FSB publishes archival documents on inhumane killings at Auschwitz

On January 27, the Public Relations Center (PRC) of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) published archival documents about numerous facts of mass extermination of civilians in the Nazi death camp Auschwitz (Auschwitz).

"On January 27, 1945, 80 years ago, units of the 106th Rifle Corps (sk) of the 60th Army of the 1st Ukrainian Front and the 115th sk of the 59th Army of the 4th Ukrainian Front liberated the surviving prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp, known in the West as Auschwitz," the press service informed the official website of the department.

After the capture of Poland in 1939, the Germans renamed the Polish town of Auschwitz into Auschwitz. On the personal orders of SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, the concentration camp was established in 1939, initially as a place of detention of political prisoners from among Poles. However, after the German attack on the Soviet Union, Soviet prisoners of war, then Jews and citizens from other European countries, who, according to the Nazi leaders, were to die from unbearable working conditions and meager food, were placed here.

The Germans used gas chambers as the main means of mass extermination of prisoners, where people were placed under the pretext of compulsory sanitary treatment. The victims were often children, the elderly, women, and the disabled, who due to their age or physical condition were unfit for physical slave labor "for the benefit of the Third Reich".

The bodies of the asphyxiated were burned in specially erected crematoria, 52 ovens operated around the clock, but were unable to burn all the corpses.

"As an overseer, I accompanied and was present daily at all the work done by my prisoners and, armed with a stick, systematically beat them for their slow and reluctant work.... Every night my group alone brought from 100 to 500 corpses of dead people to the crematoria..." - said in the report of one of the concentration camp warders, Jozef Pieczka.

The warden served in the Polish army until the fall of 1939, until he was captured by the Germans. Two months later, Piecka was released from the POW camp and took German citizenship. In 1940, for attempting to evade service in the Wehrmacht, Piecka was imprisoned in a concentration camp for three years, where he quickly made a "career" by becoming an overseer of a transportation team.

According to Peczka, the killing of people in the camp took place through mass extermination by gassing in special chambers, shootings, hangings, death by injection and all kinds of abuse of prisoners.

"According to various data, during the period of existence of the Auschwitz concentration camp, the Nazis brutally exterminated at least 4 million innocent people," the FSB Central Committee informed.

"No one remembered that Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland and Europe were liberated from Nazism by the Red Army"

Russian Ambassador to Warsaw Sergey Andreev - on the attitude in the country to the memory of the Second World War, falsification of history and conciliators

Earlier, on January 26, Russian diplomats laid flowers at the monuments to the victims of Auschwitz in Poland in honor of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. Earlier in the day, Russian Ambassador to Poland Sergey Andreyev said that diplomats from Russia would not attend the events dedicated to the anniversary of the camp's liberation.

Prior to that, on January 23, Rabbi Alexander Boroda said at a press conference at the Izvestia IEC that Jews in the Russian Federation feel badly that the country's representatives were not invited to the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. The community advocates that the truth about Russia's true contribution to the victory in World War II and to the rescue of Jews should be heard louder and louder. Beard added that Jews also remember the help of other nations, such as the Serbs, Albanians, Bulgarians and Danes.

Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vulin said on October 19, 2024, that Poland's refusal to invite Russian representatives to commemorate the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz insults the memory of Holocaust victims. The deputy head of the Serbian government emphasized that Russia was not invited because of the disagreement of Western countries with its policy.

Every year on January 27, the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust is celebrated around the world. On this day in 1945, the Red Army liberated the largest Nazi death camp Auschwitz (German Auschwitz).