AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU

Sub-camp remains...

A sub-camp located on the outskirts of Gliwice in the vicinity of military barracks built by the Wehrmacht. In June 1944, about 80 Russian and Polish prisoners were brought there from Monowitz. In August, during the operation to transfer Polish prisoners to other concentration camps, they were replaced by Hungarian and Polish Jews. Their first job was to erect a barbed-wire fence and barracks, including a kitchen, bathhouse, and latrine. Later they worked at facilities that converted army truck engines to run on wood gas from gasifiers. They also labored at the river port on the Gliwice Canal. The sub-camp director was SS-Unterscharführer Otto Lätsch. Uniformed Todt Organization guards supported the SS. Just before evacuation, there were 444 prisoners there. The majority of them were led out of the camp in January 1945. They got to Sośnicowice before being turned back to Blechhammer, where they joined up with prisoners being evacuated from other sub-camps, or waited in hiding until liberation. 57 prisoners unfit for marching were left behind in the infirmary. The SS set the building ablaze before fleeing, and shot at anyone who tried to get out through the infirmary windows. Only two prisoners, who hid among the corpses, survived. 

Source: Auschwitz from A to Z. An Illustrated History