The Nazis opened a brothel in Auschwitz in 1943 in the hope that this additional "motivation" would induce prisoners to work more efficiently. But, as with everything else in the camp's reality, the camp brothel merely feigned normality.
The subject of "puff", camp brothels, was largely unknown for decades. They were mentioned sporadically. One of the authors who could speak openly on this difficult topic was Tadeusz Borowski, a poet and writer who was sent to Auschwitz in 1943. He described the operation of the brothel in the short story "U nas, w Auschwitzu":
There is a crowd of Lager prominence around the puff. If there are ten Juliet, then Romeas (and not just any) with a thousand. Hence crowd and competition with each Julia. The romees stand in the windows of opposite blocks, shouting, signaling with their hands, and luring. […]
Many Julia has a constant admirer and next to the assurances of eternal love, a happy life together after the camp, apart from reproaches and banter, you can hear more specific data on soap, perfumes, silk panties and cigarettes.
One of the authors who described the brothel in Auschwitz after the war was the writer and poet Tadeusz Borowski (on the left).
It is not an easy reading. The prisoners of the camps, maimed, malnourished and experiencing inhuman cruelty, continued to seek physical pleasure. It was a primal, even animal drive, but also a longing for even a substitute for normality. As Borowski wrote:
Female psychosis is on the rise in the camp. Therefore puffed women are treated as normal women who are told about love and home life . There are ten of these women and the camp has several thousand people.
Motivation for prisoners
Concentration camps are often depicted as completely devoid of ordinary, everyday life. The harassment, rape and cruelty that befell the prisoners are described, and their needs are limited only to satisfying hunger and thirst.
This article was inspired by the novel by Dominik W. Rettinger "Kommando Puff" , published by the Świat Książki publishing house.
This image of a prisoner as a human being almost completely animalistic for a long time was the only one accepted in the literature. It still dominates, although in the last dozen or so years reports have also begun to appear on other, often surprising, themes of the prison life.
One of them is the functioning of brothels within the concentration camp system. Puffy existed in ten Lagers, including Auswchitz, Ravensbrück and Buchenwald. It was no accident that the Nazis allowed them to function. Although their goal was to eliminate entire nations and ethnic groups, they also wanted to make the most of the labor of prisoners. The existence of the brothel was supposed to encourage (even) more effort.
The initiator of the entire project was Oswald Pohl, head of the Main Economic and Administrative Office of the SS and the chief administrator of the network of Nazi camps. On March 23, 1942, he wrote to Himmler, arguing that it would be a solution beneficial for the Third Reich. He had to be convincing because in May 1943 a new incentive system for prisoners was introduced. It quickly gained the common name "Frauen, Fressen, Freiheit", meaning "Women, food, freedom".
The initiator of the creation of brothels in concentration camps was Oswald Pohl, the main administrator of the KL system. Photo from the Nuremberg trial.
Racial purity above all
As soon as Pohl's plan was approved, the camp brothels were built in a flash. How did they work? We learn about it primarily from the accounts of witnesses, memories and fiction. The Germans kept documentation, but they burned a large part of it at the end of the war. This was the case, for example, in Auschwitz.
We know, however, that the rules of organizing puff were ... National Socialist. "Interracial" contacts were not allowed in them, and Jews were not allowed in them at all. These are the rules in the houses of pleasure described by Władysław Fejkiel, a former prisoner of Auschwitz:
And on this episode the Germans respected the racial laws. They forced their citizens to associate with fat German blondes, and dark and shapely girls were left at the disposal of citizens of lower races.
In the terrifying reality of the camp, even the functioning of the brothel was subordinated to the principles of National Socialism.
Just entering the brothel was a privilege. In the camp near Oświęcim, the entrance to block 24, where the puff was located, was possible only upon presentation of a special voucher. It was obviously decided by the camp overseers who would receive it. The first decisions of this type were taken at a fairly high level, as Paweł Stolecki recalled, camp number 6964:
The opening of the brothel (in Auschwitz III-Monowitz) took place in a rather tragic and comic situation. The first 10 'chosen ones' were personally appointed by Lagerführer Schoettl himself. Only that he probably forgot about them, so they stood - waiting - in the cold for over an hour.
The puff was open for two or three hours each evening. At this time, prisoners usually returned to their blocks. There were strict rules of order and hygiene. Each user had to adapt to them, although there were attempts to circumvent these restrictions. The overseers also took care of rotation to prevent bonding between the women and their clients.
The brothel opened in the evening when prisoners returned to their barracks.
Thus, while each of the "employees" had its own fixed number, the place of work was constantly changing. This is how a former prisoner Zofia Bator-Stępień describes the situation:
They changed rooms daily. The SS men wanted the prisoners who came to Puffu not to come into closer contact with each other, so that they would not know the people they came to.
What were promised the women?
According to witnesses, about twenty women were ("worked") in the camp's brothel. Some of them volunteered there. They were driven by various reasons. Some were hoping for better living conditions; others had been doing the same job before their imprisonment. Still others had the promise of freedom, as admitted by SS-Unterscharführer Oswald Kaduk, responsible for the brothel in KL Auschwitz I:
They were not (were) forced, they volunteered (...). They gave themselves up voluntarily. (…) They were lied to - saying that they would be fired in return which, however, never happened.
This article was inspired by the novel by Dominik W. Rettinger "Kommando Puff" , published by the Świat Książki publishing house.
Despite these assurances, there were also women forced to work as prostitutes by the Germans. Unfortunately, our knowledge on this subject is not particularly extensive. After the war, the topic of puffs was hardly discussed. It wasn't until the 1990s that more testimonies appeared, recorded by Christa Paul and Reinhild Kassing. In Poland, Agnieszka Weseli and Joanna Ostrowska have been researching camp brothels for several years.
Although there was no question of freedom, employment in Block 24 was associated with certain privileges. Women could count on better rations of food, cigarettes and civilian clothes, such as dresses and clean underwear. They did not work outside the block, and even ... could read what was not allowed for the other prisoners.
The brothel employees were also under the care of a doctor and had access to their own bathroom. What's more, the Nazis also set certain standards for them. Each of the prostitutes had to have four to eight intercourse each night.
Women who came to Auschwitz to survive often had to make tragic choices.
Women who decided to work in such conditions deluded that they would survive. The truth, however, was quite different. The benefits of being in a puff were deceptive. It was impossible to take care of hygiene in the camp conditions, the more so because no contraceptives were allowed. And when one of the employees got pregnant, she just returned to the "normal" block. The child was taken from her.
Employment in the camp brothel was also associated with enormous psychological costs. In addition, it was a tragedy that could not be talked about. After the liberation, the women working there struggled with the stigma of shame. And yet they did what all the other prisoners did - tried to survive.
Inspiration:
This article was inspired by the novel by Dominik W. Rettinger "Kommando Puff" , published by the Świat Książki publishing house.
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