On 27 January, we commemorate the anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi German death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. This doomed place – sometimes referred to as hell on earth by those who endured it – saw some of the most atrocious crimes against humanity being perpetrated inside its electrified barbed wires. 

During most of WW2, Germans used the death camp not only as a prison for political opponents. It was a place of extermination for those who were viewed as less than humans by followers of Hitler’s national-socialist ideology: Jews, Poles, Roma people, homosexuals, and many more. 

A lesser-known fact is that even after the camp’s closure, the site was used for several years by the Soviets. After the war, Auschwitz was indeed a camp run by the NKVD. 

In February 1945, the NKVD set up two sub-camps. The first – aimed for the detention of German prisoners of war, could fit up to 1,500 people. In early 1948, over 40,000 people were imprisoned in Auschwitz-Birkenau. They included soldiers of the Home Army and the National Armed Forces, all of whom were particularly hated by Poland’s new invaders. On the roof of the building, where the gas chamber and crematorium had previously been located, a dance floor had even been designed. 

But Auschwitz wasn’t the only one In the years 1945-46, the Communists adapted the Jaworzno concentration camp for their aims. Orgies were reportedly organised inside the building. In the former camp of Świętochłowice, the Soviets used sadistic torture on hundreds of local Silesian prisoners.

There are many more such examples of how the self-proclaimed liberators behaved in Central Europe after the fall of Nazi Germany. The tragedy up until this day remains that most people are unaware of the scale of Soviet crimes perpetrated in the 20th century. That’s why quotation marks are so necessary when talking about the liberation of Poland from Nazi Germany. 

Stalin wanted to take over Poland and all of Central Europe no less than Hitler did, and with no less bloodshed. Due to their refusal to give away their freedom and identity, Poles were always among the main targets of Soviet terror. 

It’s essential to remind about the fact that all evil did not stop in early 1945, despite the Allies’ victory over the Third Reich. Half of Europe got trapped on the wrong side of what was to become the Iron Curtain and endured Communist tyranny for several decades. Talking about Soviet crimes is a matter of respect for their victims, including in former German camps following WW2. 

Image: Unsplash

Author: Sébastien Meuwissen