112: Rudolph Hoess, Part 4 - Naughty Nazi

With the Final Solution well underway, we first start by discussing the role of Sonderkommandos: Jewish prisoners who were responsible for the "dirty" work involved in the mass killings, and the horrors they had to perform and endure. During the miserable expansion of Auschwitz, we also take a detour into Rudy and his wife Hedwig's personal life, his scandalous "affair" with a prisoner servant, and Rudy's eventual promotion to the WVHA

Episode Transcript

(00:10):
In the spring of 1942, the firsttransports of Jews, all
earmarked for extermination, arrived from Upper Silesia.
And that's Rudolf Host. And that's part this, Part 4,
Rudolf Host, the commandant of Auschwitz.
And this is Jen, This is Becky. This is too close to home.
Nazi Edition. So are you tired of it yet?
I am sick of it. So much and we still have two

(00:32):
episodes, this episode of one more.
That's why I'm so glad to get itover with.
So my sauces the commandant of Auschwitz my hyper fixation
sauces the commandant of Auschwitz, which was written by
Rudolf host himself KLA history of Nazi concentration camps by
Nicholas washman Third Reich therise and fall of on Netflix is a

(00:55):
two-part documentary. Nazi death marches 19441945
Telegraph UK Smithsonian magazine. auschwitz.org to you
people everyday science, The Holocaust encyclopedia set in
hall University World Holocaust remembrance center Jewish
currents organization Conferenceon Jewish material claims
against Germany Music and the Holocaust organization CNN
PBSBBC Auschwitz Birkenau museum, National Library of

(01:18):
medicine. The history of sorts blog the
history of Holocaust his Holocaust history project Jewish
virtual library organization Facing history organization
World War 2 foundation Jewish gin organization Nazis at
Nuremberg. The lost testimonies Just a few,
just a few. Like if you thought I was going
light on the subjects here you are not.

(01:38):
Just wait till you see what the next one's about.
Last time we covered the final Solution, how he was going to
implement that. Today we're going to talk about
naughty little secret that he had and a huge promotion that he
had. So of course, like the Dachau
prisoners we talked about earlier that tried to escape
their camp, it happened at Auschwitz as well.

(02:01):
And I'm sure through the soldiers threats and capos
telling the prisoners about these gas chambers made them
even more desperate to escape. Yeah, I would agree with them.
When reading about his view of what life was like for prisoners
in Auschwitz, it was highly skewed and incorrect in several
ways. Like the way he describes
escapes made me literally come to the verge of tears.

(02:22):
I don't know if it's the fact that he's straight up lion while
he's waiting for his own trial after the Nuremberg trials, or
the fact that he seems so delusional that somehow he
believes himself that so many died because of this and that so
many just died because of this delusion.
Either way, it just hurts. It just sucks.
So he would speak about the the escapes at Auschwitz quote.

(02:43):
Flight was not difficult at Auschwitz, where opportunities
were innumerable, the necessary preparations were easily made,
and it was a simple matter to avoid or outwit the guards.
A little bit of courage and a bit of luck was all that was
needed. OK, that's a fucking lie.
Maybe a little food and water too.
They were so deprived they probably couldn't even make it
across the field to escape. Thank you.

(03:04):
He was going to say that once outside, the locals would help.
That despite them parading inmates past the bodies of those
who attempted to escape and failed did not deter them.
Quote. There were others who did not
hesitate to make the attempt despite everything, hoping that
they would be along. They would be among the lucky
90% who succeeded. I I saw your face on that.

(03:25):
Yeah, 90%. OK, here's a real numbers.
An estimate of 1.3 million people were deported to
Auschwitz. 802 attempted to escape, 144 were successful.
Let me give you that in in percentages .07%, under 1% of
the people who were transported Auschwitz tried to escape and of

(03:46):
those only 18% were successful. So I don't know where you're
getting these statistics, Sir. But the math ain't math.
Man ain't Meaphin. So in January 1942, the one seat
conference in Berlin. Berlin outlined in carefully
choice words their plan for the Final Solution, because like,

(04:07):
everything's all slow in government works.
I guess they're taking their time into creating this more
digestible version of the Final Solution to give to the wider
audience, if that makes sense. They did all the ugly shit
behind scenes, like this is whatwe going to do, but this is how
we going to sell it. That makes sense.
Yes. So they killing all these folks

(04:30):
and these gas chambers and everything, but that's not what
they were telling everybody theywere doing.
Exactly. While many historians debate the
exact date, we do know that in the spring in 1942, Himmler
began ordering mass deportationsof Jews to concentration camps.
At this point the camp still somewhat resembled the camps
prior that like they were prior to the war for their function

(04:51):
would change to become one of a death machine.
Himmler's act order was directedto Ricard Glucks which was Ika
which was that crazy mother fucker successor to the
concentration camp inspector. It was ordered that 100,000
Jewish men and 50,000 women weregoing to be evacuated from the
Reich as a raver, as ravers, laborers in Auschwitz.

(05:15):
Prior to this, they would come out all political commissars of
the camps and liquidate them. If you recall what that means.
I say it that way just because that's how they described what
they did. They liquidated them like they
were not humans, but a commodity.
And this gave room for all the Jews to come.
Rudy would call quote. In the spring of 1942, the first

(05:35):
transports of Jews, all earmarked for extermination,
arrived from Upper Silesia. Excuse my ignorance on this, but
did they keep a log of everyone they killed?
Yes, OK. Very honestly, at Nuremberg, it
was far more successful in Nuremberg because they were so
meticulous with their records. I'm glad they attempted to erase
them, but there were so many records.

