Otto Küsel
Encyclopedia
Otto Küsel is considered to be an example of a prisoner functionary in Nazi concentration camp, who used his position in favour of other prisoners.
to Auschwitz I
in a group of 30 criminal prisoners. His prison number was number 2.
As a prisoner functionary, he was responsible to coordinate the work of the prisoners and used his position to help them, for instance by assigning good labour details to weaker prisoners.
In the afternoon of December 1942, Küsel escaped together with the Polish prisoners, Jan Baraś Komski, Mieczysław Januszewski und Bolesław Kuczbara.
Küsel was arrested in Warsaw and sent back to Auschwitz in September 1943. He was kept in isolation until November and released to the main camp in November during an amnesty related to the taking of office of the new commander Arthur Liebehenschel
. On November 9 in 1944 he was sent to Flossenbürg
.
Detention in German concentration camps
Küsel was arrested because of offences against property. On May 20, 1940, he came from the Sachsenhausen concentration campSachsenhausen concentration camp
Sachsenhausen or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used primarily for political prisoners from 1936 to the end of the Third Reich in May, 1945. After World War II, when Oranienburg was in the Soviet Occupation Zone, the structure was used as an NKVD...
to Auschwitz I
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
in a group of 30 criminal prisoners. His prison number was number 2.
As a prisoner functionary, he was responsible to coordinate the work of the prisoners and used his position to help them, for instance by assigning good labour details to weaker prisoners.
In the afternoon of December 1942, Küsel escaped together with the Polish prisoners, Jan Baraś Komski, Mieczysław Januszewski und Bolesław Kuczbara.
Küsel was arrested in Warsaw and sent back to Auschwitz in September 1943. He was kept in isolation until November and released to the main camp in November during an amnesty related to the taking of office of the new commander Arthur Liebehenschel
Arthur Liebehenschel
Arthur Liebehenschel was a commandant at the Auschwitz and Majdanek death camps during World War II. He was convicted of war crimes after the war and executed.-Biography:...
. On November 9 in 1944 he was sent to Flossenbürg
Flossenbürg concentration camp
Konzentrationslager Flossenbürg was a Nazi concentration camp built in May 1938 by the Schutzstaffel Economic-Administrative Main Office at Flossenbürg, in the Oberpfalz region of Bavaria, Germany, near the border with Czechoslovakia. Until its liberation in April 1945, more than 96,000 prisoners...
.
After the war
Küsel was among the 211 survivors of Auschwitz testifying in the Frankfurt Auschwitz TrialsFrankfurt Auschwitz trials
The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials, known in German as der Auschwitz-Prozess or der zweite Auschwitz-Prozess, was a series of trials running from December 20, 1963 to August 10, 1965, charging 22 defendants under German penal law for their roles in the Holocaust as mid- to lower-level officials in the...
Literature
- Bernacka, Monika: Otto Küsel- Green Triangle. On the 100th Anniversary of his Birth: In: Oś—Oświęcim, People, History, Culture magazine, no. 5, May 2009, S. 8-9. (Digitalisat, englisch), retrieved 2010-04-29.
- Czech, Danuta, Kalendarium der Ereignisse im Konzentrationslager Auschwitz-Birkenau 1939-1945, 1. Aufl., 1989. Quoted after the Italian Translation by Gianluca Picchinini (digitalized, italian)
- Dregger, Sebastian: Die Rolle der Funktionshäftlinge im Vernichtungslager Auschwitz – und das Beispiel Otto Küsels., in: Aventinus. Die Historische Internetzeitschrift von Studenten für Studenten, Ausgabe 04 - Wintersemester 07/08