The Darkest Side of Nazi Commander Amon Göth (HARD TO WATCH)
He was one of the cruelest faces in the world. holocaust Amon Gott, the commander of the Plasov concentration camp, He embodied the brutality of the Nazi regime with chilling coldness. His figure, immortalized in cinema and feared in history, forces us to look face to face with the horrors that human being is capable of committing.
But, Who really was this man? How rose within the SS? And what was left after his fall? Today we will explore the dark life of Amongot, the butcher of Puaso. The darkest side of the Nazi commander Amon Gut. Amon Leopold Gut was born on the 11th December 1908 in Vienna, in a Europe that was still bleeding from its wounds openings of the First World War.
He belonged to a wealthy family and cultured His father ran a renowned publisher and his parents, Catholics fervently, they hoped that their son One day he will inherit the family business. But GT had other plans. Since very young man showed disinterest in books and the businesses.
He was attracted, however, by extreme ideas, violence, power. At 17 years old, when most young people were still looking for their place in the world, he had already found his in the shadows of extremism. Amon Gohth He was barely 17 years old when he entered on the dark path of fanaticism. 1925 joined the then illegal Nazi party Austrian, a marginal organization and clandestine that promoted ideas nationalists and anti-Semites.
two years later, in 1927, He joined the Heinamilitary deeply far-right anti-Semite who operated in Austria. This training marked the beginning of his ideological radicalization. quickly began to stand out inside the cells Nazis from the Welfare district of Margareten. As he went deeper deeply into the ideology of game, his thoughts hardened.
He fanatically embraced the idea of a race superior and accepted without reservation the use of violence as a political tool. By 1930, Goh left the Heimberg and took a step more towards extremism. He joined the Austrian branch of the Nazi party. In September of that same year became as a member of the Austrian SS obtaining the basic rank of SS MAN.
This is how a man’s climb began who would later become one of the most feared criminals of the third Reich. After entering the party, God began to work actively in the Orts Group, the local Nazi group in the district of Margareten in Vienna. It didn’t take long for move to the Maria Hilf district, where he carried out functions in the Sturmap Tyilum, better known as SA, and also as a local political leader.
In 1931, with At only 22 years old, he took a decisive step. He enlisted in the Shuttaffel, the SS, a organization that at that time was still an internal protection force for the Nazi party, but soon would become the heart of the apparatus of Terror of the Third Reich. It was a promotion meteoric Gut not only had ambition and contacts, he also had the disposition to obey orders without questioning them, no matter how brutal they were.
He later served in units of the SS in Vienna until January 1933 was promoted to Suker or platoon leader in the 52nd SS standard. His promotion was meteoric He soon became SS Sharfer, the equivalent of a boss squadron. However, their activities clandestine, such as smuggling explosives for the Nazi party, caught the attention of the authorities Austrian.
After the illegalization of Nazi party in Austria in June 1933, G became a fugitive. He fled to Munich from where the party had established its operations in the exile From there he acted as courier the SS and introduced radios and weapons smuggling in Austria. Your commitment It was total. He was arrested for the first time in October 1933, although he was released shortly after by lack of evidence.
However, his involvement in coup circles Nazis put him back in their sights the authorities when in July 1934 a failed Nazi coup culminated in the assassination of the Austrian chancellor Engelbert Dolfus. Ghetado again, but managed to escape. This time he fled directly to the center of CSS training in Dahau, located next to the infamous concentration camp.
Despite his loyalty to the regime, Got would walk away temporarily from the Nazi party in 1935 due to disagreements with his commander Alfred Bigler. During that time he lived in Munich dedicating himself to helping his parents in his publishing business. He married for advice from his family, but marriage was brief.
Divorced few months later. Goh’s story took a new turn in 1938 after the Anchlus, the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany. He returned to Vienna and resumed its activities policies. That same year he met Anna Geiger in a motorcycle race and after a brief courtship, they married on 23 October in a civil ceremony organized by the SS.
as it was usual, the couple was subjected to Rigorous physical and racial tests to check their genetic purity before of marriage. They had three children. Peter, born in 1939, who died of diphtheria at 7 months. Werner born in 1940 and Ingeborg born in 1941. During those years, the family maintained its residence in Vienna while GTH He continued his career within the SES.
During the years before the outbreak of World War II was assigned to the SS Tottenkopf bervende, the units of death’s head, responsible for the control of concentration camps. There he received military training, but He was also indoctrinated in the pillars ideology of Nazism, anti-Semitism, racial supremacy and blind obedience.
No It was just about training soldiers, sought to create soulless executors, unapologetic fans. In 1938, after the annexation of Austria to the third Reich, the Anglus, Got participated in repressive operations against opponents politicians and the Jewish population. It was then when it started showing the first signs of the brutality that most I would define it later.