(05:56):
They couldn't. They couldn't no so like they
had told on themselves awfully. Happy for it.
I do love a good record, you know what I'm saying?
I love meticulous. Records just some like do did
all these people's families everfind out what happened there's.
Plenty that didn't you know where I'm, I'm sure in like the
situations where they had these mass shootings at the beginning

(06:16):
of the exterminations they were happening out like in woods in
the country and stuff. And I, I don't know if they were
doing it the way they did it in concentration camps on the as
far as record keeping. So I'm sure there's probably a
good bit that their family neverfound out, but there is a good
bit that is known. They would take him to the quote

(06:37):
cottage AKA the Morgan Crematorium and direct them to
undress, to shower and allow. While most were calm, a few
mentions of annihilation by asphyxiation led to a little bit
of panic to grow. They didn't have long before
they were thrusted into the gas chamber and from that point on,
when taking a new prisoners, they would look for those who
would or could cause a disturbance which could in turn

(07:00):
'cause panic. Rudy would say quote.
With subsequent transports, the most difficult individuals were
picked out early on and most carefully supervised at the
first signs of unrest. Those responsible were
unobtrusively LED behind the building and killed with a small
caliber gun that was inaudible to the others.
The presence and calm behavior of the special detachment served
to reassure those who were worried or suspected that of

(07:23):
what was about to happen. A further calming effect was
obtained by members of the special attachment and
accompanying them into the roomsand remaining with them until
the last moment when the S S manwho stood in the doorway would
shut it at the end. Just like with all the other
death squads committing mass murders in Germany, their
tactics to deceive those condemned to die by giving them

(07:43):
lives to keep them calm and cooperative was a repeated
tactic used by Nazis during their mass murders.
What do you think the worst shotwould be to close the door or
drop the gas cannon? Close that door.
I don't know if you watched thatshow Yellow Jackets.
One thing that it's a little bitof a pot soiler there like

(08:05):
people die in it. It's a plane crash of like a
girls soccer team, high school girls soccer team, and they get
into starvation situations wherethey're now debating on killing
each other and and then everything.
There's a lot more to it. So I'm not completely spoiling
the plot here, but there's a point where the girl, it has to

(08:25):
kill another girl and she's like, no, you're going to look
me in the eye. And just so to sit there and
think that you're looking at so many pairs of eyes as you shut
that door. Whereas when you're putting it
that through that hole in the roof, you're not seeing
anything. You're just like, shut it,
That's it. The looks in their eyes, I don't
know if I could ever outlive that.
Yeah, anywho, back to death, torture and dismay.

(08:51):
So host would speak on the special detachment prisoners.
They were the ones who did the hands on work, especially in
circumstances of preparing people to be gassed.
These were the Sonder commandos like I spoke about.
They were Jewish prisoners specifically tasked to do The
Dirty work of Nazis when it cameto exterminations.
Truly, it was difficult to a position to be in.
They did not choose it, but it was such a vile act to

(09:12):
collaborate in that you can't really deduce how to feel about
them. Primo Levy, who translated
Rudy's book, spoke on them. Quote.
I ask that we meditate upon the story of the crematorium Ravens
with pity and rigor, but that the judgement of them be
suspended. What I can tell you is facts
about their imprisonment. They were.

(09:33):
They would be periodically shot and disposed of since they were
very enmeshed in the process of gassing and the Nazis did not
want to risk them eventually surviving and retelling what we
were witnessing. They would also have strict
orders not to communicate anything about the final
solution or what the victims were about to experience.
They ensure this by keeping themsegregated from the rest of the

(09:53):
population. They would have their own
barracks, which would sometimes be attached to the crematorium
itself. After the war, the few that
survived dedicated their life toretelling their stories and
being by being a first hand living memory of those horrors.
Some would go on to write about their experiences, like the case
of the memoir A Damaged Mirror in 2014.

(10:14):
The co-author says, quote. The fact that good people can be
forced to do wrong doesn't make them less good, the survivor
says of themselves. But it doesn't make the wrong
less wrong. True.
Preach. It shows me the complexity of
their experiences and how difficult it is to resolve their
actions, whether forced or not. Rudy would remark on how these

(10:35):
prisoners gave not even the slightest hint of what their
fellow prisoner was about to experience.
And while it was impossible for some prisoners to trust s s men,
the Special Detachment prisonersgave a false calm.
Rudy would remark on his almost admiration of their dedication
to their work. Quote It was interesting to hear
the lies that the special detachment told them with such

(10:57):
conviction, and to see emphatic gestures which they underlined
them. Many of the women buried their
babies among the piles of clothes.
The men of the special detachment were particularly on
the lookout for this and would speak words of encouragement to
the women until they persuaded her to take her child with her.
The women believe that the disinfectant might be bad for
their small children, hence their efforts to conceal them.

(11:19):
The smaller children usually cried because of the strangeness
of being undressed in this fashion, but when their mothers
and members of the special detachment comfort them, they
became calm and entered the gas chambers, playing or joking with
some of them even carrying toys That's.
Cool. He would later say how despite
all their efforts, some knew exactly where they were headed.

(11:41):
He noted that the way that the women would shriek and pull
their hair out in terror only tobe LED away and shot in the back
of the neck with a small calipergun.
He would coldly recall some of the things his victims would say
as they knew they walked to their desk in the gas chamber.
One man said as he passed by me.Germany will pay a heavy penance
for this mass murder of Jews. His eyes glowed with hatred as

(12:03):
he said it. Oh yeah, I bet.
Rightly so. Yeah.
One particular woman went to death knowing it would happen,
but somehow had this eerie calm quote.
This one young woman caught my attention, particularly as she
ran busily hit her and thither helping the smallest children in
the old women undress. During the selection.

(12:23):
She had two small children with her and her agitated behavior
and appearance had brought her to my notice at once.
She did not look in the least like a Jewess now her children
were no longer with her. She waited until the end,
helping the women who were not undressed and who had several
children with them, encouraging them and calming the children.
She went the very last ones intothe gas chambers.

(12:44):
Standing in the doorway she said.
I knew all the time that we werebeing brought to Auschwitz to be
gassed when this election took place.
I avoided being put with the able bodied ones as I wish to
look after the children. I wanted to go through it all,
fully conscious of what was happening.
I hope that'll be quick. Goodbye, he would note the
terror, the anguish, the fear from a place that sounds nearly

(13:07):
clinical, like he was watching Lab Rats react to poison cheese.
This one quote kind of caught meoff guard.
During the spring in 1942, hundreds of vigorous men and
women walked, all unsuspecting, into the gas to their death in
the gas chambers, under the blossom laden fruit trees of the
cottage orchard. The picture of death in the

(13:28):
midst of life remains with me tothis day, and it reminds me of
the song Strange Fruit. Have you heard of that?
Don't worry, I've got it. Let me tell you all about it.
Oh, I knew you wouldn't. It was written by Abel Meeropol
and performed by Billie Holiday.This is the lyrics.
Southern trees bear strange fruit.
Blood on the leaves and blood atthe root.

