Auschwitz One Day | Special | Full Documentary

Bernard Balter is up early the SS sergeant major has been ordered to attend a special detail due today an action no Outsider May ever know about from his flat on the outskirts of ozvichim called Auschwitz by the Germans it's only a few kilometers to his destination valter is driving into a bright sunny day at this hour Crematory 3 in the concentration camp complex of Auschwitz birkenau is already running the camp inmates have to rise between 4 and 5 AM work begins at 6. for breakfast there's only hot broth for some like Dario goodbye there's a bit more goodbye is part of a special command the so-called Zonda Commando 's better than anything we didn't have but that's why we survived a lot you know because we had good enough food to survive and enough things you know clean and everything else it's a tiny but vital bonus yet it comes at a price from the sleeping quarters under the roof goodbye descends the few steps down to the incinerators this is where the special Commandos are working Round the Clock in two 12-hour shifts starting at 6am after seven days the shifts are reversed this has been going on for 10 days now it's mid-may 1944 and there seems to be no end in sight train after train keeps coming in and on this day too new transports arrive at the camp [Music] the transport Journal is when the the Guardians were coming or something that we never believed to that were coming five fifteen thousand a day you know it was a half a million people it's was bagged in the mind you know they were coming and coming on the 26th of May 11 five trains deliver 16 000 Hungarian Jews at Auschwitz one of them is 13 year old Irene [Music] the younger children and nothing was said to them they were close to my mother on the floor and the rest of us a little further but we all understood that that we are captive of some situation we're helpless and hopeless here and there is just such fear that what the fear was so strong and yet always thinking it can't be as bad as it looks there's always some kind of hope the passengers have no idea where they're going nor what awaits them things just that happened too fast Europe in Spring 1944 Germany and her satellites among them hungry still control large parts of the continent yet the Allies are advancing on all fronts the Red Army has reached the Eastern borders of Hungary whose leaders are thinking about switching sides to counter that option on March the 19th 1944 the German Army moves it to Hungary country's 8 thousand strong Jewish population is now the mercy of the occupiers the Nazis intend to annihilate them just as they've been doing in other places within their reach but at first some 150 000 Hungarian Jews are to be exploited as slave laborers in the reich's arms factories the Jewish inhabitants of the Carpathian Village of batrad in today's Ukraine are among the first to be rounded up people like Maya Fogle attend the merchant he and his wife Leah as well as their six children must prepare to depart at the end of May a telegram informs the German foreign office in Berlin that as of today 150 000 Jews from Carpathia and Transylvania have been dispatched to their destination in Nazi parlance destination he calls Auschwitz among the deportees rumors abound so I heard the grown-up saying what we heard was that in Poland they gathered Jewish people into the forest and there was a firing squad waiting for them and they were literally mowed down and buried into mayor's Graves and we heard that but we didn't believe it my father kept watching the the land outside and he knew that where the tracks were going where the separation to various places and so he did announce at one point that the train turned towards Poland it was very soon after a few minutes after he could tell and then there was absolute silence in the in the car on May the 26 1944 their train rolls into the camp of Auschwitz birkenau the tracks have been specifically extended right to the camp complex but the handling of the additional transports from Hungary there must be no hitches in the final solution my father looked out there and and when the train stopped he looked out and he said this is not the forest this is icy barracks and I see prisoners in striped uniforms soldiers but a lot of barracks and it looks like it's a labor camp it's a Work Camp and people were suddenly relaxed everybody said okay if it's a labor cam I heard the grown-up saying okay so we can work you know if that's what it is again will work until the war is over we'll work until this changes again who could ever imagine what followed no way no way immediately next to the ramp the guard room of the so-called block fuhrers SS men in charge of receiving the human cargo her most suitable place for Bernhard Walter to park his motorbike from here it's only a few meters walk to the site of the events of Alta has been ordered to record [Music] even at this early hour everyone's busy at the ramp a column of Jews from Hungary is about to be processed as the SS calls it foreign [Music] taking photographs within the camp is strictly prohibited yet these days Bernhard of Alta operates his camera for all to see [Music] his photos the only ones ever to show an extermination camp at work [Music] why is he entitled to do what others can't historian Stefan hurdler has been vexed by this question for years he studied valtter's photographs and his biography extensively what made valtter become the photographer of Auschwitz having been trained as a plasterer he joined the party in the SS in May 1933 according to his handwritten CV in the SS personal files by then valter was 22 years of age and had repeatedly been out of work one of those who only joined the party after the Nazis had come to power to become part of the system they will be highly speculative to say that either he was a fervent believer or that he was a mere opportunist maybe he was both spiders at least he didn't seem to have had any problems serving the regime since he continuously gave everything for the system right up to 1945 and should fight in 1934 vouta volunteers as a guard in Dachau one of the first concentration camps after the Nazis accession to power tens of thousands of opponents are arrested with a view to wiping out any resistance to the new regime over the years voucher is posted to several other camps as the SS establishes ever new camps across the country in January 1941 he reports for duty at Auschwitz in Upper Silesia her former province of Poland that had been annexed by Germany after the Polish defeat two years before in early 1940 the Germans converted polish Army Barracks near the town into a concentration camp after seven years with the SS it's a familiar sight to bernhardwalter even the inscription over the gate is the same as that of his first posting a Dachau abide mat fry work sets you free at Auschwitz he's entrusted with a special task having cracked his skull in a car accident vauter is unfit for guard Duty yeah the SS stick to their old hands and retrains him as a photographer at Auschwitz he's assigned rooms in Block 26 and is charged with setting up the ID section an establishment of the so-called political branch in each camp it's a pleasant posting the inmates have to do most of the work and there's another SS photographer subordinate to valtter their job is to photograph and to register all new prisoners if one should manage to escape his picture would be displayed all over the region at first the prime function of a concentration camp like Auschwitz is to intimidate the local populace to that end the Germans arbitrarily arrest members of the Polish Elite to suppress any potential resistance if they are little more than children [Music] at Auschwitz voucher is promoted to help shafura the second highest NCO rank within the SS the equivalent of a sergeant major in the army has headed the ID section vow to enjoy special privileges his wife and their one-year-old son get permission to join him at the camp the family soon crows his wife gives birth to another boy and girl [Music] it's all in line with the family-friendly approach of the SS [Music] the central people within the camp structure had their families with them whenever it was feasible to have a private backdrop with a view to balancing out what the files called hard service by relaxation at home in private house Bernard Wilder doesn't merely take shots of prisoners but also of other SS men as official Camp photographer he's present at outings and at parties when there is an important event voucher is accompanied by his number two SS Sergeant Ernest horsman a former primary school teacher with an interest in photography that's why valtter himself can be seen in the photograph of ss Chief Heinrich Himmler taken during a visit at the camp in July 1942. the head of the SS has a special reason for coming to Auschwitz imler wants to inspect a new camp still under construction some three kilometers from the existing Camp which is now labeled a shamlager or main camp the new site is near the village of brijinka called birkenau by the Germans Auschwitz birkenau or Auschwitz 2 has a rectangular layout just like an ancient Roman camp with two intersecting main roads [Music] they separate the Barrack blocks where the inmates append up then set up conveniently apart as the barracks for the guards this is all quite familiar to him in fact he's interested in something else there's a form of Farmhouse of the periphery of the camp of the so-called White House merely the foundations are left Camp commandant Rudolph Hearst has had four airtight Chambers installed in the building he now demonstrates to his boss a new method for the systematic killing of Jews which the regime has initiated the year before up until then they were mostly shot in the White House they die by the discharging of a poisonous gas Cyclone B foreign watches a demonstration of the gas chamber from beginning to end together with his Entourage [Music] among them must have been the man who took these photographs Ben had valter and Ernst Hoffman Himmler is impressed what's more Auschwitz is conveniently located close to several important railroad lines and since other extermination camps such as Treblinka belzech and zombie bore have been given up in view of the approaching front lines Auschwitz now becomes the main murder