AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU

Building in which...

A sub-camp at the Laura mill in Siemianowice Śląskie owned by the gigantic Rheinmetall Borsig AG company of Dusseldorf. The camp opened in early April 1944 when a transport of about 200 prisoners, mostly Jews from France and Holland, arrived in Siemianowice. More prisoners followed over the subsequent months, and the population rose steadily to 550 prisoners in the summer and 937 in the days before evacuation.

The prisoners were housed inside the factory, where three-tier bunks were provided. The sub-camp also included a kitchen barracks, an infirmary, and a brick storehouse. A three-meter-high wall topped with barbed wire surrounded the camp, with guard towers at the corners. SS-Oberscharführer Walter Quakernack, who had only a few SS men under his command, was the director. The actual guards were coastal artillery soldiers commanded by Obermat Adamczyk. The prisoners manufactured double flak units. In January 1945 the prisoners were loaded onto train cars waiting at a nearby siding and taken to Mauthausen. 

Source: Auschwitz from A to Z. An Illustrated History