(13:50):
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze.
Strange fruit hanging from the Poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant S The bulging eyes and the twisted
mouth. Scent of Magnolia, sweet and
fresh. Then the sudden smell of burning
flesh. Here is fruit for the crows to
pluck, for the rain to gather, for the wind to suck, for the
sun to rot, for the trees to drop.

(14:13):
Here is a strange and bitter crop.
I'm sure you can surmise what this is about, but what really
got me was what I learned about Abel Meeropol.
He was a white Jewish teacher from the Bronx who wrote about
facial violence in America in 1937.
He wrote that maybe it's just me, but the universal message of

(14:34):
being against violence and prejudice was really his heart.
She was actually arrested several times for performing
that song. Oh, I'm sure.
I think it's like the State versus Billie Holiday.
It's a movie about it where she keeps getting arrested.
I think she got, I think on her deathbed.
I believe it was her on her deathbed that she was handcuffed
to it because she was. Like what if y'all think what

(14:56):
you're doing is right, why you got a fucking problem with me
singing about it? Thank you.
You only got a problem if you know what you're doing is
fucking wrong. And that's probably what she
told him. It's probably like, like right
now. What's his name that's in charge
of Congress? Mike Johnson.
And there's this whole thing where apparently he was hitting

(15:18):
on some guy on Grinder. Now Mike Johnson is a married
man with children. Married to A.
Woman man with children, OK. And he's like saying all these
really out there things like kind of overtly sexual.
And then this guy's like awful brazen for a man who won't show
his face. He's like, well, I got a lot to
lose. And then he chose the picture.

(15:40):
And it's Mike Johnson. And it looks like he's at a
Congress event at that. And then, you know what happens?
The CIA has been calling everybody who has posted about
it because, like, it's like, literally pictures of this
conversation in Grinder. And I was like, Oh my God.
We're just going to mute all these people.

(16:02):
I'm sorry, Sir. You were on Grinder.
You got caught. Yeah, it's done.
It's done. You done.
Got caught. So let's go back to it.
With the failure of expansion eastward and a lack of strong
able Soviet PO WS, the first purpose of getting all the Jews
to camps was to work them quite literally to death in expanding

(16:23):
Auschwitz. Annihilation through labor, as
they put it. Host would spend every waking
hour working on his expansion, believing it was integral for
the moral, for morale, for his men to see him there, and that
the following orders was paramount, even above 1's
conscience quote. I had to see everything.

(16:43):
I had to watch, hour after hour,day and by night.
The removal and burning of the bodies, the extraction of the
teeth, the cutting of the hair, the whole grisly and terminable
business. I had to stand for hours on end
in the ghastly stench while the mass graves were being opened
and the bodies dragged out and burned.
I had to look through the peephole of the gas chambers and
watch the process of death itself, because the doctors

(17:05):
wanted me to see it. I had to do all this because I
was the one to whom everyone looked, because I had to show
them all that I did not merely issue the orders and make
regulations, but all was also prepared myself to be present at
whatever task I had assigned my subordinates.
OK, sure, bud. It's so hard being a not thing.
So hard. Listen, what's the name of the

(17:28):
the designer that designed theirsuits?
Alexander. No.
What was his name? Oh, yeah, he had they had Hugo
Boss design outfits. OK.
They literally had anything theywanted that was stolen from the
Jews. It's really hard.
It is so hard, the construction was tedious and of course they

(17:51):
cared not about their prisoner laborers.
They would often find them have them sleeping in the same
barracks they were building and they would reworked no matter
the weather and no matter the time with long surprise roll
calls being done. And not only are they
experiencing fatigue in general,they are starving, dehydrated
and overexposed to weather conditions, severely lacking

(18:12):
sleep, which makes which all makes the possibility of dying
rise exponentially. By now, the second phase of
Birkenau was actively functioning, adding to the total
capacity of the camp. The goal would be that the first
phase would hold 20,000 inmates and each additional segment
holding 60,000, although they would stuff people in far beyond
the capacity intended. For example, a barracks could

(18:34):
hold 500 would be forced to hold800 to 1000 instead, creating
unsanitary and unsafe living conditions which.
Yeah, because they were there before they put 1000 in their
first 500 when 500 they were sanitary and livable and there's
really the fuck out of here. And Birkenau was like really bad
compared to AUS, which was sounds crazy, but because they

(18:55):
didn't have any running water, they have that.
It was like disgusting over there.
And it was all this Berman and fleas and disease and typhus
outbreaks and stuff, and they didn't care.
Thank you. They just put those people in
it. It's hard to believe any of them
were better than the other, but you know, I see your point.
Yes, so I wanted to roll back and talk about Hedwig hosts in

(19:21):
their relationship. She was, by all accounts, a
severely proud woman. She was also deeply
anti-Semitic. So while she wasn't
participating, she wasn't not not condoning it, You know what
I'm saying, right? Survivor testimonies describe
the pervasive stench of burning bodies emanating from the
crematoria, a smell that lingered in the air and was

(19:41):
impossible to ignore. Despite this, Hedwig later
claimed that she was unaware of the full extent of genocide,
taking plate at place at Auschwitz, insisting that she
did not know about the systematic extermination of the
Jews. Have you ever smelled burning
flesh? No and I don't really want to
but I heard it smells like pork.No, not to me.
To me it smells like vomit and burnt popcorn mixed together.

(20:04):
It smell. It's the smell of burning
popcorn, but that someone burnedpopcorn while someone was puking
in a garbage can in front of them.
You never forget it. You don't.
It's a horrible, horrible smell.Just in case you were wondering,
I I smelled it when I was in theORS.
They were doing an amputation ofa.
Leg so. It was all, you know, legit.

