The largest concentration camp of the Third
Reich operated by Nazi Germany was Auschwitz.

Inside the barbed wire fences at least 1.1
million people were killed inside the gas chambers, and by violence inflicted upon the
prisoners by the guards.

The commandant Rudolf Hoess was later executed
inside of the camp on a specially built gallows at Auschwitz, for the reign of terror and
hell that he instilled at the large complex.

Guards were schooled in how to violently strike
fear into the hearts of prisoners, and infamous members of staff such as Irma Grese and Josef
Kramer regularly took the lives of prisoners.

It wasn’t just a place of mass killing,
but it was also a place of torture, and specifically there was one block which became incredibly
feared.

Block 11 found inside of Auschwitz I was a
brick building where horrific punishment occurred inside.

But what is the story of this? Join us today as we look at the horrific torture
of Block 11 at Auschwitz, Remember to support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.

Auschwitz itself originally began use as an
army barracks, but over the Second World War it transitioned into the largest concentration
camp inside of the Third Reich that was also the most deadly.

Around 1.

3 million prisoners were housed there,
and the gas chambers each day were used and killed prisoners on a huge scale.

Around every corner of the camp was death,
starvation and suffering.

Prisoners were forced to work rather hard,
and were given very little food in order to perform their daily jobs, and this led to
large amounts of malnutrition.

Many guards wanted prisoners to work until
they simply dropped, but there were many more prisoners who did not even make it inside
of the camp.

When people were transported to Auschwitz,
they had to undergo selection, where guards and doctors would choose which prisoners could
enter the complex to work.

Those who were not deemed fit enough, or were
too old or young to work successfully were taken straight to their deaths in the gas
chambers.

To maintain law and order in the camp, guards
were told to be violent, and many took this to the point where they were murderers, and
some would whip and beat prisoners to death regularly in front of others.

Women such as Irma Grese and Johanna Bormann
would use their dogs to terrorise prisoners, and were even known for killing and maiming
inmates with their animals.

Guards also regularly shot inmates who weren’t
working well, and were not being as productive as they could have been.

Prisoners could easily be beaten for small
infractions of the camps rules, and many were killed for these.

Inside of roll call yards, there were large
gallows in which seemingly almost daily executions would take place.

At roll call, those who broke the rules or
tried to escape would be brought out in front of thousands of prisoners, before they were
then executed to send a message to others about not breaking the rules.

Some guards even became known for their sadism
by nicknames, for example the ‘Hyena of Auschwitz,’ or ‘The Woman with the dogs.

’ With this there was great fear inside the
prison population, and in particular there was one block which became known for it’s
brutality with regards to punishment.

Prisoners often were punished for breaking
rules such as returning for second helpings of food at mealtimes, taking out their own
gold teeth to barter to buy break, stealing food from kitchens, putting hands in pockets
and some were even so desperate they stole food from the pigsty.

There were floggings that were done in public
at roll call, large whipping spectacles to terrorise prisoners.

A flogging table known as ‘the goat,’
forced prisoners into a locked position, with their feet in a box whilst stretched over
a table.

Prisoners were then whipped by the guards,
and were forced to out the lashes.

They were forced to shout, ’funf und zwanzig
besten dank have ice erhalten,’ meaning 25 received with many thanks.

If they got the number wrong, the flogging
began again from number 1.

Prisoners were also punished by being tired
to posts with their hands tied behind their backs with chains attack to hooks.

They were left then dangling by the wrists
in the medieval style manacles, but Block 11 was known for being the brutal punishment
block where torture was administered.

Block 11 was the name of a brick building
found inside of Auschwitz I ,the main camp of the complex.

It was a place where execution and torture
took place, as between Block 10 and 11 stood the Auschwitz Death Wall, the site where many
prisoners faced the firing squad.

Inside of Block 11 were a number of different
torture chambers and punishment blocks used to obtain information and inflict pain and
suffering onto the prisoners.

Prisoners were interrogated inside Block 11
under extreme torture, and there were many different devices and methods used within
the walls of the building to extract information.

One of these was the ‘Boger Swing,’ and
this was used inside the block.

It was said of this device, invented by guard
Wilhelm Boger that, ‘It was a meter-long iron bar suspended by chains hung from the
ceiling .

.

.

A prisoner would be brought in for “questioning,” stripped naked and bent
over the bar, wrists manacled to ankles.

A guard at one side would shove him—or her—off
across the chamber in a long, slow arc, while Boger would ask “questions,” at first quietly,
then barking them out, and at the last bellowing.

