...In January 1942 Hans Aumeier arrived in Auschwitz becoming Deputy commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp.
On Aumeier’s order, 144 women were shot on the 19th of March 1942, at the execution wall in the courtyard of Blocks 10 and 11. On the 27th of May 1942, he was present at a mass execution of 168 prisoners who were shot in the same way.
On that day approximately 400 Polish political prisoners were forced into the penal company. Prisoners were assigned to the penal company for various reasons such escape attempts, contact with civilians or the illegal possession of food, money, additional clothing, or family photographs, or sluggishness at work—in the opinion of the SS supervisors. They performed the hardest labor, usually at double time or on the run and they were liable to be beaten continually by SS men and prisoner functionaries.
Aumeier was known to all the prisoners for beating and kicking them for the slightest fault – for example, failure to march to the pace and rhythm of the orchestra. He was an alcoholic and used to shoot prisoners for no reason when he was drunk.
After the war, Auschwitz survivors testified that whenever Hans Aumeier appeared, the SS men who supervised the work would begin to behave with great cruelty towards the prisoners, yell at them and beat them even more.
Aumeier was also active in the selections on the rail ramp when the arrivals, lined up into two columns, were selected for labor or for work.
In December 1944 Aumeier became a commandant of Kaufering which was the common name of a system of eleven subcamps of the Dachau concentration camp system. The conditions in Kaufering were horrible. The prisoners deported to each of the 11 subcamps had to construct the accommodation themselves. The resulting huts, partially buried for camouflage from aerial reconnaissance, were completely inadequate for the weather conditions.
In January 1945, Hans Aumeier took over as commandant of the Grini police prison camp in Nazi-occupied Norway. He treated prisoners here in a completely different way than in previous camps. Aumeier was lenient towards them, collaborated with the Norwegian Red Cross even letting them enter the camp and on the 7th of May 1945, he released the prisoners and closed the camp.
In the following year he was extradited to Poland where he was tried at the Auschwitz trial which began on the 24th of November 1947 and lasted one month.
On the 22nd of December 1947, the Polish Supreme National Tribunal in Krakow sentenced Aumeier to death by hanging.
He was 41 years old when he was executed on the 24th of January 1948.