(20:24):
Imagine the smells you have smelt.
Yeah, it's. It's terrible and you're like a
scent adverse person like I am. Scents really do matter to us.
I can't imagine. I don't know how you did it.
First of all, you're an Angel. Thank you.
You're. Saving lives every fucking day
thank you and dealing with people like me doing dumb shit

(20:45):
all the time. Bring joy to my life and a
paycheck. Oh, that.
Paycheck. It's just his right, don't it?
I love that green. It's also noted that the
crematoriums were very visible from her bedroom window and that
she had interacted with numerouspeople who would have known or
spoken about what was happening.One was her very brother, Rudy

(21:06):
would proudly take him on a tourthrough the camp.
So if anyone is going to tell you, I hope it's going to be
your family. Like, you know, in fact, if if
you watch Zone of interest, there's a scene where Hedwig's
mother comes and and this is like a fiction based on reality,
like, you know. Based on a true story.

(21:27):
Kind of, yes. And so like, her mother comes
and like she's remarking how beautiful their villa is and her
garden and then that night. She's like, what is that smell?
They, Yeah, she smells it and there's this light emanating
through the windows and it's fire coming from the crematorium
stacks and just smoke everywherein there because they did it
mostly, I guess at night, the Times or whatever.

(21:47):
And she just left in the middle of the night.
Like the next morning, she wrote.
Left a note like, I don't know what the fuck's going on.
But I gots to go. I gots.
To go. So there's no way this bitch
didn't know. Yeah, eventually it was.
Just like all that was women with our husbands have been like
sorting, embezzling money and doing all this stuff now.
Like I had no idea, bitch, I seethe pearls around your necklace.

(22:08):
How do you think you have a Louis Vuitton?
Yeah. How do you think you've got this
little boutons? OK, you don't get red soles for
$1.99. OK, that's not a 5 Below
product. Eventually it was reported that
she found out and that she couldn't do anything but stop
sleeping in the same room as herhusband and then also stopped
having sex with him because that's going to save lives.

(22:33):
I've tried that with mine, it hasn't saved any.
Lives not a damn life yet. Her daughter Bridget would later
say that her mother was so wonderful they called her the
Angel of Auschwitz. Hey, that's also what JJ calls
me, but it's of Johnsonville. Baby, there is only one Angel of
Auschwitz and it is the Angel ofDeath.
Hedwig enjoyed the life of our high-ranking Nazi commandant.

(22:55):
They lived in a villa that she had spruced up to entertain Nazi
officers in style as was suggested to her by Himmler.
Side note, Himmler was Uncle Jaime to host his children and
Rudy proudly displays photos of him and his family in their
villa. She enjoyed a huge garden, a
pool, personal servants. She preferred to not have any
Jew servants though, because of her anti-Semitism.

(23:18):
Because they're dirty. But it wasn't like she treated
the other servants any better. Yeah.
Like 1 servant at. Least maybe she gave them food.
At times this is so one time there was a servant she really
liked and he was at he was in danger of being exterminated or
killed or executed. However, she wanted to call it
and she was able to stop it, butthat she never stopped to remind

(23:42):
him that I saved your life and Ishould unsave it real.
Quick. Oh, I'm sure.
She also loved to shop through all the mountains of confiscated
items from the Jews, from fur coats to jewelry.
If she didn't get it from them, she had inmates make them for
her. Hedwig had established A
dressmaking workshop at Auschwitz in which 25 inmates

(24:03):
designed and sewed high fashion clothing for Nazi women.
Rudy felt that his life was miserable despite his outward
appearances, that he and his family lived a lovely life.
Quote. My family, to be sure, were well
provided for an Auschwitz. Every wish that my wife and
children express was granted them.
The children would could live a free and untrammeled life.

(24:25):
My wife's garden was a paradise of flowers.
The prisoners never missed an opportunity for doing some
little act of kindness for my wife and children and that's
attracting their attention. One former prisoners can No
former prisoner can ever say that he was in any way or at any
time badly treated in our house.My wife because they were
probably never in your house. My wife's greatest pleasure

(24:47):
would have been to give a present to every prisoner who
was in any way connected to our household.
Yeah, that'd be like me saying Inever treated any prisoners in
my home bad. I can say that because there's
never been any in there. The children.
It's a true statement. Truth on truth on truth.
Yeah. The children were perpetually
begging me for cigarettes for the prisoners.
They were particularly fond of the ones that worked in the

(25:08):
garden. And I don't know about you guys,
but it sounds very much like I wasn't a bad Nazi.
I treated my prison servants extra well.
I mean, it's nice for the kids to give them smokes.
Yeah, I mean, but it like literally.
It's not so kind. Howling color could see through
this. OK, Jesus, Rudy, for all his
writings about his supposed crystal moral compass, you would

(25:30):
think fidelity to his wife wouldbe his top priority.
Oh no, I never thought that, butlike, thanks for thinking we
did. Like many men, he listened to
the wrong head. OK.
One of his servants at his villawas a woman hired to do
embroidery work. Her name was Nora Eleanor Hodis,
although she went by Eleanor, I do want to know that there's a

(25:50):
historical fiction novel called The Mistress of Auschwitz based
on her. But like James Cameron's
Titanic, we know the ship was real, but Jack was a fictional
character. So I did my best to suss out the
most accurate version of this relationship.
Born in 19 O 3, she had been arrested for high treason and
misuse of a National Socialist Party badge while she was at the

(26:13):
women's Ravensbrook camp. She would be transferred to
Auschwitz. There she would be set to work
as a chemist at the s s hospital.
When she was summoned to the commandant's house by his wife
there she was asked if she couldrepair a rug, and she did so.
So they decide. Let's hire her, you know?
So this pitch was a chemist. And then they were like, hey,
can you come patch up our rug? Yes.

(26:34):
OK, OK, if you say so. She worked with two other women
who see who would mention to herhow the commandant seemed to
give her special attention. Because of this special
attention, she would have her own quarters, be exempt from
morning call, eat the same foodsas the commandant and his
family, and of course, have extended privileges that others
couldn't have imagined. In Auschwitz.