He acted with efficiency, but also with a sadism that impressed even his own companions. That same year, Austria left to exist as an independent nation. For God it was the beginning of his true career. For his future victims it was the beginning of the horror. At the beginning of The war was assigned to the 9th SSS standard and later transferred to the first SS Sturmban of the undo SS banner.
In 1940 He was called to military service in Vermacht with the rank of Unterfel Webel, field sergeant. But your sheet service in the CSS indicates that never He came to actively serve as a soldier regular. Between mid-1941 and May from 1942, Gho einsat fuder or action leader and officer financier in Katovic’s office, eastern upper silesia, under the supervision of the Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of Nationality German.
From there he was in charge of organize and execute operations destined for isolation, dispossession and mass deportation of Jews. Your logistical ability, added to his fanaticism, earned him a reputation among senior management as an effective executor of the genocide. On July 14, 1941 was promoted to SST Furer, equivalent to second lieutenant, and received a certificate of service in which they praised not only their ideological loyalty, but also their physique and leadership ability.
Get was the ideal SS type, disciplined, brutal and completely delivered to the Nazi project. in the summer from 1942 He was transferred to Lublin, Poland, where He became part of the staff of Odilo Globocnck, head of the SS and the police in Krakow. Globocnick was the main architect of the operation Reinhard, the sinister plan for the creation of extermination camps Beek, Sobibor and Treblinca.
for 6 months, Gth participated in this operation. Although no documentation is preserved directly from their activities, the involved swore to maintain the secret. The records of his trial after the war reveal that he was in charge to gather, organize and transport thousands of victims towards their deaths in those fields. That would just be the prelude.
of what would come later, his rise to concentration camp command Puastov and with him his conversion into one of the most sadistic symbols of the holocaust. Plashof, hell under the command of Amon Goth. During the Second War World, the role of Amon Goth acquired a sinister dimension. I was no longer alone an obedient officer of the Nazi regime, He became one of his executors more ruthless.
In Vienna and others Austrian cities participated actively in the identification, arrest and deportation of families beans. But his definitive rise would arrive when the Third Reich activated his most brutal plan, the final solution. By the end of 1942, the Nazis had left aside everything claim for deportation or confinement.
Now it was about systematically exterminate the entire Jewish population of Europe. whole getos were emptied, trains filled with men, women and children were sent heading to death and fields of concentration sprang up all over the occupied territory as centers of industrialized extermination. The Puasó forced labor camp It was created at the end of 1942 on land where there had previously been There were Jewish cemeteries located in Abrahama and Jerozolimska streets.
there mainly Jews were confined of the Krakow Ghetto, as well as prisoners from other getos liquidated, Poles, non-Jews and also gypsies The number of people imprisoned in dramatic conditions, forced to perform deadly labor, deprived of food and subjected to constant abuses, reached 35,000. The prisoners sewed uniforms, They printed official documents of the Nazi regime and worked in workshops as electricians, locksmiths or mechanics.
Many were also forced to do strenuous work in the nearby quarries. The commander of the field, Aon Goh, demonstrated a exceptional cruelty. He not only ordered mass executions, but also He personally tortured and murdered several prisoners. It is estimated that, as direct result of these executions, between 5,000 and 6,000 people were buried in common graves in the surroundings of the field.
It was in that context when Aon Got was selected to play a key role. No They were looking for a simple administrator. The SS wanted someone who embodied Nazi ideology in its purest form, cruel, efficient, fanatically loyal and willing to kill without hesitation. They wanted a executioner in uniform and found his man.
In 1943, Goh was assigned to supervise the creation and subsequent management of the field of Puasov forced labor in the south of Krakow. When he arrived, the field was still in construction. The barracks were being raised by their own prisoners. Wire fences are They rose slowly and the ground began to take shape like a machine of oppression.
But for Got, that was not It was a simple complex of works forced, it was their fiefdom, their domain staff. From the first moment established his authority with a combination of psychological horror, unpredictable and absolute violence impunity. He did not govern by rules or protocols, he governed with fear. one of His first acts in command were to lead the brutal liquidation of the geto Krakow in March 1943.
It was not a military operation, it was a butcher shop. The streets were filled with gunshots, heartbreaking screams and bodies lying on the ground. Goh walked between the rubble like a sadistic god, pointing with his cane who should live and who die. The decisions are They took in seconds, without appeal possible.
