This Monday, January 27, 2025 marks 80 years since the liberation of the largest concentration camp complex of the Third Reich, the Nazi extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. On this occasion, CNEWS spoke with Tal Bruttmann, historian specializing in the Shoah and anti-Semitism.
A day for history. This January 27, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation by Russian troops of the Nazi camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Located in Poland, this immense concentration camp complex saw an influx of tens of thousands of deportees from all over Europe for months and years, the vast majority of whom never returned.
Specialist in the Shoah and anti-Semitism, historian Tal Bruttmann explains in an interview with CNEWS the singularity of Auschwitz and how the liberation of the camp – or rather its “opening” because the Red Army discovered it in his route to the West – establishes a momentous moment in the history of the Second World War.
What makes Auschwitz so special compared to other camps?
Auschwitz has always been a huge camp. It is the largest in terms of prisoners, in terms of assassinations. From 1940, it was designed for 10,000 prisoners. With this total, it was already the largest concentration camp. In 1941-1942, it accommodated 150,000 people with Birkenau which was built. In 1944, a third of the prisoners in all German camps were in Auschwitz. It is the largest of all and it sets the scene for Auschwitz.
Estimates by Polish historian Franciszek Piper speak of 1.1 million deaths, including 860,000 immediately murdered and 140,000 deaths in the camp afterwards. It is estimated that there were 1 million Jewish deaths and 200,000 prisoners sent to the concentration camp who were not Jews and half of whom died.
Next to the concentration camp there is a so-called killing center. It is often called an “extermination camp”, which is nonsense because if we exterminate, we don’t need a camp. Here too, this center is one of the largest, with the Treblinka extermination center. In both cases, they caused 900,000 victims. In addition, Auschwitz has a particularity called by the SS “selection” which consists of taking a portion of those sent to the gas chambers to send them to the camps.
Auschwitz constituted an immense project without equivalent. In general, on one side there were camps, where Jews and prisoners were held, and killing centers, which worked for the “final solution”. In all of German Europe, the only place where there is an intersection between these two policies is Auschwitz. And what’s more, it was initially a Polish city and the camp developed in 1940 because of the needs of this city. Germany wanted to make it a city of reconquest towards the East. There is a need for labor, and the Germans want to develop factories, mines, agricultural fields and even research laboratories. They want to increase the population from 15,000 inhabitants to 70,000.
This is the camp to which we owe the slogan “Arbeit macht frei” (“Work emancipates”, “Work sets you free”). This is also a particularity of Auschwitz: some of the people sent to the camp survived and gave testimony. In Treblinka, for example, there were only around thirty survivors out of 900,000 dead and they were escapees.
Among the escapees, we can cite many personalities such as Vladek Spiegelman, his first wife Anja Zybelberg or even Jean Améry, Abraham Fridman, etc. Do you remember one more than another?
As you said, there are many stories. They are all interesting. That of Alberto Errera known as “Alex”, who is a Greek Jew deported to Auschwitz, is particularly fascinating because he becomes a heroic figure in the literal sense of the term. He distinguished himself by taking four clandestine photos, which also appear at the memorial for the exhibition “How the Nazis photographed their crimes” (on display in Paris since January 23, 2025).
A week after taking these photos, which tell what happened at Auschwitz, he tried to escape by hitting an SS man in the head with a shovel and diving into a river. He is spotted by other soldiers and killed. But all the stories are interesting and there is not one above another.
The “brains” of this operation is Rudolf Höss. What role did he play?
-He is first and foremost a former commander of the Auschwitz camp. He was at the origin of its creation in the spring of 1940. But in November 1943, he was promoted to Berlin within the central office of Reich security. In April 1944, he was sent to Hungary with Adolf Eichmann, among other things to prepare the deportation of Jews from Hungary.
From April 1944 two test convoys were sent to Auschwitz to see if the infrastructure could cope with the operation. The answer is no and he is sent to Auschwitz to succeed in this task: the destruction of the Jews of Hungary. He only has three months to do it.
Of the 630,000 targeted, there were 430,000 deportations of Jews from Hungary. So he sponsors an album to show how good his work is. The third month of deportation was finally canceled, the Germans becoming frightened by the arrival of the allies. Höss is the man who put to death the Jews of Hungary but also the one who developed the Auschwitz camp.
With 80 years of history, which is not a fixed science, what more have we learned about this period?
Historical knowledge is constantly progressing. The story of events never ends. We are doing ancient history, of Rome or Athens, 2000 years later and it never stops.
Each generation of historians brings its own questions which are added to what others do or which correct what has been done. When I say “correct”, I do not mean that there were errors, but that we are progressing in the understanding of certain periods.
Here, the subject is very well known, the documents have already been extensively worked on, so it is more difficult to make new “discoveries”. For example, our photos have already enjoyed editorial and media success.
Memory transmission is essential in this scenario…
Yes, and there are plenty of ways to pass on this memory, precisely. There is History, as we learn it in school, but there are plenty of other mediums that allow us to do it. There are documentaries, films, some which are celebrated as “Shoah”. But I, for example, am a fan of the “X-Men” series in the cinema. It’s an allegory of the Shoah and it actually begins at Auschwitz and there are a lot of references to the Shoah.
Spiegelman’s name has been mentioned among the survivors of Auschwitz. Comics are another example of a vector (his son, Art Spiegelman, wrote “Maus,” starting in 1980). For me, it has the same value as the writings of Primo Levi or the nine hours of “Shoah” or “Schindler’s List”. There is no ideal way or way that would have more “historical legitimacy”.
In 2024, there is 1,570 anti-Semitic acts have been recorded in Francea historically high level for the second consecutive year. What is your outlook?
After 1945, and the 80 years are a reminder, there was “never again” in France and in the Western world. For a long time we wanted to believe that anti-Semitism had been eradicated. But since October 7, anti-Semitism has not been confined to the margins, as it has been since the end of the war. He has returned to the center of the political game.
What I mean is that many political figures, both on the right and on the left, no longer have a problem with being anti-Semitic, in a more or less assumed, more or less indirect way. It was still on the margins but now it has become accepted.