(26:55):
The first attempt that to have relations with her was while
Hedwig was away. She was shocked and she ran and
hit in a a laboratory. Here's an excerpt from a
testimony that she would later give to Doctor Conrad Morgan who
would investigate Hostess relationship with Eleanor.
He's a Nazi doctor. So like this is an investigation
of a Nazi by a Nazi quote. The CEO expressed his particular

(27:18):
feelings for me for the first time, as in May 1942, his wife
being out, I was in his villa sitting by the radio.
Without a word, he came to me and gave me a kiss.
I was surprised and frightened, escaped him and locked up in the
toilet. There were too many obstacles
between him and me on the account of his position and the
fact that he was married. From then on, I did not come in

(27:40):
the CEO's house anymore. I reported myself as sick and
tried to hide from him whenever he asked for me.
Weeks later, after his wife returned, he he was out because
of a medical issue. He had fallen off a horse or
some. Shit like that.
Yeah, and so Hedwig, I guess hadsuspected something and fired

(28:00):
her. Some believe she was highly
suspicious of his treatment Order Quote He sent S S housed
in Fiera Mueller to tell me thatI was free on Sunday and I
should bathe, had my hairdressed, put on my best
clothes and call on his wife on Sundays.
At the end of September his wifetold me I need not come anymore
to for the time being as the CEOwas sick and by leets and she

(28:23):
was with him. Two or three days later.
The supervisor, Supervisor Dreschle took the work away from
me. A fortnight later I was sent to
the SL as a reason I was told I had committed some infraction in
the CEO's house. Therefore, there upon I wrote a
letter to the CEO, another to his wife and another to his
cook, the prisoner Sophie Stipple, and these I explained

(28:44):
the facts and asked him to take no account of rumors and to do
something for me as an answer. The next day at 1:30 PMI was
transferred to the Commandant toour arrest.
Should be placed not in a barracks or even Block 11.
Should be put into a special jail in the basement meant for s
S soldiers who had committed serious crimes.

(29:04):
She would go on to tell that Doctor Conrad One night I was
already sleeping and he suddenlyhe stood suddenly in my cell.
I heard him say something like hush and a torch light was
switched on and I saw the face of the commandant.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and then moved closer and
closer to me and tried to kiss me when I resisted.
He wanted to know why I was so reserved.

(29:26):
Quote because he was a married man, because he was the
commandant and a married man I replied.
Finally he left. So like this has been framed
like a affair, but it's not. This is a girl that he hit on
and pretty much basically raped eventually.
That's what I figured. She would tell Doctor Morgan

(29:46):
that she would be visited by Rudy regularly and eventually he
would begin having sex with her.He had used a backhand way to
get to herself to bring very little attention.
It was a garden door to the building that he had left
unlocked so he could just walk into the cell area unnoticed.
He would get overly confident until one night a siren went
off, meaning cell checks would be happening.

(30:07):
The bad news was that he was naked and he had no time to
dress, so he had to hit. He hid.
She hid his uniform in her bed and then he hid to the side of
the door because it was like a room.
So like if you were to the side right up against her, you
probably wouldn't see him. Thankfully, he didn't get
caught. Well, unthankfully, Yeah,
unfortunately, he didn't get caught.

(30:28):
There we go. That's the better way to say it.
After that he wouldn't get naked.
He just like bring down his clothes just enough to do what
he needed to do. Oh.
That's great. Yeah, real delightful.
Eventually she would fall pregnant and her situation would
go from bad to worse. It was illegal for s s men to
have relationship with Jewish prisoners or prisoners in
general as it is today with jailers and prisoners.

(30:49):
Not the Jewish part, just the prisoners part.
Right. But in this case, it's
punishable by death. If Rudy died, there went her
ticket to get out. She would talk about the
interrogation of who the father was and what they would do to
her. Quote.
In the evening I had a second attack with terrible vomiting.
Then the prisoner's doctor came.Doctor doering.
After examination he told me carefully, you are pregnant.

(31:12):
The following day he came again and examined me thoroughly.
He established the fact definitely that I was pregnant 8
weeks. He asked me who the man was.
I told him I could not answer and asked him not to say
anything about it. I urged him at the same time to
help me. Therefore, the following day, a
janitor at the bunker, I think Teresiak, handed me through the
window 2 medicines. I took one, I got terrible pains

(31:35):
and I threw the second one away.Doctor Doring did not come
anymore. After this attempted abortion, I
was taken into a special cell ofthe dungeon, which is a very
small dark hole, and only very little air can pass into it,
otherwise it was quite dark. One can stand in that hole or
stay on the knees to have a change of position.
The next morning when Gerring came to fetch me, I was

(31:57):
completely naked as I had just been watching washing.
Just as I was finishing, Gerringtook me along.
He only allowed me to put on an apron.
Witness of this is a rotten Fiora Mueller.
I had to say above the describedcell at all time.
I was told, not told the reason.When I was in the dungeon, I got
terribly fade and started crying, for which Hans had to

(32:17):
pour several buckets of water onme.
The reason why I cried so terribly was because there was a
dead body in the cell which I could feel in the darkness.
Oh, that's awesome. This was block 11 standing
cells. They had put her in there with
the hopes that she would lose the baby.
She, you know, had tried to selfabort without those pills

(32:38):
already. She would get moved eventually
where she would attempt to abortthe baby herself.
After my release from this special cell, I asked my
neighbor, the next cell, how to manage an abortion.
This was about in April or May of 1943.
Miss Reagan Scheit told me to get a hold of a long needle
which I should open the ovary and put green soap inside what

(32:58):
the above mentioned. Kurt Mueller brought me those
things along as I told him I needed it for my washing.
With the support of a mirror. I started trying it without the
result and I lost a lot of bloodand the spot became rather
swollen. The whole trial was without any
result. Eventually she would have secret
abortion and then be sent to a different campus.
Host would finally come under investigation for this.

(33:19):
His supervisor. Supervisor stopped it though
basically saying he was a comment.
What you going to do about it? A lot, Sir.
And she would end up in Dachau camp, where she would eventually
be liberated and die in the 1960s, but not before having a
hand and helping ensure Hostess conviction by a written
testimony to Doctor Morgan beingused against him.
But we'll talk more about that later.