Factory that's why in May 1944 it becomes the destination of all Jews from Hungary when the train carrying the Fogle family arrives on May the 26th the SS in Auschwitz birkenau has been receiving such transports for nearly two years [Music] yeah the influx of so many people in such a short space of time is an unprecedented sight even for Bernard valter more than 430 000 persons arrive in just eight weeks the so-called Hungarian project is an event of such magnitude that router is expressly ordered to record it with his camera it can be assumed that these photographs were taken on the personal orders of hold off Hurst footage he had been the Camp's commandant until November 1943 and he returned in May 44 to take charge of this special operation and of course he wanted it to be a success story and have himself portrayed as the expert in concentration camper Administration the image is shot by valta during the last week of May seem to have been intended as a kind of performance record Hurst wants to commend himself to his commander-in-chief Heinrich Himmler the message I have everything under control the door opened and uh shouting yelling shouting yelling always Rouse Rouse Rouse and then leave everything behind don't take anything leave everything behind I remember it was still cold and and so my mother was very practical and then she was able to think even then she she told us all put on more clothes put on everybody put on more clothes whatever in the few minutes and so I had a very large coat put that on I had the scarf on my head and then we jumped out of the train and uh left everything else yeah things don't always run as smoothly as this Photograph suggests eyewitnesses tell of scenes of chaos and brutality on the ramp Bernhard valtter sees no use in images that might undermine the impression of a perfect processing of the deportees [Music] our many photographs the cluelessness of the arrivals is evident thank you as a Dimensions they were just glad to get out of this wagon to get some fresh air and maybe see their relatives or some friends from the other cars again so there is a kind of relief on their faces to have at last arrived somewhere and that's supposedly the ordeal of the journey was overcome is even climbs onto the roof of a train to get a good angle for his shots of what is coming next the arrivals are split up into four columns two on the east side of the ramp looking towards the gate the other two on the West Side looking into the opposite direction all columns are adjusted around the central space which remains unoccupied then the train is halved to enable access to Camp Road B next so-called selection Begins by forcing forward women and children at the west side of the ramp Irene Fogle recalls so I'll let the move that the crowd moved up and we moved and suddenly we were in front and we were facing a dozen Nazi soldiers and dogs and and there was one who had a stick the SS menus their walking sticks to speed up the crowd [Music] SS Physicians select those considered able to work people of old age invalids and children are inherently classified as unfit for work my older sister who was 17 she was waved this way and she was off because wherever we were told to go many went it was not just one person it was one two three you know many went and my mother and two little boys go this way and she disappeared and many went that way immediately and then I was still part of the group but I was holding my younger sister's hand she was about 12. and then all of a sudden the stick comes down between us the last photograph of Edith from better times and and I'm being motion to go where my older sister went and she where my mother went and this is when I stopped I stopped on the side because I said oh my God my mother is long gone and so many others went already she's not gonna catch up [Music] after more than 30 years Irene sees this photograph for the first time believing this is her at that very moment not at all I was I was standing there just absolutely in Terror I just I was just so suddenly frightened for her I suddenly realized there is here you know we had it in our head that it's a Work Camp a labor camp so far it looks like it's a labor camp young people are separated make sense they will work old people mothers and children are separated we will meet again they'll be in some kind of a camp but what will happen to edus my little sister she's not going to be with us because when we reunite she will be lost and you know nobody asked our name nobody asked who belongs to whom and I all of a sudden I also thought well maybe I didn't hold on to her tight you know children and their mothers are the first to die in Auschwitz the SS would rather dispense with potential female workers than risk a tumult by forcefully separating mothers from their children foreign this morning the photographer has captured everything he had intended to shoot at the ramp so he proceeds to the next motif for several days the two photographers of Auschwitz cover those not considered fit to work on their final walk it takes them North along Camp Road B away from the ramp while Ben had valtter and his number two Ernst Hoffman keep on