Tag: World War II

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The Auschwitz Tatooist

Entrance gate to Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Administration building likely on the left. Photo by anonymous (c. 1955). German Federal Archives. Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-32279-007/CC-BY-SA 3.0. Wikimedia Commons.

At the age of 25, he stepped off the first transport train carrying Jews to KL Auschwitz II-Birkenau in April 1942. Lale Sokolov (1916−2006), then known as Ludwig “Lale” Eisenberg, was soon to exchange his name for a number. He would never be allowed to forget the number—32407—as it was tattooed on his arm. Before long, Lale would take over the duties from the prisoner who tattooed his arm and begin almost three years as the camp’s primary tetovierer (tattooist). Several months later, Lale would tattoo 34902 onto the arm of his future wife.

Did You Know?

The Dachau concentration camp opened in March 1933 and did not cease operations until April 1945. It was the first camp established under the Nazi regime and the only one to survive the entire twelve years of the Third Reich. It was built to hold political prisoners (as time went on, Polish prisoners would dominate the camp’s population). Dachau was never intended to become an industrialized extermination camp such as Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Dachau deaths were primarily from beatings, malnutrition, disease (e.g., typhus), and suicide. It is impossible to accurately assess the final number deaths attributed to Dachau.

KL Auschwitz 

The main camp known as Auschwitz I was built in May 1940 in the newly annexed area of Poland. It was originally constructed to house Polish political prisoners. By September 1941, exterminations had begun and the Nazis determined a second camp was needed. So, by March 1942, a sub-camp named Auschwitz II-Birkenau was completed with its first gas chamber.

Entrance to Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Photo by Stanislaw Mucha (c. 1945). German Federal Archives. Bundesarchiv, B 285 Bild-04413/Stanislaw Mucha/CC-BY-SA 3.0. Wikimedia Commons.
Entrance to Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Photo by Stanislaw Mucha (c. 1945). German Federal Archives. Bundesarchiv, B 285 Bild-04413/Stanislaw Mucha/CC-BY-SA 3.0. Wikimedia Commons.

Nazi plans for the Final Solution had been finalized in January 1942 and by early 1943, Himmler decided to expand Birkenau and increase its capacity as an extermination camp. It is estimated that 1.3 million people were sent to Auschwitz with 1.1 million murdered. More than 90 percent or 1.0 million of the people murdered here were Jews (in other words, one in six Jews who perished in the Holocaust were murdered at Auschwitz). Watch a short documentary on Auschwitz. Read More The Auschwitz Tatooist

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Noah’s Ark

Official stamp of the Réseau Alliance. Photo by anonymous (date unknown).
Official stamp of the Réseau Alliance. Photo by anonymous (date unknown).

My attention is always drawn to stories about the brave members of the resistance movements who fought the Germans in their respective occupied countries. These men and women were always aware of their potential fatal outcomes if caught but largely ignored it to continue the fight for liberation. I’ve written in the past about some of these fighters including Nancy Wake (read here), the Boulloche sisters (read here), the Sussex Plan (read here), Rose Valland (read here), and the SOE—Special Operations Executive (read here).

Today, I’ll introduce you to the remarkable Hedgehog and the other animals of Noah’s Ark, one of the most successful résistance réseaux (resistance networks) operating in France during the German Occupation.

Did you Know?

Nazi concentration camp prisoners (i.e., those chosen for labor and not sent directly to the gas chambers) received a number tattooed on their arm. The misconception is that all camps tattooed their prisoners. That is not true. Only Auschwitz and two of its sub camps, Birkenau and Monowitz, practiced tattooing the prisoners. Learn more in our next blog, The Auschwitz Tattooist.

 The French Resistance

Most people have the mistaken idea that the French resistance movement was a single organization comprised of men and women with the same motivation: identify and sabotage strategic German targets for the purpose of driving the occupiers out of France. It’s not that simple.

Strasbourg France memorial for the Réseau Alliance agents executed by the Nazis on 23 November 1944. Photo by Rolf Krahl (2014). © Rolf Krahl. PD-Creative Commons license CC BY 4.0. Wikimedia Commons.
Strasbourg France memorial for the Réseau Alliance agents executed by the Nazis on 23 November 1944. Photo by Rolf Krahl (2014). © Rolf Krahl. PD-Creative Commons license CC BY 4.0. Wikimedia Commons.

The French Resistance movement was largely comprised of hundreds of independent networks, each with its own set of politics, motivations, and specific purposes. These networks were Communist, apolitical, right-leaning, left-leaning, and Christian democratic. Resistance activity began to gain strength after Hitler attacked Soviet positions in eastern Poland on 22 June 1941 in violation of the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Prior to the German attack, French communist resistance activities were not allowed by Moscow.

Eventually, Charles de Gaulle assigned Jean Moulin the task of uniting and organizing the various resistance networks. In May 1943, Moulin created the Conseil National de la Résistance (CNR) under which the primary networks would coordinate their activities with the Free French Forces of the Interior. Read More Noah’s Ark