Children torn from their arms of their mothers, old men executed by not moving fast enough. It was a clear example of what was about come. Once established in Puasov, Goth turned the countryside into hell everyday. Unlike other fields, where at least there was a hierarchy or a rudimentary protocol, in Puashov the law of whim reigned.
did not exist security or logic for prisoners. What saved you one day could condemn you to the next: one step false, a wrong look or just being in the wrong place They were enough to be executed on the spot. Goth not only murdered, he delighted doing it. I often watched from the balcony of his villa at the top of the field hill rifle in hand, shooting prisoners as if they were animals on safari.
It was his way of morning entertainment. His cruelty It reached almost ritual levels. During morning counts could order his guards to execute a random prisoner just to reaffirm its power. On other occasions, seeing that a group worked slower than he hoped, he could order the execution of several of them as a warning. He also had two dogs, Rolf and Ralph, animals trained not to guard, but to mutilate.
Upon a simple order or a snap of the fingers, the dogs They attacked the prisoners, tearing flesh, leaving mutilated bodies often until death. The fear of dogs was so deep that the prisoners avoided even looking at them the eyes The guards under his command do not They took a while to imitate him. Sadism is became the norm.
Any violation minor, a poorly fastened button, a step out of place, a late response, could end in a public execution. While Auschwitz has become the most recognized symbol of horror Nazi, in neighboring Krakow there was a brutality no less atrocious. there ruled Amon Got, a commander whose cruelty knew no limits.
The field whole operated as an extension of his personal violence, but his tyranny does not It was only physical, but also psychological. Goth understood that fear constant, the feeling of absolute vulnerability, it was a way control as effective as the rifle. From the balcony of his villa he shot at prisoners as if they were targets shooting for pure entertainment.
Your regime was slowly bankrupting the prisoners, not only in body, but in spirit. Amongth did not run a camp of job, ran a laboratory horror where he experimented with human suffering and perfected his dominion over life and death. The conditions in the concentration camp of Puasov under the command of Amongth no They were simply inhuman, they were meticulously designed to destroy slowly and systematically the dignity, the body and will of who they were sent there.
Suffering was not a collateral effect, it was an integral part of the system. Most of the barracks They lacked running water. The crowding was such that the prisoners They lived shoulder to shoulder, sleeping on dirt floors or on planks wooden, without mattresses, without pillows and just a threadbare blanket to protect yourself from the cold.
During the hard times Polish winters, the ice penetrated to the bones. In summer the heat suffocating made the field an oven pestilent Lice, rats and diseases infectious diseases such as typhus spread quickly, turning Puasov into a place where death from disease was as common as death by execution. The sanitary conditions were null.
There was no soap, no hot water, no clean clothes. The latrines were saturated and the permanent odor of the place it became unbearable. The food was scarce. deliberately insufficient to keep prisoners with forces. Minimum rations were distributed of stale bread, watery soup or pieces of barely enough potato survive.
Many resorted to eating grass, roots, insects and even They chewed wood chips just to alleviate atrocious hunger. Those caught stealing food or hiding leftovers, they were brutally beaten, tortured or directly executed as a public warning. The children, especially those who had survived the liquidation of the geto of Krakow, they faced an even worse fate tragic.
The Nazi regime did not recognized any value if they couldn’t work. Many were torn from the arms of his parents upon arrival, his cries silenced with violence. Some were beaten for crying, others for trying to hold his hand mother or clinging to a sister. In the most horrendous cases, were used as subjects of medical experimentation by SS doctors who visited the field.
For the Nazi machine, they were not children, they were destroyed. The day Gohth ordered the expulsion and execution of more of 500 rural children, it was recorded as one of the most infamous acts of his regime. The testimonies of the survivors describe that day with words that still tremble with horror. A As the war progressed and third reich was beginning to crumble, The Nazi high command understood that the crimes committed could not stay hidden forever.
If He then started a systematic campaign to erase all evidence of genocide. This secret operation, which spread across several fields concentration aimed eliminate physical traces of mass killings. Washuf became one of the main stages of this sinister task. Goth, with his brutal efficiency, he was one of the responsible for executing it.
Under his supervision they organized special units composed of Jewish prisoners known as Sonder Commandos, who were forced to unearth the mass graves where thousands of bodies had been dumped hastily during the massacres of 1943. Bodies in an advanced state of decomposition were piled like firewood. The prisoners did not have gloves, masks or any protection.
They worked in the unbearable stench of death, dragging corpses under constant surveillance. Every day They doused the bodies with gasoline and I set them on fire. The order was clear, there should be no trace left, there should be no trace left test. The existence of the undercommands was as short as tragic.
After days of exhausting labor, when they were already physical and mentally destroyed, GTH ordered their execution. No witness was to survive. A new group was then selected and the cycle began from new. Dig up, drag, burn and die. The most disturbing thing was that Gohth He did not delegate this task remotely. Numerous surviving witnesses They reported that it used to appear without prior notice notice in cremation areas.