(33:40):
I'm sure we will. In July 1942, Uncle Jaime would
come for another visit to Auschwitz.
He would tour the camp as well as witness the extermination of
Jews who had recently arrived bytrain.
This is when he discovers how shitty the conditions are.
I mean I don't know what else heexpected but sounds like a man
to do nothing and expect everything.
Yeah. Upon seeing Gypsy children

(34:02):
suffering, Noma Hitler ordered anyone who could not work be to
be destroyed. What felt like disgust, hidden
or feigned pity, Rudy said. Quote he saw those children were
sick with infectious disease diseases and the children
suffering from Noma which alwaysmade me shudder since it
reminded me of leprosy and the leopards that I had seen in
Palestine. There are little bodies that

(34:24):
waste away with gaping holes in their cheeks big enough for a
man to see through a slow Peach reaction of the living body.
He wasn't wrong, however it is ashocking sight to see this and
further it's a child. My heart broke.
I don't recommend you look up what Noma is if you don't know.
I don't know. And I was thinking like
pneumonia and then you said leprosy, so I know what leprosy

(34:45):
is. I've taken care of some with
leprosy so I got all the visualsI need.
Thank you. There, see, I've never known her
to be wrong. She's not going to Google it,
and I think you guys should listen.
During this visit, Himmler saw his work in action.
Not the theory of it, but the actuality of his crimes, the
brutal conditions, the smell of death, the utter despair.

(35:08):
I'm sure he was taken a little back, as this was far from the
clean and precise German style he was expecting.
He remained quiet for the large part of the tour, seemingly
almost angry. I should also add that it's only
now, in the summer of 1942 that Crematorium 1 is being built.
Despite the amounts of massive amounts of death that had
occurred, the ability to keep upwith the bodies was a ever

(35:30):
constant struggle. There were huge mass burials.
They couldn't get them deep enough and because of that it
would become a petrified pit of mud and fluids.
That's awesome. That's great.
They did have a single crematorium in the morgue, which
is laughable. Any other burning was done
outside in the pits by the Sonderkommando.
They would extend the fires, soaking them to keep them going
while handling the large amountsof liquefied human fat and

(35:53):
incomplete parts. Even eventually it had to end
because of the complaints of thenearby villages.
Quote it become apparent during the first cremations in the open
air that the in the long run it would not be possible to do it
to continue in that manner during bad weather or when a
strong wind was blowing. The stench of burning flesh was
carried for many miles and caused the whole neighborhood to

(36:15):
talk about the burning of Jews. Despite official counter
propaganda, it is true that all the members of the s s detailed
for the extermination were boundto the strictest strictest
secrecy over the whole operation.
But as later s s legal proceedings show, this was not
always observed. Even the most severe punishment
was not able to stop their love for gossip.

(36:36):
Gossip. I'm here for the cheese.
Me. OK, I love a goth.
Me too. I love a good goth sesh.
As long as I'm not the drama. You said me.
Am I the drama? Weirdly, they did try a couple
times to blow up bodies, but that didn't pan out.
Go figure. That's what I thought it was

(36:56):
like. What are you?
What were you? Accomplishing.
What did you think was going to happen?
It's not going to be like a mist.
Yeah. And also there were no like
Saturday cartoons at the time, so I don't know where they got
this from because what? Looney Tunes the fuck out of
here. Himmler, after his visit in the
summer of 1942, would have them dig up the bodies all over the

(37:17):
concentration camps in order to have them burn. 1 because of the
issues and 2:00 because of the evidence.
Because it's easier high ashes in a river or pond than bodies
in a beer in a pit. I mean, it's logical.
I'll give him that, yeah. Well, he didn't have to do it
too, so that also helps. Yeah, just like when my boss
comes and tells us to do the impossible.
Right. You find a way to make it
happen. Yes, Sir, Rudy would remark on

(37:40):
the burning of the bodies. They were burned in pits day and
night, continuously. By the end of November, all the
mass graves had been emptied. The number of corpses in the
mass graves amounted to 107,000.This figure not only included
the transports of Jews gassed upto the time when cremation was
first employed, but also the bodies of those prisoners in
Auschwitz who died during the winter of 1941 to 1942, when the

(38:04):
Crematory into the hospital building was out of action for a
considerable time. It was also included all the
prisoners who died in the Birkincamp.
You know, it's really sad too, because, you know, Jews have
beliefs about how they have to be buried, right?
And they have to have all their body parts and like if you get a
tattoo, that body part doesn't go with you and all of this so.
I didn't know that about the tattoo part.
Yeah. That's interesting.

(38:24):
My friend told me that that was Jewish.
What's it called Shiva when theysaid Shiva after someone passes
away. There's a horror movie on that.
Of course, that would be your reciting resource.
It's a really good one you'd have to watch.
It has to do with evil spirits coming from Nazi camps.

(38:46):
There you go as a long and shortof it.
Any who carry on, sorry I'm random man.
Now I need to think of the name of that fucking movie.
It's like the I don't know. ANYWAYS, by the way, stop ADHD.
Stop it's attacking me host had already got ready for this visit

(39:06):
by allowing prisoners a bath, a little more food, and that had
the band play some music stuff to make it seem a little less
awful. Like lipstick on a white
supremacy big. He wanted to impress Himmler and
also get his help. He still hated his staff and he
didn't trust him. Except Himmler wasn't about it,
He did not like the complaints and Rudy's appendix and meetings

(39:27):
with Himmler. He would describe Uncle Heinie's
feelings on the bad news quote. You will be amazed, he replied
at the impossible officer material with which you will
have to be satisfied. In the end, I need every
officer, junior officer and man who is capable of serving in the
front line. For the same reason, it is
impossible to increase the strength of the guard.

(39:48):
You'll have to think of some technical ways of economic
economic economizing the guards.You must use some more dogs for
this purpose. I'll get my expert on dog
handling to call you in a few days and explain the new method
of using dogs as substitute guards.
The number of escapees from Auschwitz is unusually high and
is unprecedented in a concentration camp.

