Forgotten Horrors: The Nazi sub-camp system

  Aerial photograph of Auschwitz III (Monowitz-Buna) The site of Auschwitz III Monowitz-Buna as it is now Monowitz subcamp was also known as Monowitz-Buna and Auschwitz III. It was established in October 1942 and evacuated in 1945. From 1943, the subcamp was commanded by SS Hauptsturmfuhrer Heinrich Schwarz. The subcamp held around 12,000 prisoners, most of whom were Jews, although there were also some criminals and political prisoners. They were used as skilled and unskilled labour at the nearby I G Farben chemical plant (which produced rubber and synthetic fuels), for which the SS charged the company three Reichsmarks per day for unskilled workers and four RM per day skilled workers. Where children were used as labour, the SS charged one and a half RM per day. Jewish workers at Monowitz had an average life expectancy of three to four months, reduced to just one month for those working at nearby mines. Those regarded as unfit for work were gassed at Birkenau. Prisoners at work on the

  The Baty shoe factory - towards the top of the picture, close to a stretch of woodland, there is visible what appears to be the trackbed of a railway, with two surviving buildings. This may be the surviving remnants of the engine house. Chelmek subcamp opened in October 1942 with around 150 prisoners held in a barracks near the engine house of a narrow gauge railway. Most of the prisoners were Jews from France, Belgium and The Netherlands who worked at cleaning the ponds used by the local Bata shoe factory as a water source. The prisoners were brutally treated, with hunger and hard labour along with persecution by the SS guards claiming the lives of 47 prisoners and requiring another 64 to be admitted to hospital in a severe condition. The final 34 prisoners in the camp were transferred to Auschwitz I in December 1942, where at least 28 of them died. Thus almost all the prisoners held in this subcamp died.  Further information and photos: Subcamps of Auschwitz