)
SS Sturmbannführer Kurt Erich – Willy Uhlenbroock (Not Prosecuted)
SS Sturmmann Rudolf Viehweger (Fate Unknown)
Female SS Oberaufseherinen Elisabeth Völkenrath (Executed by the Allies)
SS Oberscharführer Peter Voss (Fate Unknown)
SS Hauptsturmführer Rudolf Wagner (KIA by Russians)
SS Hauptscharführer Bernhard Walter (Fate Unknown)
SS Sturmmann Johannes Weber (15yrs Imprisonment)
SS Hauptscharführer Peter Weingartner (Executed by the Allies)
SS Unterscharführer Gottfried Weise (Life Imprisonment)
SS Scharführer Richard Wiegleb (Fate Unknown)
SS Oberscharführer Josef – Alois Wietschök (Fate Unknown)
SS Untersturmführer Karl Wotke (Fate Unknown)
SS Untersturmführer Herbert Wuttke (Fate Unknown)
SS Rottenführer Paul Zielke (Fate Unknown)
Wachmann
SS Wachmann Vassily Pankov (Possibly Killed by the Russians)
SS Wachmann Ivan Scharujew (Fate Unknown)
Unknown SS
SS Schutze Höblinger (Fate Unknown)
SS Unterscharführer Rathmann (Fate Unknown)
SS Scharführer Taubert (Fate Unknown)
SS Scharführer Wiebeck (Fate Unknown)
SOURCE: List provided by Schmauser, Axis History Forum
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