Porombka (Solarhutte)

 

Porombka was located at Międzybrodzie Bialskie in southern Poland, around 35 kilometres south of Oświęcim in the Little Beskid mountains, above a dam and lake. It was also known as Solahutte and was more of a working party (Kommando) than a camp. Therefore, there was no barracks or electrified barbed wire fences or guard towers. There isn’t much documentation containing information about the camp either, but the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) discovered photographs in the album of SS-Obersturmführer Karl Höcker, adjutant of the commander of Auschwitz, and SS-Sturmbannführer Richard Baer (known as the Höcker album), depicting SS men spending leisure time at this location.

The album was donated to USHMM by an anonymous American counter-intelligence officer and contains 116 black-and-white photographs, mostly taken during the summer of 1944. The SS men depicted in these photographs were mostly officers from Auschwitz and most of them were taken at the Solahütte location. A second group of photographs were taken in the vicinity of Auschwitz II Birkenau.

Porombka was the second sub-camp established by the Auschwitz commandant, the first being the Sosnitz Kommando). The purpose of the Kommando, established in early October 1940, was to construct and operate a vacation home for Auschwitz camp staff. Initially, the prisoners were ferried back and forth from Birkenau, but it was decided that accommodating the prisoners at Porombka would be more efficient. Around 20 prisoners were selected initially, but this was later increased to 40. Eight SS men were assigned to guard them, commanded by Kommandoführer Franz Hössler.

The SS chose a steep slope of the Rogacz mountain for the site of the holiday home, as it would provide a panoramic view over the lake and to other mountains nearby. The prisoners were accommodated in the basement of a house located below the construction site. Former prisoner Artur Rablin said in a testimony that there were around 50 prisoners, all of them Polish and that the SS guards lived on the ground floor and upper floor of the house. The windows of the cellar were barred. 

(Above, remains of post-war chalets, photo by Adrian Herod)

Food supplies were brought from Auschwitz by truck, but the amount given to the prisoners was meagre, causing the prisoners to complain of severe hunger.

The prisoners were divided into two teams, one of them for unloading and transporting materials and the other team responsible for preparing the site. The working day lasted 12 hours and the only tools provided were pickaxes. The materials carried uphill by the first team included wooden beams, 50 kilogram bags of cement, 80-kilogram cubes of pressed peat, buckets of sand, bricks and roofing felt.

The SS guards behaved in a brutal fashion, often beating the prisoners and harassing them with dogs. A cold winter increased the severity of the conditions. Former prisoners remember that the holiday home was completed in 1942, after its official opening on 21^st April 1941. The first group of prisoners were then sent back to Auschwitz and replaced by a second group who worked on interior finishes. A third group arrived to complete the fitting out of the holiday home. After these various works were completed, all the prisoners were sent back to Auschwitz and a new group then arrived, consisting of female Jehovahs Witnesses who worked at the holiday home as servants.

Another group of 15-20 prisoners were responsible for transporting food and fuel to the holiday home. This group was also used to help with minor repairs to buildings and the access road, gardening duties and catering.

Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss announced the opening of the holiday home in a special order circulated to SS staff:

“Special Commandant Order

Auschwitz, April 17, 1941

Re: Leave for the Soletal (Sola Valley) SS rest and recreation centre

The Soletal centre will open on Monday April 21, 1941

The head chef will be SS-Sturmmann Setzer from the 1st guard company and as cook SS-Mann Herms from the SS kitchen, seconded to the centre on Friday April 18, 1941. Both of these SS men will be in contact with SS-Oberscharführer Blaufuß, who will be responsible for supplying the Soletal men. The SS canteen will open a sales point at the centre. The average capacity will be about 30 persons. By Friday of every week, the guard battalion shall report the number of designated SS men. They will depart at 04.00 hrs from the SS quarters in Auschwitz and return on Saturday afternoon. For every group of SS men the battalion shall designate a non-commissioned officer responsible for the training conducted in Soletal and for keeping the centre in proper order; he will also be responsible for any damage. On weekends the centre shall be at the disposal of the SS men from the commandant staff. Those who wish to spend the weekend there are to report by 14.00 hrs every Friday to SS-Unterscharführer Woldförster at the commandant´s office secretarial pool. They will leave from Auschwitz at 14.00 hrs on Saturday and return in the early hours of Monday morning. Telephone communication with Auschwitz will be by way of the camp for Volksdeutsche from Bukowina in Soletal.”

SS men from Auschwitz used the holiday home for special social meetings aimed at cultivating a team spirit among the Auschwitz staff and also for rest periods between the arrival of successive transports of Jews at Auschwitz. Periods of rest at the holiday home were also awarded for particular commendable acts by SS men, an example being the prevention by SS-Oberscharführer Lampert from the 1st Guard Company of Auschwitz of an attempted escape by a prisoner hiding in a truck. Another example was the skilful and successful use of weapons by SS-Sturmann Johan Antoni and SS-Schütze Hans Kartusch from the 3rd Guard Company of Auschwitz II-Birkenau to prevent the escape of four prisoners.

(Above, the Solahutte main guest house. From the Hocker album. Courtesy of USHMM)

Visitors to the holiday home included all ranks of SS men from the junior ranks to the officers commanding other subcamps and branches of the Auschwitz complex. Notable visitors included Richard Baer, the third and last commander of Auschwitz I, the infamous Dr Josef Mengele, Otto Moll, who supervised the crematoria in both Auschwitz I and II, Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and Josef Kramer, who commanded Birkenau from May 1944.

The brutal attitude of the SS guards to prisoners ceased after the holiday home was completed. Subsequent groups of prisoners arriving at the site were not even closely guarded and there was at least one escape.

Kommandoführer at Porobka was SS-Oberscharführer Franz Hössler who was replaced in late 1940 by SS-Unterscharführer Leo Rummel, and later SS-Oberscharführer Georg Ritzinger. Hössler appeared in the first Bergen-Belsen trial held by the British in Lüneburg, where he was sentenced to death on 17^th November 1945. This sentence was carried out on 13^th December 1945.

Porobka was evacuated in January 1945. After the war, it seems the Polish Communist Party took over the site, turning it into an elite resort called HPR-Kozubnik Porąbka. It was equipped with dance halls and bars, a restaurant, indoor pool, cinema, sauna and a hotel for key party officials. This may have also been when various holiday chalets were built around the site. When communism fell in the 1990s, the original barrack hut and the chalets were rented out by a private investor. The barrack was demolished in 2010 along with the post-war chalets.