A standing cell is a special cell constructed so as to prevent the prisoner from doing anything but stand. It was used in 19th century Turkey, and in 20th century Chile, Germany, and Soviet Union. The Stehbunker was used in Nazi concentration camps during the Third Reich as a punishment. [1] Standing cells were also used during Joseph Stalin's purges in the Soviet Union. [2] Some standing cells were large enough for only one person, others held as many as four people.
The Armenian hosiery-manufacturer and musician Samuel Hovannes Zorian was arrested in 1895 by Ottoman authorities for being a political activist. He was beaten and incarcerated in a so-called "police room", measuring barely two square feet (0.19 m2) and with no windows. On the second day, he was dragged out and beaten almost senseless with sticks. Zorian was then sent back to the "police room" where he was confined for a further week and was only sustained on a diet of bread and water, with no medical attention given to him during that period. [3]
SA camp commandant Werner Schäfer had two cells built in the basement of the Oranienburg concentration camp in 1933. The dimensions of the cell were such that a person could only stand. A prisoner surnamed Neumann was held there for 192 hours (eight full days) and was allegedly driven mad as a result of his confinement. At times, prisoners were held in small coffin-sized closets in which they could only stand.
The number of prisoners in Dachau concentration camp increased dramatically in the last years of the Second World War. The concentration camp was overcrowded. In late 1944, the camp command erected standing cells. The stone chambers were similar to chimneys and measured 75 x 80 cm (29.5 x 31.5 inches). [note 1] There was a small hatch on top for air, and a narrow door with an iron bar bolted to the cell. The intensified punitive measure saved room and reinforced the punitive agony. There were also standing cells at the Allach subcamp, where the cells were smaller than at Dachau. Some at other camps were bigger, about 90 x 90 cm (35.5 x 35.5 inches). [4]
For example, the prisoner K. A. Gross and the Polish prisoner Max Hoffmann spent days in the standing cell. Hoffmann described it thus:
It was a terrible state, as I thought that it was over for me, everything was so callous and distant for me. I couldn't lie down, couldn't crouch, the best was to stand, stand, six days and six nights long. [...] You touch the walls on both sides with your elbows, your back touches the wall behind you, your knees the wall in front of you. [...] This is no punishment or pre-trial detention, it is torture, straight forward, Middle Ages torture. I had bloodshot eyes, numb from bad air, I was just waiting for the end. [5]
According to Johannes Neuhäusler , an inmate in the standing cell received a single piece of bread in three days. [note 2] On the fourth day, the prisoner was removed from the standing cell, given a normal camp meal ration and allowed to sleep on a wooden cot. On the next day, the three-day confinement in the standing cell began anew.
The SS did not always adhere to the interruption after the third day. A Czech prisoner, Radovan Drazan, spent eight days without a break in a standing cell. [6] Sometimes, prisoners were not even allowed a brief break from the cell, so that they had burns on their bodies from feces and urine.[ citation needed ]
There were four standing cells at Auschwitz in the basement of Block 11, which measured about one square yard (0.84 m2), and in which four persons were crammed, able only to stand. There was only a 2 inches (5.1 cm) opening for air, so that prisoners would not suffocate. [7] Punishment in these cells was usually imposed for a period of 10 days. [7] Auschwitz survivor Josef Kral testified at the Auschwitz Trials about the standing cells where he had been held for six weeks with three meals during that time, and about how one prisoner was so hungry, he ate his shoes. [8] [9] Commander Rudolf Höss, the camp commander, stated that punishment in the standing cells was limited to three nights, but this was disputed by prisoners. [7] Artur Liebehenschel, Höss' successor at Auschwitz in 1943, removed the standing cells. [10]
According to Soviet defector Aleksandr Mikhailovich Orlov, the standing cell, called a kishka (Russian for "intestine"), [11] was used as part of the Stalinist purges of the 1930s. After two days in a standing cell, a Secretary of the Tatar Provincial Committee was removed in an unconscious state. [2]
There were standing cells at Villa Grimaldi, some of which held a single prisoner, others several. [12]
Auschwitz concentration camp was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschwitz I, the main camp (Stammlager) in Oświęcim; Auschwitz II-Birkenau, a concentration and extermination camp with gas chambers; Auschwitz III-Monowitz, a labour camp for the chemical conglomerate IG Farben; and dozens of subcamps. The camps became a major site of the Nazis' Final Solution to the Jewish question.
Arbeit macht frei ( ) is a German phrase translated as "Work makes one free" or more idiomatically "Work sets you free".
Nazi Germany used six extermination camps, also called death camps, or killing centers, in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million people – mostly Jews – in the Holocaust. The victims of death camps were primarily murdered by gassing, either in permanent installations constructed for this specific purpose, or by means of gas vans. The six extermination camps were Chełmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Extermination through labour was also used at the Auschwitz and Majdanek death camps. Millions were also murdered in concentration camps, in the Aktion T4, or directly on site.
Dachau was one of the first concentration camps built by Nazi Germany and the longest running one, opening on 22 March 1933. The camp was initially intended to intern Hitler's political opponents, which consisted of communists, social democrats, and other dissidents. It is located on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory northeast of the medieval town of Dachau, about 16 km (10 mi) northwest of Munich in the state of Bavaria, in southern Germany. After its opening by Heinrich Himmler, its purpose was enlarged to include forced labor, and eventually, the imprisonment of Jews, Romani, German and Austrian criminals, and, finally, foreign nationals from countries that Germany occupied or invaded. The Dachau camp system grew to include nearly 100 sub-camps, which were mostly work camps or Arbeitskommandos, and were located throughout southern Germany and Austria. The main camp was liberated by U.S. forces on 29 April 1945.
Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Höss was a German SS officer and the commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp. After the defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of World War II, he was convicted in Poland and executed for war crimes committed on the prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp and for his role in the Holocaust.
Maria Mandl was an Austrian SS-Helferin and a War Criminal known for her role in the Holocaust as a top-ranking official at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, where she is believed to have been directly complicit in the deaths of over 500,000 prisoners. She was executed for war crimes.
Margot Elisabeth Dreschel, also spelled Drechsler, or Drexler, was a prison guard at Nazi concentration camps during World War II. For her role in the Holocaust, she was sentenced to death and hanged.
Richard Baer was a German SS officer who, among other assignments, was the commandant of Auschwitz I concentration camp from May 1944 to January 1945, and right after, from February to April 1945, commandant of Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp. Following the war, Baer lived under an assumed name to avoid prosecution but was recognized and arrested in December 1960. He died in detention before he could stand trial.
Arthur Liebehenschel was a German commandant at the Auschwitz and Majdanek concentration camps during the Holocaust. After the war, he was convicted of war crimes by the Polish government and executed in 1948.
SS-Totenkopfverbände was the Schutzstaffel (SS) organization responsible for administering the Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps for Nazi Germany, among similar duties. While the Totenkopf was the universal cap badge of the SS, the SS-TV also wore this insignia on the right collar tab to distinguish itself from other SS formations.
A kapo or prisoner functionary was a prisoner in a Nazi camp who was assigned by the Schutzstaffel (SS) guards to supervise forced labor or carry out administrative tasks.
Karl Fritzsch was a German member of the Nazi paramilitary organization, the Schutzstaffel (SS) from 1933 to 1945. He was a deputy and acting commandant at the Auschwitz concentration camp. According to Rudolf Höss, Fritzsch first suggested using poisonous gas Zyklon B for the purpose of mass murder.
The Postenpflicht was a general order issued to SS-Totenkopfverbände guards in Nazi concentration camps to summarily execute insubordinate prisoners. The order required guards to shoot prisoners who engaged in resistance or escape attempts, without warning; failing to do so would result in dismissal or arrest. The Postenpflicht was originally issued on October 1, 1933, for guards at Dachau concentration camp, but was later extended to other concentration camps.
The Disciplinary and Penal Code was first written for Dachau concentration camp and became the uniform code at all SS concentration camps in the Third Reich on January 1, 1934. Also known as the Strafkatalog, it detailed the regulations for prisoners. SS guards were instructed to report violations of the code to the commandant's office. The Concentration Camps Inspectorate was responsible for execution of the resulting punishment, which was carried out without verification of the allegations or any possibility of vindication.
The Concentration Camps Inspectorate (CCI) or in German, IKL was the central SS administrative and managerial authority for the concentration camps of the Third Reich. Created by Theodor Eicke, it was originally known as the "General Inspection of the Enhanced SS-Totenkopfstandarten", after Eicke's position in the SS. It was later integrated into the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office as "Amt D".
During the Holocaust, death marches were massive forced transfers of prisoners from one Nazi camp to other locations, which involved walking long distances resulting in numerous deaths of weakened people. Most death marches took place toward the end of World War II, mostly after the summer/autumn of 1944. Hundreds of thousands of prisoners, mostly Jews, from Nazi camps near the Eastern Front were moved to camps inside Germany away from the Allied forces. Their purpose was to continue the use of prisoners' slave labour, to remove evidence of crimes against humanity, and to keep the prisoners from bargaining with the Allies.
Block 11 was the name of a brick building in Auschwitz I, the Stammlager or main camp of the Auschwitz concentration camp network. This block was used for executions and torture. Between Block 10 and Block 11 stood the "Death Wall" where thousands of prisoners were lined up for execution by firing squad.
The organization of underground resistance movements in Auschwitz concentration camp began in the second half of 1940, shortly after the camp became operational in May that year. In September 1940 Witold Pilecki, a Polish army captain, arrived in the camp. Using the name Tomasz Serafiński, Pilecki had allowed himself to be captured by Germans in a street round up (łapanka) with the goal of having himself sent to Auschwitz to gather information and organize resistance inside. Under Pilecki's direction the Związek Organizacji Wojskowej, ZOW, was formed.
The Holocaust in Hungary was the dispossession, deportation, and systematic murder of more than half of the Hungarian Jews, primarily after the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944.
Dachau is a 72-page investigation report by the 7th US Army on Dachau, one of the concentration camps established by Nazi Germany. The report details the mass murder and mass atrocities committed at Dachau by the SS and other personnel. Following the liberation of the camp by the 7th US Army on 29 April 1945, the report was prepared during the following one or two weeks and published in May. In addition to a preface, the report contains three independent reports which partly overlap thematically. Although it contains some errors, the report is considered one of the first studies on the Nazi concentration camps.
were ten tight spaces for holding prisoners, about 70 by 70 centimeters [two feet square] and two meters high with a tiny door at the bottom which one had to enter on one's knees […] vertical sections like closets where the prisoner had to remain standing in darkness for several days