The little snowmen of Auschwitz

Towards the end of 1944, the SS started preparations to evacuate the inmates of the camps of the east before the arrival of the Red Army. Already in November, Himmler had given orders to decommission and dismantle the gas chambers. Why? Obviously he didn't want to leave any trace of the deeds done in these camps, especially after the Russians had liberated the camp of Majdanek near the Polish city of Lublin in July 1944. The Zyklon-B gas was the method of extermination in this camp, like in Auschwitz. Majdanek was the first major extermination camp liberated by Allied forces, and the horrors found there were widely publicised. Himmler didn't want to repeat the mistake with the much larger Auschwitz complex of multiple camps.

Russian soldiers look at the furnaces of the crematorium after the liberation of Majdanek by the Red Army

In Auschwitz II (Birkenau), the gas chambers were destroyed as requested by Himmler. And, out of the four crematoria, only one was left operating for the inmates who died or were executed since then. This last crematorium was to be blown after the evacuation from the camp. This evacuation was being planned with forced marches across Europe, during the harsh winter, to regroup the inmates in concentration camps across Germany. But many inmates died on the way during these so-called Death Marches. Obviously, not all inmates, such as sick people and children alike, were able to join these marches.

On 31 December 1944, the SS high command asked the camp of Birkenau for a report on the interned children because they decided that this young category would not be evacuated and thus needed to "disappear". Despite the ongoing selections of the past, which were supposed to have eliminated any arriving child to the camp, there were still a few hundreds of these children, who had been torn from their families, and were hidden and sheltered by other inmates in different barracks. Other children had been kept by the infamous Dr. Mengele in his personal infirmary for his "experiments" on twins and other special children. But how to eliminate these children, quickly and cheaply, while there was no more any gas chamber? Should the children be thrown into a concrete pit with gasoline poured over them and burn them alive, as it was done a few months before against Hungarian Jews? No, gasoline was scarce in these months of the German debacle. Should they be shot by bullets? No, munitions were badly needed for battles. But the Nazis never lacked resourcefulness.

The staff of the inmates' infirmary received an order to bathe the children ! At Birkenau, one did not discuss an order but carried it out no matter what. So, on the long Lagerstrasse, the camp road that led to the last crematorium, the little prisoners started out in a long procession. Their hair was cropped short. They tramped barefoot in rags. The snow had melted underfoot, and this camp road was coated with ice. Some of the youngsters fell, and each fall brought a slashing blow from a cruel SS whip. Suddenly, it was snowing again. The children, their rags sprinkled with white flakes, staggered toward death. They were silent under the blows, silent like so many little snowmen. On they went, shivering, unable to cry any more, resigned, exhausted, terrified.

Children liberated in Auschwitz

In the "Sauna" building, with neither soap nor towels, the inmate staff had to “bathe” the children with icy water. But they could not dry them. So, the children had put their rags back on their poor dripping bodies and walk outside in the freezing weather to wait standing into the usual roll calls columns. And that was the device which the ingenious Nazis employed to solve the children's problem, the problem of the innocents of Birkenau.

When all the children were “bathed,” the roll call was taken. Intentionally, it took five long hours on that day, five hours after a so-called bath with icy water, while the children stood at attention in the freezing weather. “Little Jesus will come for you presently,” sneered a German guard at one child who was waiting with blue lips, utterly benumbed. Few of the children of Birkenau survived that roll call. Those who did were to fall later under the blows of the German cudgels.

Finally the Infirmary staff were ordered to return to the barracks, with the surviving children who were like automatons, almost dead from exhaustion. In this state, they were driven back to the cold barracks. In total, hundreds of them died that day. The infirmary staff had to carry the dead little corpses out behind the barracks, according to the regulations, to be incinerated in the crematorium the next morning. But they knew that, as usual, big, horrible rats were waiting for the still warm flesh.

It was New Year's Eve… Huge snowflakes were falling… the staff could hear the rats… but could only shut their eyes and pray for justice… Justice ! New Year's Eve… Somewhere on earth, beyond the barbed wire, free men were shaking hands and raising their glasses to wish each other Happy New Year! At Birkenau, rats were feeding on orphaned children from all Europe.

Albert Benhamou

Private Tour Guide in Israel

11 Tevet 5786, 31 December 2025

Source of this story: Olga Lengyel: Five Chimneys, a woman survivor’s true story, published in 1947

Shoes of murdered children in the Auschwitz Museum