(40:10):
I approve by every means. I mean every means by being used
to prevent these escapes. This escape disease, which has
become rampant in Auschwitz, must be eradicated.
OK, we're on it. This is why we wouldn't we
wouldn't have lasted long. No.
One such example was the leader of the women's camp, Frau

(40:30):
Langerfelt. He would try to get her demoted,
but weirdly Himmler insist on having women over the women's
camp. Which I say is weird because
Nazis were hella sexist. They did not think women were
camp bullshit. Oh, I'm sure.
What got me was that he was proud that he did it right in
front of her, like a petulant child complained.
He didn't get the way he liked and he was like, what man would

(40:51):
take orders from a woman? Like, are you serious right now?
Definitely believe that was her mindset.
Hammer refused to be LED around the camp, which was predictable.
He wanted everything pointed outto him and he loved to point out
areas that he seemed they were deficient in.
I'm sure it pissed Rudy off because he kept telling him,
well, that's why I need help. You're on my problems, Himmler

(41:13):
would respond. Quote, I don't want to hear any.
I don't. I want to hear no more about
difficulties. An S S officer does not
recognize difficulties. All I want is a can do attitude.
When they arise, his task is to remove them at once by his own
efforts. How is this to be done?
By how? How this is to be done is your
worry and not mine. Eventually they were retired to

(41:35):
a dinner party at another Nazis home and Himmler would seem
quite cheerful drinking where hepreviously would abstain.
Regardless of this he would resume his cold hearted visit
the next day and in the tour with his review quote I have now
seen it made a thorough inspection of Auschwitz.
I have seen everything and I have seen enough of the
deficiencies and difficulties and I have heard enough of them

(41:57):
from you. I can, however, do nothing to
alter them. You will have to manage as best
you can. We are now in the middle of a
war and we must think in the terms of war.
The actions, actions which I have ordered the security police
to carry out will not be stoppedunder any circumstances, least
of all because the lack of accommodation and so on which I
have been shown. Eichmann's program will continue

(42:18):
to be carried out and will be intensified month by month.
You must see to it that swift progress is made with building a
Burkina. The Gypsies are to be destroyed.
The Jews who are unfit for work are to be destroyed with the
same ruthlessness. And they would eventually go in
to say I've seen your work in the results you have achieved
and I am satisfied and thank youfor your services.
You're welcome. Now let me go kill some more

(42:39):
folks. Now, at the end of his time as
commandant, after Himmler had visited in 1942 and before
moving on to his next position in November of 1943, Rudy
doesn't delve into as much. Probably because it was like the
height of this rape affair and the, you know, like the
investigation that happened. So those had them a little

(43:00):
ashamedly busy, but they also were still working on getting
the crematoriums going. They were built burning 1000
bodies a day, but by specifications they were built,
they could burn up to 4000 a day.
And the capos were really good at Tetris because they were able
to select bodies, increase that number to 8000 a day.
Fucking. Stupid.
Just couldn't make it through that sentence without some kind

(43:21):
of joke to get myself from crying.
Auschwitz in 1943 was horrendous.
As one would expect. Mangala would have been
transferred and became the Angelof Death in 1943.
Doctors in the camps were faux gods in their own eyes, in
charge of life and death. If you're aware of any of these
camp doctors, Mangala is the one.
But he wasn't the only one. Heinz Weisner was 1.

(43:43):
He wasn't a doctor in the least.He was a war medic and Nazi
enthusiasts that somehow was able to perform as a doctor at
the Rica camp. He wore a lab coat over his
uniform as he would visit prisoners decide being frail
mostly bonus skin. He would have them lay on their
backs on so-called beds and it would move through examining
each one of them while he they they had all lay flat the whole

(44:08):
time like roll call. Once he completed his inspection
he would either move to the nextor leave an X on the bed frame.
This meant they were to be shot in the woods or given a lethal
injection as they were no longerof any use.
He became known as the man with the syringe.
Mengele had two doctorates. He was particularly fascinated
with racial biology and Auschwitz would become his own

(44:28):
personal lab with as many Lab Rats as he could stand as his
test subjects. He personally attended the
selection process with witness with witnesses for calling him
extremely well dressed and groomed and that his presence
was deceptively nice. He was known for his fascination
with twins and conducting huge immoral and completely unethical
human experiments. But back back to Auschwitz.

(44:49):
She's a little drop in the hat there by now.
It was covered in dead bodies aspeople were dying left and
right, some from disease, some from starvation.
Their bodies were going to be their bodies were found in
trucks on building sites in the latrines.
If prisoners were I'll, they often hit it because it was
certain a death sentence. They this created epidemic upon

(45:11):
epidemic. The smell of death permeated the
camp as the smell of burning bodies as well.
A survivor would speak that theyconstantly vomited all the time
just from the smells. I'm sure.
Like what are you vomiting though?
You have nothing in you. No, I just be dry heaving all
the time. All the time.
Which is me now, but. Same.

(45:34):
It's a jokey joke, guys. I'm just kidding.
I'm kidding. I'm kidding, well not about the
dry heaving, I do dry heap a lot, but it's because I have a
sensitive tummy. So does Becky.
Our tummies are mad at the government.
OK, just a lot of anger pinned up in these little bodies of
ours. Host had visited the s s
construction boss to complain about the conditions.
Birkenau still had no running water amongst other issues, but

(45:57):
don't worry, it wasn't in care for the inmates.
He basically felt that they weredying wrong without maximizing
their work output first. Got to get your money was
money's worth with you, those human slaves.
You know I'm saying for sure thereason he would leave Auschwitz
was that of a promotion to the WVHA.
So let's dive backwards into that for a second.
Which is how I feel about this whole fucking story.

(46:18):
I came in thinking I could just talk about this one thing, and
then I ended up talking about all of the fucking war.
Yeah, because it all really is intertwined.
So you can't do it without a little bit of like.
Let me explain what this is because also I had to Google a
lot of things. There was a lot I did not know.
The WVHA was the s s main economic and administrative

(46:42):
office and they were the organization responsible for
managing the finances, supply systems and business projects of
the Agonine s s which was the main branch of the Schustafel
which is s s. It also ran the concentration
camps and was instrumental in the implementation of the Final
Solution in 1942. The WBH as main purpose was to

(47:04):
expand the SSS contribution to the war effort by using forced
labor in arms manufacturing and construction projects.
Osblad Pohl would be the head ofthe WBHA, and one could say he
was unusually chipper when it came to concentration camps.
You like doing a little too much?
Yeah homie live near Dachau and we'll make trips just to explain

(47:24):
expect inspect it randomly for fun like this is my.
Like it was the zoo. Yeah.
He didn't have anything to do onSunday, so he went.
To give you perspective on his goals, here is a direct quote
quote. s s industries have the task to organize a more
businesslike, more productive execution of punishment and
adjusted to the overall development of the Reich.

