The swimming pool of Auschwitz is one of the best-known facts about the camp in revisionist circles but remaining largely unknown to the general public and is regularly (and rather desperately) pooh-poohed by orthodox ‘Holocaust’ believers as a ‘reservoir created to get fire insurance’ or some variation on that theme.
However, its presence is discussed fairly extensively on the ‘Auschwitz Memorial Museum’s’ website.
They write how:
‘There was a high risk of fire in all parts of Auschwitz. Primarily due to wooden barracks in the area. So, they began to build fire reservoirs. The vast majority of them have a similar design. The walls are quite sloping, and it is quite difficult to do any water sports in such fire reservoirs. Yet, we do have some accounts that say otherwise. Notably, the Monowice camp only had pools with sloping walls. However, in 1944, a fire tank with almost vertical walls was commissioned and the rear of the Auschwitz I camp. On a so-called Berch Alley [this is just a bad English spelling; it should read ‘Birch Alley’ and is named after the many silver birch trees on it – KR] and permission was given to a quipped with a springboard, a platform and posts. It was also equipped with railings going down into the water. This pool was used for water sports. However, the slimness of the facility meant that only the best could use it. There were, indeed, swimming competitions but water polo, very popular before the war, was also played. Trampoline jumping shows were also performed. It is reported that it was to a very high r standard. However, Alfred Naujocks was the most successful swimmer of all those who ended up in Auschwitz. He was sent to Birkenau. Interestingly, the pre-war Olympian multi-medallist, multiple world record holder in various styles, despite his stay and survival on the camp, managed to rebuild his career after the war and also competed in the Olympics.’ (1)
Now no revisionist has – to my knowledge anyway – disagreed with why the Germans created the pool in the first place; it was originally envisioned as a fire tank and you can see many other similar fire tanks across the different Auschwitz camps.
A good example is provided by Auschwitz Birkenau (aka Auschwitz II) – which is not where the swimming pool of Auschwitz is (that is Auschwitz I) – which was the main Auschwitz camp facility and the one most people visit:
Now clearly these are fire tanks (or fire reservoirs if you prefer) and it is helpful to look at them as you’d see them in person, which is also helpfully provided using an uploaded user photograph from Auschwitz Birkenau:
We can see that while these fire tanks are clearly not designed as swimming pools but they are also clearly designed with aforethought to multi-purpose use given the slopping concrete walls with lips are designed so that if you fall into the fire tank; you can get out again. This then makes it entirely possible that these fire tanks could have doubled as ersatz swimming pools and places inmates (and others) could have jumped into on a hot day to cool off or get a bit of impromptu exercise.
Now we don’t have any evidence that this happened so this is purely surmise on my part, but we can easily see look at this photograph as well as how the fire tanks are situated within the context of Birkenau that this could easily have occurred or been the plan for the future of the Birkenau camp.
When we look at the famous Auschwitz swimming pool that was actually a fire tank that was converted – which remember was done on the fly if we are to believe the ‘Auschwitz Memorial Museum’ themselves – (2) into a swimming pool by adding stairs and concrete pillars for diving boards. We can see just how easy and likely this would have been to have had happen later – had not the success of the Soviet offensive named ‘Operation Bagration’ not occurred in mid-1944 – in Auschwitz Birkenau and Auschwitz Monowitz (Auschwitz III) as well as in Auschwitz I:
A closer up version of this photograph that I think better shows the swimming pool of Auschwitz and the fact it had six concrete-covered brick pedestals for diving and two taller concrete-covered brick pedestals for diving boards is below:
The placement of the fire tank turned swimming pool in Auschwitz I is also interesting since as we can see it has been placed right next to a permanent guard tower suggesting that it was acknowledged by the Germans to be a likely weak point for potential escape; ergo why it was placed there. This thus necessarily suggests – contrary to the desperate attempts at obfuscation by the ‘Auschwitz Memorial Museum’ – (3) that inmates of Auschwitz I did indeed use this pool since if this is not the case: why put it right next to the guard tower next to inmate barracks and the camp hospital rather than the main guard house, camp administrative offices and/or the camp kitchen.
We can see where the fire tank/swimming pool of Auschwitz I is located on the satellite telemetry:
Then when we transpose that onto the map of Auschwitz this puts the fire tank/swimming pool in context for what each building was used for: (4)
We can see that the fire tank/swimming pool is located very specifically next to a guard tower, several inmate barracks but also most importantly near the camp hospital (Building #14 is the so-called ‘medical experiments’ block but is in fact part of the camp hospital) (5) and since location usually implies function in the layout of facilities; it suggests that because the fire tank/swimming pool was next to inmate barracks and the camp hospital not the SS guard barracks (Building #2), camp administration offices (Building #3) or the kitchens (the major source of fires) (Building #6).
