Russia releases details of Polish-born facilitator of Nazi atrocities at Auschwitz

The publication of archive files coincides with the anniversary of the liberation of the death camp by Soviet troops

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has released declassified documents describing the involvement of a Polish Nazi collaborator in the mass executions at Auschwitz. The disclosure coincided with the 80th anniversary of the death camp’s liberation by the Red Army.

Soviet troops captured the facility, which had been established by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland, on January 27, 1945. Poland did not invite a Russian delegation to commemorate the liberation, citing the ongoing Ukraine conflict. The documents released on Monday highlight the role of Polish collaborators in the crimes committed there.

An estimated 1.1 million individuals were killed at Auschwitz due to forced labor, malnutrition, disease, summary executions, and systematic mass killings. While the majority of victims were Jews, other groups targeted included Soviet POWs, Roma, homosexuals, people with disabilities, and criminals, all of whom were deemed undesirable by the Nazi regime.

The operation of death camps relied on inmate collaborators known as “kapos.” The newly released documents focus on Josef Pietzka, born in Chorzow, Poland in 1914. Initially imprisoned at Auschwitz from 1940 to 1943 for evading military service, Pietzka was later released under police supervision in Katowice.

During interrogation by Soviet authorities, Pietzka claimed he snubbed an opportunity to escape because he was comfortable with his kapo role, according to the FSB. He reported brutalizing laborers for lagging with tasks. His work gang hauled cargoes, including the bodies of dead inmates and the ashes from the crematoriums. He claimed the unit carried 100 to 500 bodies each day.

Soviet prosecutors concluded that Pietzka was mentally ill and required mandatory treatment. In 1955, he was handed over to Soviet-allied East Germany, the agency said, without clarifying his subsequent fate.

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The Nazis opened Auschwitz in 1939 as a concentration camp but later expanded it to carry out mass exterminations. Upon liberation, Soviet troops discovered approximately 7,000 emaciated prisoners, as most of its inmate population had been forced to march away from the advancing Red Army.