(47:46):
OK, Pol insist. Yeah, right.
Pol insisted on extracting the maximum financial work from each
and every camp laborer. Got to get that bang by the
back. Meaning they created fucking
tables to discover the value of concentration camp inmates as
farmed out wage earners, minus the depreciation from food and

(48:08):
clothing, their profit intake from the valuables remaining
after their death, minus the Crematory expenses, and any cost
recovered from selling their bones, their ashes, their hair,
and their gold teeth. They discovered that the average
concentration inmate had a life expectancy of nine months or
less and was valued at 1630 marks.

(48:30):
That would be about $83 and 1941dollars as the Reichsmarks were
worth 19 to 1 American dollar until it finally crashed.
It would eventually in today's money that's worth about $1800.
So human body was worth the price of a modern day appliance.
Now, now that we've established how much of a piece of shit pole

(48:53):
was, let's talk about the WBHA. It's comprised of five
departments that held over 1700 officials.
If you think about how like I think about how I think about it
being like a whole bunch of likeoffice workers, you know what I
mean? We have all these like, what do
they call those receptacles? Not receptacles, cubicles.

(49:15):
Cubicles, yes, they have all these little cubicles and it's
just miserable day in, day out. Well, that's what this was,
yeah. Armament A, which was personnel,
finance, law and administration.They dealt with the personnel
matters, budgets, payrolls. They also handled the transfer
of funds to individual camps. Then you had the Group B, which

(49:37):
handled payroll and supply. They handled the supply of food
and clothing for both s s and prisoners.
Then you had Building and works,which was the Group C.
They were involved in construction projects, including
gas chambers and Crematory and Auschwitz.
It was led by Hans Kamler, who was a dominant figure in the
camp system. Then you had Group W which was

(49:58):
weird that they it's like ABCW. I mean, nothing they've done
makes sense so. That's true.
You know what? You're right.
You're right. You always keep me in focus.
Though this was headed by Pole. It oversaw s s enterprises such
as German Earth and Stone works.At the height of 1943 and 44,
the s s economy included around 30 different companies which

(50:21):
exploited up to 40,000 camp workers.
That's. Nice.
That would be like if the tech Bros right now had all these
workers work for free because that's what it is.
Like, they made these big companies government as well.
Like, it was like they're both government and private entities

(50:41):
at the same time. So we're all making our money,
but also we're government, Yeah.Then you had groups, Group D,
which was based in the T building in Orangeburg.
It was the administrative core of the KL system.
Although it was the smallest department, it had four sub
departments. So let's talk about those.
You had the central office. They handled most of the

(51:03):
correspondence work as well as the collecting of statistics on
the KL system is what I'm talking about, where they were
meticulous in recording everything.
They were in charge of sending orders from Himmler and Polk
directly to the camps and held some oversight on execution and
the systematic killings. Then you had the second one.
It was managing slave labor and its deployment of prisoners to

(51:25):
camps and both private and public industries, as well as
the reasons for prisoners no longer being able to work, like
illness, exhaustion, and death. Like that was a whole
spreadsheet and then they would send that to poll at the end.
Like hello can I call in dead today?
Part 3 was health and medical department which liaised with

(51:46):
the hundreds of s s doctors who placed at the camps.
Dr. Eno Loling was the chief andhad a dubious history.
He had a reputation for morphineand alcohol addiction, possibly
syphilis as well. And he was very not respected.
I don't respect him either. I mean truthfully.
He traveled frequently to camps to teach doctors about the new

(52:08):
killing programs that required participation.
Further, he was statistic and twisted.
He was known to have ordered a collection of human skins with
tattoos to be prepared in different ways and sent to
Berlin. Hundreds were prepared.
Healthy prisoners were killed with an injection to the heart
so as to not damage the tattoos.Laling also ordered s s doctors

(52:29):
to experiment on the shrinking human on with shrinking human
heads and at least three were shrunk.
Host was amongst the many who had no love lost for him quote.
He was so easy to deceive duringinspections, especially as
happened most times when he was been plied with alcohol.
So like he was like just he sounds like a drug Rep kind of

(52:51):
that's been sampling his own shit.
And then you have Part 4, which is the final department handed
administrative issues, includingbudgets and accommodation.
So now that we know all that, let's talk about Hostess
promotion. By now, Italy and Mussolini had
pretty much been taken down by the Allies, and the Allies had
also taken control back over North Africa.

(53:15):
So now we're headed toward the peak of the title change of war
when it goes from Germany winning to the Allies.
Pole being in charge of reorganizing the camp system had
already changed KL staffing extensively, and now it came
time to do it again. He would give Rudy an unusual
choice in his promotion. On what position?
In 1943, Rudy would either go back to Shocks and Hausen as the

(53:38):
commandant or he can handle D1 group and he only had 24 hours
to decide it. He had enough of the camp life
after nine years, so he chose the latter.
This brought huge dismay to his wife, who felt like Auschwitz
was their home and they did not deserve to be uprooted from it
after all the work they did to establish a beautiful home and
garden with all that slave, right?

(53:59):
Did you tell I tell you about mydressmakers?
God, I've. Been ordering these bitches
around for years. And I have all these items that
I pilfer from dead people too. Like seriously, how do you
expect me to carry that everywhere?
But that's where we're actually going to leave off because we're
going to head to the end of the war.
Because like, right now, we're at the end of 1943.

(54:22):
The war ends in 1945, he dies in1947.
Sorry, plot spoiler there. So we only have about four years
left to talk about. Sad.
Well this is the best part is when he dies.
Yay. I love how that shifted.
Sad. Yay, definitely catch up with us
next time as we talk about the end of the war, the end of

(54:45):
Hitler and the end of Rudy with the Nuremberg trials and his own
execution. So don't forget to check us out
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(55:08):
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close to Home Stories and until next time.

(55:28):
Stay safe. Keep your eye on the swivel.
And don't bring it so close to home that you're mad you have to
move out of your slave built home.
So not expecting that not my slave house baby.
If you enjoyed this episode Too close to Home, don't forget to
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(55:49):
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