Polish Workers at I.G. Auschwitz
Poles were the largest group of “foreign” workers at the I.G. Farben construction site; in March, 1944, 7,700 of them were employed at I.G. Auschwitz. Largely, they had come as civilian workers and were housed in barracks camps near the factory. Some, however, had been picked up in sweeps and transported for use as forced laborers; they were housed in the so-called Forced Labor Camp III-Teichgrund (Forced Labor Camp No. 50 for Poles). Until the dissolution of the camp on March 10, 1944, they lived here in harsh conditions (tiny food rations, cramped quarters, poor sanitary facilities). Then the Polish inmates were given “worker I.D. cards from I.G. Farben, the right to receive pay and to leave the barracks in their time off work.”[1] Thus they were classed with the Polish civilian workers.
The civilian workers came from every part of Poland: A great many came to work from Auschwitz or the neighboring villages; others came from farther away and were housed in barracks camps that were allocated for them. Most had been referred by the job centers and had hoped this would keep them from being transported to Germany for forced labor.
Polish workers were treated as “second-class workers”: The members of the German workforce were instructed at employee meetings to keep their distance from Poles and other foreigners. The Polish workers received lower wages, smaller food rations of inferior quality, and less clothing and had to pay higher contributions. Poles were not entitled to employee benefits or even to cultural offerings. For their benefit, I.G. Auschwitz financed “in the context of their social activities, only the building of a brothel.”[2] In case of illness, they received treatment more rarely; the German doctors often viewed them as malingerers and refused to put them on sick leave. Additional repressive measures and monitoring decreed by the Gestapo in Kattowitz in April 1943 kept the Polish workers from traveling to see their families.
The almost unbearable working and living conditions, in combination with the fundamentally hostile attitude of most Polish workers toward the German workforce, resulted in numerous escapes from the construction site: In-house I.G. Farben statistics for September 30, 1942, record that 121 of 369 Polish workers had run away, and only an infinitesimal percentage could be “recycled.”
Many Polish workers employed at I.G. Farben put up resistance, tried, as far as their opportunities permitted, to engage in sabotage, and often helped the concentration camp prisoners as well. In many cases, their help was directed at imprisoned “compatriots,” that is, at Polish concentration camp inmates, who in a few cases were even helped to escape. The absence of any assistance led some prisoners to conclude that many Poles had an anti-Semitic attitude.
In January 1945, even before the arrival of the Red Army, many Polish workers escaped singly or in groups from their barracks camps and made their way home.
(SP; transl. KL)