focusing their cameras on elderly people women children they seem worried but not desperate they don't know that these images will be the final Testament of their existence [Music] [Applause] [Music] after one and a half kilometers Camp Road B leads into a small wood still inside the camp fence foreign s intended to prove that there are no disturbances whatsoever do the photographers feel any pity for the children looking directly at them bernhardwalter is a father himself a popular figure among his comrades as this sketch from his Auschwitz day's shows it describes him as a man who cares for others and is quite the Clown an excellent companion and a great Joker how can such a man become a willing Cog in the Machinery of murder in advance has served in concentration camps since 1934. so it's not the first time that he sees violence or murder being committed it may be hard to imagine today but for an SS man this was everyday life in humans apart there's ideology among animals rats represent the element of malicious Subterranean destructiveness no different to the Jews among men for more than a decade propaganda has fostered hatred towards Jews what is in the mind of the ordinary SS man Stefan hurdler has given evidence as an historical consultant to several trials one of the accused was former SS NCO Oscar gruning who had had a clerical job at Auschwitz during an interview with the BBC he talked freely about his time in the camp we were firmly convinced that we Germans had been betrayed by everyone around us and that this was one great Jewish conspiracy against us but when it comes to children don't you at least reach the point where you say they can't have done anything to harm me how do you cope with that oh the children as such aren't yet the enemy the find is that the enemy is the blood within them they may grow up into Jews who might prove dangerous foreign it's only a few steps out of the small wood to one of the four large gas Chambers which the SS of meanwhile put into place what follows has never been recorded with the camera the procedures within the new sites called crematories two to five have been established right down to the Last Detail first the victims have to take off their clothes in an anti-room allegedly to prepare for a shower rows of hooks on the wall are part of the deception the victims are told to memorize the number of their hooks so they may find their clothes again men of the special Commandos and struck them on what to do Dario goodbye and his comrades are the last ones to see the doomed people alive why don't they warn them of what is coming [Music] here so no but I think a lot of people weren't so stupid you know a lot of people they knew that something funny was going on after that they enter what is supposed to be the shower room the shower heads on the ceiling are however fake the main features of the room are the grilled cages which lead up from the floor to a hat in the ceiling this is where Cyclone B will be thrown in the room is about 230 square meters large some 1 600 people are herded in here at the same time once the door is closed there's hardly room to move then then is where they start thinking that something else is going on here because they didn't see it was no no water you know so there is whether you they got scared a little bit and you see after they close the door you hear the scratching of the walls an Essence man pulls in the Cyclone Bay it's been developed to kill vermin once the granules are set free lethal cyanide Vapor begins to spread the first symptom is an excruciating pain in the chest followed by severe cramps comparable to an epileptic fit foreign yet many SS members later use this as an excuse saying that this way of killing was more Humane than shooting the victims which wouldn't guarantee that they would die at once is those are extremely cynical statements almost malicious which of course had nothing to do with reality foreign the further away people stand from the insertion shafts the longer their death struggle lasts the couple at the end you know it takes 30 minutes you know and then it opened up the door this is where everybody if you aren't a human being is where something started working on you you see people you saw about 30 minutes ago alive and everything else all over saying they're all down you know with black and blue from the gas and that all Tango we were at hard time the people to to start taking an out to put into the ovens to go upstairs next to the gas Chambers are the ovens where the bodies are incinerated it's all in-house with the arrival of the first Jews from Hungary the others are running day and night on that 26th of May 1944 more than ten thousand people are driven into the five gas Chambers at Auschwitz birkenau in a single day fairly close to the crematory's four and five with their gas Chambers and ovens the so-called Central sauna also called the bath house by the camp inmates it's the destination for those who've been selected for forced labor it's possible that these photographs too were shot by bernhardwalter although it's not 100 certain [Music] the entry opens onto a single large room the women who ordered to strip