Babice (German name Babitz)
The full German name of this subcamp was Wirtschaftshof Babitz according to the website Subcamps of Auschwitz, which is operated by the research organisation Tiergarten 4 Association e.v. (a visit to their main website is highly recommended by the way). The website has a wealth of information about this particular camp, as follows:
The subcamps three commanders were SS Oberscharfuhrer Rosenoff, SS Ausherin Erna Kuck and SS Auseherin Johanna Bormann. The number of guards remains unknown, but has been estimated at 30, drawn from the Landswritschaftskompanie of the SS, consisting primarily of Germans and Volksdeutsche from Poland, Romania, Lithuania and Czechoslovakia.
The main function of the camp was agricultural work on a farm owned by the SS. Female prisoners were held in an old school, while the male prisoners were held in specially built wooden barracks. The subcamp held 360 prisoners (male and female) in total. Of these, 200 were female - estimated to have been reduced to 100 by January 1945, when the number of male prisoners are estimated to have been 159. The prisoners were mostly Poles, Jews and Soviets.
The camp operated between March 1943 and January 1945. In late July 1944, female prisoners of Polish origin were returned to Auschwitz II (Birkenau). The remaining prisoners were evacuated, along with prisoners from the main Auschwitz complex, on 17th January 1945.
One of the work groups (called 'kommandos') at this subcamp was commanded by a Ukrainian SS man called 'Black'. No-one wanted to work in this kommando because of the way in which Black treated his prisoners. He threw his pitchfork at one of them, for example.
The farm had 30 cows and 2 bulls housed in a large wooden shed. Prisoners collected stone from the fields, cut thistles and planted potatoes, cabbage, beet and oilseed rape. They also worked on haymaking and gathering the harvest in the summer. Some also worked on construction, including demolition of some of the buildings formerly occupied by the people who had been displaced by the camp.
According to prisoner Anna Wisniewska, food was brought to the subcamp from Birkenau and consisted of black coffee for breakfast, soup, turnip, wet biscuit crumbs and cake for lunch and a slice of bread, a slice of sausage, a spoon of jam or margarine and black coffee after returning from work. The soup was made from nettles or potatoes and cabbage. The cake was sourced from suitcases of Jewish prisoners entering the main camp.
The male prisoners were treated inhumanely, meaning that many of them had to be taken back to Auschwitz to the crematorium there after they had been broken and were no longer fit for work.
One German officer in particular was known for his cruelty - SS Kommandofuhrer Otto Scherbinski, who beat prisoners and chased them around the barracks. In winter he also made prisoners wash in cold water from the well.
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