It adds substantial evidence that the fire tank/swimming was sited with a view to it being used in other ways than just a fire tank which is what orthodox ‘Holocaust’ believers and propagandists love to claim and also suggests that the secondary purpose of being a swimming pool wasn’t just for SS men – it is sited in completely the wrong place if this were true – but rather for inmates and even more specifically for inmates at the camp hospital undergoing physiotherapy to get them back to work after illness, injury and/or surgery. (6)
We know this is likely the case because on 16th December 1943 the camp doctor of Auschwitz I – where the fire tank/swimming pool is remember – wrote in his quarterly report to the central concentration camp administration (this is the only surviving ‘Quarterly Report’ of this kind but they were made obligatory for camp doctors on 25th May 1940) commented on the ongoing problems that the camp hospital was having in properly rehabilitating inmates at Auschwitz after surgery/treatment so that they were able to recommence their vital work for the war effort: (7)
‘No change has been made during the reporting quarter in the subdivision of the various wards of the prisoners’ infirmary, nor in their accommodation. In Block 28 (central ward and outpatient clinic) the warm-water devices for the shower room were extended and improved, so that it is now possible for new admissions to the prisoners’ infirmary to take a hot shower before seeing the doctor. In Recovery Ward 9 an outpatient clinic has been installed which made possible minor surgical interventions. Further in this ward, a room for physical therapy has been installed. For carrying out rehabilitative exercises, the erection of a dedicated gym would be necessary, especially since exercises are frequently frustrated by bad weather even during the summer months.’ (8)
Indeed, we even know that Auschwitz Monowitz (Auschwitz III) had similar such inmate provision for post-surgical/treatment physiotherapy and issues from the jewish doctor at Auschwitz Leonardo de Benedetti and as well as from the famous ‘Holocaust Survivor’ Primo Levi who co-wrote a report in 1946 titled ‘Report on the Hygienic-Sanitary Organization of the Monowitz Concentration Camp for Jews (Auschwitz, Upper Silesia)’ (9) where they wrote how:
‘The [inmate] hospital possessed a physical therapy room with a quartz lamp for ultraviolet light as well as a lamp for infrared light; in addition, a room for chemical, bacteriological and serological analyses.’ (10)
This clearly suggests that the German authorities at Auschwitz I – as well as Auschwitz III [Monowitz] and by extension probably also Auschwitz II [Birkenau] – made significant provision for the physiotherapy of inmates of the camp and further that they had identified it as a problem area which they needed to work on in late 1943.
We can then make sense of why in 1944 when Auschwitz I got its fire tank; said fire tank was sited in such a way as to be near the camp hospital and inmate blocks not the SS facilities or where the likeliest source of fire was going to be (the camp kitchen on the opposite side of Auschwitz I as we have seen).
This therefore means that the primary users of Auschwitz I’s fire tank/swimming pool were most likely the inmates of the camp – specifically the inmates in need of physiotherapy from the camp hospital as well as probably any water polo or swimming teams/matches that were held as even the ‘Auschwitz Memorial Museum’ reluctantly implies – (11) with SS personnel also probably using it; although it is unclear how this would have been achieved given they would have been off duty, probably unarmed and next to a large number of inmate barracks which would have made them primary targets for an inmate uprising on such an occasion.
But what do the orthodox ‘Holocaust’ crowd claim?