naked [Music] then they have to walk along a corridor into another room where their hair is cut the next station men are cutting body hair pubic hair everything young women just like that you come from home from your sheltered life and that's what's done to you um me too I was just 13. I don't know whether you think you don't think things are happening that's out of this world so you finally reach then you go take a shower this one is real there is only this one photograph showing male prisoners all that is left to their former lives are their shoes even this was a rare occurrence in an adjoining room they remain standing until they are dry then they are handed their prisoner scarp which has been disinfected in large containers [Music] and we got uniforms we did get that sack of gray gray dress and so you go and pick one up and sometimes they let you keep your shoes and sometimes they don't I think I think we were allowed to keep the shoes and so this process is fast but out of this world process and you come out and you're transformed into a creature you're no longer a person to Irene the process seemed interminable but how much time has actually passed between her arrival at the ramp and her present state Stefan herder has carefully screened the photographs from Auschwitz and has found hints in the images of another transport ation here is a series of photos from a transport from takovo photos of the new ramp business until finally showing those selected for forced labor in their striped prisoner's guards since the rail tracks were laid out precisely along an east-western axis the Shadows allow the height of the Sun and thereby the hour of the day to be determined so the Train on the right must have reached the camp between 11AM and noon time [Music] faces of single deportees such as that of Stefan Balaji and Apothecary on this transport can be found again on the images showing them in their prisoner's guard again the Shadows give clear evidence about the hour of the day these photos were taken at about 5 PM judging by the height of the sun upload for an uncomfortable so we may assume a time span of a mere four to five hours between arrival and the gassing or the kissing out of the Prisoners [Music] the dispatching of a transport yeah [Music] four to five hours according to this Photograph dated May 26 1944 the selection took place at about 8 am so the transport would have been what the SS euphemistically called dispatched between noon and 1pm how many of those shown here were murdered during the next few hours the kill rate was extremely high many former SS men who were interrogated and indicted after the war repeatedly stated that the murder rate had been as high as 75 or 80 percentage that's about 5 30 p.m SS men like Bernard louder call it a day he probably returns to the main Camp back into his office rooms at the ID section in Block 26. it's here that the photographs of the Hungarian project are being processed the intention is to assemble them into a photo album it's an idea of the commandant Rudolph Hearst who wants to demonstrate his prowess as a task master to his superiors valter chooses the photos and their captions accordingly actual work is done by inmates the result 56 Pages containing almost 200 images even if the photographs don't show the agony in the gas Chambers they undeniably prove a crime against humanity on an unprecedented scale which is quite the opposite of what the perpetrators had intended according to a prisoner of the ID section there were 15 copies of the album safe to assume that SS Chief Heinrich Himmler received one of them and that hers proudly sent other copies to high-ranking figures of the SS [Music] survived it's kept at yadvashem Israel's Memorial site of the Holocaust historians are pretty sure about its original proprietor with whoever is highly probable that it was the personal copy of banhardwata which he kept for himself as the man who had been the key figure in the realization of the project there are several hints to that point this is first the album had been used before the original photos had been taken out and new glue was applied for this version which explains the inferior quality this isn't a copy that would have been presented to him the overall look is just too bad foreign stay of 12 hours forced labor ends at 6 pm after roll call they have to enter their barracks once locked up no one is allowed outside for an SS man there are several ways to spend his time off duty Bernhard valtter may go home to his flat nearly 500 meters from the main Camp to spend the evening with his wife and children but Garrison live at Auschwitz holds other distractions too [Music] [Applause] there are comrades male and female who often convened for private celebrations for instance at a birthday party for the second photographer Ernst Hoffman [Music] [Applause] [Music] a snapshot of it possibly made by Vata as he's not in the frame [Music] his presence at the occasion is ascertained by the birthday present a booklet made up of caricatures of the guests there is Joseph Eber who works as a dispatcher at the ramp nickname The Ladies Man or the booze mixer he will be sentenced to life