At each return, another guard armed with a
crowbar would smash the victim across the buttocks.

As the swinging went on and on, and the wailing
victim fainted, was revived only to faint howling again, the blows continued—until
only a mass of bleeding pulp hung before their eyes.

Most perished from the ordeal–some sooner,
some later.

In the end a sack of bones and flayed flesh
and fat was swept along the shambles of that concrete floor to be dragged away.

’ Boger himself was known for overseeing terrible
crimes inside of the Block, but was never executed for his role in the punishment at
the camp.

Inside of Block 11, it was here where the
first attempts and experiments to kill and exterminate people and prisoners using Zyklon
B were made in September 1941.

As the final solution ramped up, the guards
tried different ways of killing prisoners, and Zyklon B became the method inside of the
gas chambers that was used to kill hundreds of thousands.

It was inside the block where this was tried,
and Commandant Rudolf Hoess personally watched the trials, and his guards oversaw the first
killing of Russian prisoners of war in the basement of block 11.

They continued to use block 11 to repeat the
experiment on more Russian POWs and Hoess would watch the killings, but Block 11 itself
became unsuitable as the basement was difficult to air out following the killings, as there
was not much ventilation, and also the crematorium to dispose of the bodies was a fair way away,
so with this gas chambers were made with crematoria next to them.

So Block 11 was used as the prototype gas
chamber.

Many of the prisoners of Block 11 were people
who were suspected of being involved in defiance or resistance at the camp.

Because of this they were interrogated and
tortured in different ways, from beatings and being maimed to being thrown into the
specialised torture cells of block 11.

The Stehbunker, or the standing cells were
an oubliette style dungeon or cell inside Block 11 that was used to punish inside of
Auschwitz.

There were four standing cells at Auschwitz
in the basement of Block 11, and they measured around 1 square yard, and inside here four
prisoners were crammed in and they were only able to stand.

This was horrendous, and almost like an oubliette
style dungeon found in a castle, where prisoners could not sit or rest up, they were kept in
one cramped standing position for periods of up to 10 days.

Some prisoners were allowed to go out to work,
before they were then locked back in the standing cells again, but there was very minimal air
and was only a 2 inch opening for air to come in, which meant the prisoners did not suffocate,
but also that air was in short supply.

One survivor of the cells spoke at the Auschwitz
Trials about how he was forced into the standing cells of block 11 for 6 weeks and was given
just three small meals during this time, and he noted that one prisoner was so hungry inside
the cells that he even ate his own shows.

Rudolf Hoess stated that the standing cells
were only used for three night punishment, but this was not the case and it was his successor
Arthur Liebehenschel who removed the standing cells of Block 11 in 1943.

The prisoners who were housed in block 11
were usually interrogated and then sentenced to death to be hanged or shot.

Int he first years of the camp, many prisoners
assigned to the harshest of labour were imprisoned here, and many Polish priests were also housed
inside the block.

To begin with also the Sonderkommando, the
groups of prisoners forced to burn bodies were housed in the block, but then police
prisoners were held and these were those suspected of resistance work.

There were many prisoners who were killed
inside Block 11 by starvation, including those who were sentenced to death by starvation,
meaning they were simply left in a cell to just starve.

But one of the most brutal part of Block 11
was what was found outside in a courtyard between the block and also Block 10.

Just in the yard at the side was the Death
Wall, this was a concrete reinforced wall which was where firing squads would execute
many prisoners.

The condemned were taken from their cells
in Block 11 to the death wall, where they were then stood against the wall before an
SS firing squad woulds shoot them.

Thousands of prisoners were shot against the
wall, and the SS men took the lives of many Polish prisoners and those suspected of resistance
activity.

Also death sentences were carried out on the
death wall of people who were brought into the camp to be killed.

Many hostages who were detained in reprisal
for Polish resistance activities in towns and cities nearby were brought to Auschwitz
and were then killed next to Block 11.

The death wall was dismantled in 1944, but
today a reconstruction stands.

Also prisoners were flogged and tied to the
post in this yard next to Block 11.

So Block 11 was the feared torture and punishment
block of the deadliest concentration camp of the Second World War.

It was greatly feared, and was used as the
Gestapo Headquarters to inflict interrogation and brutality onto the prisoners.

Using devices such as the Boger Swing, or
the standing cells it became a place where no one wanted to be, and because of this it
was considered ‘The death block,’ of Auschwitz.

It was just one part of the horrific concentration
camp system, and was a small part of the horror and terror of Auschwitz, that prisoners had
to deal with on a daily basis.

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