Well, the ‘Auschwitz Memorial Museum’ tries to explain Auschwitz I’s fire tank/swimming pool away writing that:
‘Due to the fire hazard, in 1944, construction began on 10 firewater reservoirs (out of a total of 17 planned) within the Auschwitz camp complex. One of these, measuring 25 x 5 meters, was built inside the Auschwitz I camp fence, near the so-called Birkenallee. It is likely that during the final stages of construction, the reservoir was equipped with swimming pool elements: starting blocks, a diving board, and a ladder. Survivors’ testimonies provide different interpretations of the reasons for this modification. One theory suggests that camp functionaries (block leaders, kapos) initiated the addition of these swimming pool features. Allegedly, camp physician Eduard Wirths approved the idea under the pretext that swimming would improve prisoners’ physical condition and thus increase their ability to work. This theory seems plausible since such modifications could not have been made without the approval of the SS authorities, as they required scarce materials—bricks, iron, and mortar. One survivor, Adam Jerzy Brandhuber, recalled in his memoirs that shortly after the construction was completed, SS officers selected prisoners who appeared healthy, had them change into bathing suits taken from the “Canada” warehouses, and took several photographs near the pool, likely for propaganda purposes. However, due to the camp commandant’s opposition, the pool was not actually used by camp functionaries. The denier’s argument—that the presence of a swimming pool in Auschwitz proves that prisoners enjoyed excellent living conditions and therefore the high mortality rate was impossible—is entirely false.’ (12)
We can see here how the ‘Auschwitz Memorial Museum’ doesn’t’ really have an actual answer for why Auschwitz I converted its new fire tank into a swimming pool and instead insists that Eduard Wirths – the SS chief camp doctor of Auschwitz from September 1942 to January 1945 – ‘approved the idea under the pretext that swimming would improve prisoners’ physical condition and thus increase their ability to work’ – which confirms my analysis above – but then tries to – rather bizarrely – claims that ‘SS officers selected prisoners who appeared healthy, had them change into bathing suits taken from the “Canada” warehouses, and took several photographs near the pool, likely for propaganda purposes’ citing the testimony of Polish painter and political prisoner (he was a member of the Polish ‘Home Army’ aka the Polish resistance) at Auschwitz named Adam Jerzy Brandhuber (aka Inmate #87112).
The problem is that Brandhuber didn’t work in Auschwitz I at all, but rather worked in the ‘Canada’ section of Auschwitz Birkenau (Auschwitz II) ‘distributing clothes’; so while he was well-placed to know that the SS authorities in Auschwitz I had requested bathing suits that had been taken from the possessions of jewish and non-jewish prisoners arriving in Auschwitz and stored in the ‘Canada’ section.
He would have had absolutely no idea what the Germans were using them for and the idea they were for ‘propaganda purposes’ is simply a lazy unevidenced speculation by either Brandhuber or the ‘Auschwitz Memorial Museum’. When the much simpler – and far more logical explanation – is that the German camp authorities had requisitioned the bathing suits from the ‘Canada’ section of Auschwitz Birkenau so they could be reused for inmates – jewish and non-jewish – who were using the new swimming pool in Auschwitz I as part of their physiotherapy.
We can thus see that the orthodox ‘Holocaust’ crowd don’t really have an answer for why the Germans constructed a swimming pool in Auschwitz I and try to handwave it away; when in fact it fits very nicely into what Eduard Wirths said it was: a way to better rehabilitate inmates – jewish and non-jewish – who were recovering from treatment and/or surgery in Auschwitz I’s camp hospital.
Therefore, we can conclude that the famous swimming pool of Auschwitz I was not only primarily for inmates – specifically from Auschwitz I’s camp hospital – but was probably intended to be the first of multiple such fire tanks converted into swimming pools across the ecosystem of Auschwitz camps and that the presence of more such facilities was only forestalled by the catastrophic collapse of the German front lines in mid to late 1944.
References
(1) https://www.auschwitz.org/en/education/e-learning/podcast/sport-and-sportstpeople-/
(2) https://www.auschwitz.org/en/stop-denial/camp-infrastructure-denies-extermination/
(3) Idem.
(4) https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/gallery/auschwitz-camp-complex-maps
(5) That there were unauthorized and notoriously evil (as well as pointless) ‘medical experiments’ – allegedly primarily carried out by Auschwitz Birkenau’s gypsy camp doctor – Joseph Mengele has been thoroughly debunked as having zero documentary evidence for it (and lots of contradictory ‘testimony’) has been thoroughly debunked by Carlo Mattogno, 2020, ‘An Auschwitz Doctor’s Eyewitness Account: The Tall Tales of Dr. Mengele’s Assistant Analyzed’, 1st Edition, Castle Hill: Uckfield
(6) On average 20 life-saving surgeries – we actually have a register of what inmate was given surgery for what and when – were performed at Auschwitz’s camp hospital per day in 1943 at the ‘height of the Holocaust’. (Carlo Mattogno, 2016, ‘Healthcare in Auschwitz: Medical Care and Special Treatment of Registered Inmates’, 1st Edition, Castle Hill: Uckfield, p. 47, 50-54)
(7) Ibid., p. 46
(8) Ibid., p. 47
(9) Ibid., p. 54
(10) Ibid., p. 57
(11) https://www.auschwitz.org/en/education/e-learning/podcast/sport-and-sportstpeople-/