AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU

SS kitchen and...

A sub-camp founded in Chorzów-Batory (in German: Konigshütte-Bismarck) in September 1944, near the Bismarck steel mill, belonging to the Berghütte company. Most of the approximately 200 prisoners were Jews from France, Belgium, and Bohemia. They lived in barracks made of sawdust-cement panels where, aside from sleeping quarters, there were also a kitchen, infirmary, and storeroom. The camp was surrounded by electrified barbed-wire fencing and additionally, on the side facing a road, a high screen to shield it from view. Prisoners first labored at expanding the camp and, from November, unloaded trains, transported material, and dug ditches at the mill. Others were employed producing barrels and armor for flak guns. The camp director was SS-Oberscharführer Hermann Kleeman. The prisoners were evacuated on foot to Gliwice in January 1945, and then by rail to the Nordhausen-Dora camp.

Source: Auschwitz from A to Z. An Illustrated History