after the war or Vera navrat called The Beauty Queen who loves photographers an allusion to her fling with ants Hoffman and finally Ben had valter the excellent companion and great Joker even if he neither drinks nor smokes as is added as a ironic afterthought Mass murderers having a party Trend it was it may seem surreal to see people celebrating and laughing as if they were leading a Carefree existence Far From Any War because you when around them people were systematically killed and when on the other hand German troops were in full Retreat on all France especially since in those final days of 1944 defeat was right around the corner relatives on the 27th of January 1945 the camp is liberated by the Red Army without any military resistance the Soviet soldiers come upon harrowing proofs of mass murder which the fleeing SS had been unable to remove and they come upon living Witnesses [Music] six thousand debilitated inmates who have been too weak for the forced Marches On which their comrades were driven Westward by the SS most Auschwitz survivors will be liberated from other camps only months later [Music] prior to their flight the SS has blown up the crematories and the gas Chambers [Music] Bernard valter is among the last to leave Auschwitz in January 1945. after more than four years of Duty of the camp [Music] along with the cam staff and many inmates he ends up in the hearts mountains at another concentration camp called mittal baldora it's an underground production site for v2 missiles which makes extensive use of forced laborers in April 1945 this site too must be evacuated in a hurry in the general turmoil Bernard valter leaves his copy of the Auschwitz album behind us again we must assume that for reasons are known to us he didn't take his copy along the city close to the camp was heavily bombed in early April 1945. most of the SS fled in haste due to that the album May simply have been overlooked otherwise this historical Source would have been destroyed of the eight members of the Fogle family only Irene and her elder sister Serena survived the ordeal in 1947 they emigrated to the USA Irene Maris becomes a teacher and a mother of three today she lives near Washington DC where she lectures at the Holocaust Museum on her Auschwitz experience [Music] especially on that day in May 1944 when she lost most of her family of the ramp of Auschwitz a day which has marked her for life people ask me to write I don't want to write it's it's my my um writing would be very very dark I would not be very happy to identify the human race with any any kind of respect and yet I'm not but I mean I have to modify that I don't go around hating everybody I meet and I I have friends and I do trust in general but mankind as a whole uh-uh it's quite an animal a cruel animal ends up in British captivity [Music] in May 1947 he's extradited to Poland and put on trial in Krakow together with several other SS men from Auschwitz at another trial his former boss Rudolph Hearst the initiator of the album is sentenced to death and executed by hanging valter is sentenced to three years in prison he returns to his hometown in Bavaria in 1950. in 1964 Walter is summoned as a witness at the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials although he isn't indicted he denies everything he says he hadn't noticed any killings and that he merely wants to leave all this behind um I mean yes I was at Auschwitz I faced the people's tribunal at Auschwitz but Krakow that is I thought I'd done my time and now after 19 years actually since 1959 time and again one gets reminded of this place Auschwitz since his photographs are presented as evidence vauter is questioned by the judge and on these there are rail cars I took these that was right at the beginning it was you who took these pictures yes I took these two yes yes he shows no signs of guilt you just said you personally took this picture foreign had caused a certain mental strain but it is there are no signs of a bad conscience here from these men don't want to be pestered by questions they're happy to have put all that behind us and now these questions would stir up memories they were glad to have dispensed with only a few have delivered a Frank and fashion or words of repentance seem to have managed to more or less smooth return into society after the war relative problems at least those who were not prosecuted the photographer of Auschwitz dies in 1979. without having to face any further legal consequences of the SS men who served in Auschwitz and who survived the war only one in eight was ever sentenced for his deeds a mere 800 convictions for the murder of more than one million people at Auschwitz [Music] [Music]

Channel: criminals and crime fighters

Views: 1,011,196

Keywords: documentary, auschwitz, auschwitz birkenau, Jews, germany, nazi germany, third reich, concentration camps, auschwitz survivor, auschwitz documentary, history documentary, nazi hitler, nazi history, nazism, Jewish people, nationalism, documentaries, Antisemitism, Auschwitz one day, persecution of jews, holocaust

Id: 5vIZ0kOpWvw

Length: 51min 36sec (3096 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 18 2022