Auschwitz III - Monowitz |
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The third Nazi concentration camp located near the town of what was then called Auschwitz, was known as Monowitz. This was the most important camp to the Nazi regime as this is where factories essential to the German war effort were located. In April 1941, using prisoners from Auschwitz I camp as labour. Many workers would walk some 4 to 6 kilometers east to the building site and return to the camp at the end if their working day. The Monowitz camp is no longer in existence, but the Buna Werke factories which were once owned by I.G. Farben, were taken over by the Poles and are still in use today.
Monowitz was built as a workcamp though it also contained a Labour Education Camp for non-Jewish prisoners perceived not up to standard of Germans. It housed approximately 12,000 prisoners, with the majority being Jews, in addition to political prisoners and non-Jewish criminals who were leased out by the SS to IG Farben. The SS were also making money out of the venture, charging IG Farben three Reichsmarks a day for each unskilled worker, four Reichsmarks per hour for each skilled worker, and one and a half Reichsmarks for children. Jews who were sent to Auschwitz and fortunate enough to be assigned to work at Monowitz had an increased chance of survival as factory workers were considered to be too valuable to send to the gas chambers (for as long as they were able to work at least.) A Jewish workers life expectancy at Buna Werke was just three to four months and for workers in the mines in the outlaying area, just one month and any person deemed unfit for work were gassed at Birkenau.
The only tangible positive anyone can take from this camp is that productivity was not what was hoped for and became a constant source of irritation to IG Farben management. It was thought that motivation was not the cause as beatings and threats of beatings were thought enough to keep the workers sufficiently motivated. Of course the underlying problem was hunger of the prisoners, thus creating a weak workforce, something that only realised as late as December 1944. Monowitz remained active until just one week before the Russians liberated the camp on 27th January 1945. The last roll call showed a total of 67,012 prisoners in the three Auschwitz camps . More than half were the workers in the Monowitz Buna plant and its sub camps.
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