Birkenau Russian Graveyard for POW's

This Birkenau Russian Graveyard is where many of about 15,000 Soviet POWs who were brought to Auschwitz are buried, only 92 remained alive at the last roll call.

In the video, this field beyond the monument is where some 10,000 Soviet prisoners of war are buried.

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“Police operational groups—Einsatzgruppen—were supposed to seek out and kill the commissars and communists from among the soldiers. These Einsatzgruppen were set up before the attack on the USSR to “cleanse” areas near the front of “dangerous elements,” such as communists, partisans, Jews, and Roma. Later, the search was extended to POW camps in the depths of the Reich. Executions would take place in the nearest concentration camp.

One such group of about 600 Soviet POWs was brought to Auschwitz in the first days of September 1941 and taken to the cellars of block 11. About 250 Polish prisoners selected from the camp hospital were also taken there, after which SS men in gas masks dumped Zyklon B in the cellar rooms, causing the death of the POWs and prisoners there in the course of two days. This was the largest group to be murdered during the tests of Zyklon B, which was used later in the mass extermination of the Jews.” Source: Auschwitz Museum

Out of the first 10,000 Russian POWs brought to work at Auschwitz in 1941, 9,000 died in the first 6 months.

This field beyond the monument is where some 10,000 Soviet prisoners of war are buried, the Birkenau Russian Graveyard.The Nazis were very hard on Russian POW’s, many of whom were so starved they resorted to cannibalism.

The Nazis treated the Soviet POW’S more horribly than troops of any other nationality, Hitler having deemed the war a racial struggle for survival over the Slavs and Communism. Often POW’s would be surrounded by barbed wire and left to their own resources with no food, water or housing.

At first, the Soviet POWs were held in a separate part of the camp (Auschwitz I).

Later, the SS transferred the Soviet POWs to Auschwitz II Birkenau.

Russian POWs drawing by survivor Wladyslaw Siwek
Reproduction courtesy of Auschwitz Museum Archive, 1980

All photos and videos are Copyright Alan Jacobs and Remember.org.

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