I walked among the piles of corpses like someone inspecting a work. A times, with a cigar lit between the fingers, made comments about the fire efficiency or speed with that the bodies were burning. His presence is not It was to control, but to enjoy. Seeing the dead burn was for him part of the show.
The perversion of Amon Got had no limits. under his command, Puasov ceased to be a camp of job and became a terror laboratory There every brick, each barracks and each order executed was a reflection of his sadism staff. His figure embodies not only the Nazi brutality, but what happens when absolute power is combined with the total dehumanization of the other.
Among. He lived surrounded by luxury while Under his command thousands of people died of hunger, disease and violence. Your figure embodied the absolute abuse of power, a butcher in uniform who he spread fear with every word, with every look. While thousands of prisoners in the Puashov concentration camp They died of hunger, they shivered from the cold, They slept on the frozen ground and suffered in the midst of filth and fear constant, Amon Goth lived as a aristocrat, a few steps from horror that he himself had created. Your life
inside the field it was grotesque luxury caricature built on the ashes of the victims he directed with iron hand In the heart of the countryside, Goh had one built for himself. spacious villa, completely secluded of the Spartan style, which characterized even high-ranking Nazi officers rank in wartime.
Not that one It was a simple functional residence, it was a private palace fine rugs, hand-carved furniture, tableware porcelain, velvet curtains, crystal lamps, works of art originals hanging on the walls. Each object had a common origin, theft. The belongings that filled your house had been looted from homes, suitcases and corpses of thousands of Jews deported and murdered.
Gut it He appropriated everything he wanted. Pocket watches, jewelry, paintings, silverware, luxury clothing. nothing I was safe from his greed. Even the gold teeth knocked out bodies were melted and hidden in personal chests. He dressed in suits expensive, wore Swiss watches and drank cognac of the best quality.
Regularly held private banquets and parties with other SES officers in the middle of the countryside, while the screams of the prisoners and the echo of gunshots They served as a background soundtrack. The town was, in practice, an island of luxury in the middle of a sea of death and he He walked through it like an absolute king, arrogant, unpunished and cruel.
but not only He stole, he also kidnapped people for your personal use. One of the most shocking stories is that of Helen Jonas Rosensbike, a teenager Jewish woman whom Goh selected personally to be his maid. He took her out of line without warning and He said that from that moment on he would work for him. Helen had no choice.
all days I cleaned the house, served the food, attended to the needs of the commander, all while living with a paralyzing fear. Later, Helen He said he never knew what could happen. make him angry. I could hit her for being too quiet, moving slowly or simply by crossing his gaze at the wrong time. witnessed executions from the windows of the house.
On one occasion he saw how Goth killed a man who had simply passed near the village without permission. The Violence was not something he hid. It was part of his presence, part of his authority, part of your identity. all they knew it. The camp guards, others SS officers and even some Civilian visitors understood that Amon Got was a dangerous man unstable, but few dared to face it.
In the context of the third Reich, as long as he fulfilled his function genocidal, the Nazi leaders did not care it mattered how much it degraded morally. In fact, that brutality was often held in private. Your life staff was just as shady. kept a relationship with Ru Irene Calder, a young German sympathizer of Nazism. They met when he was still running the field and in 1944 she moved to live with him in the villa of Puassov.
They had a daughter, Monica Goth, born in the shadow of the barbarism Calder was a direct witness to the cruelty of God. I saw how he treated the prisoners, how he murdered them without blink, how he trained his dogs to attack and tear, and still He chose silence. He later admitted I knew what was happening, but in At that time he preferred to ignore it to continue enjoying the luxuries that crimes of his lover offered him.
but Got’s corruption was not limited to looting of belongings or abuse of power. Even within the Nazi system, where brutality was a norm, Gut was considered too corrupt, too greedy, too out of touch control. The SS had established Strict rules for handling property confiscated from Jews. everything had to be registered and sent to the coffers of the Nazi state.
But Goh ignored these rules openly. He stayed with gold ingots, valuable paintings, jewelry and even entire furniture. In instead of sending it requisitioned to Berlin, stored in personal hiding places or used to trade with businessmen and officers who wanted favors or hand of slave labor. allowed private entrepreneurs will use prisoners as forced laborers in their factories in exchange for bribes.
He used prisoners not only as force labor for the field, but as personal servants, builders his house and laborers for illegal businesses. Puasov’s commander had become a feudal lord of the death, accumulating wealth while He ran a kingdom of suffering. These actions began to attract attention not from the prisoners, whose complaints were systematically ignored, but other Nazis.
Some were outraged due to the level of personal looting, others They simply envied his power or They wanted their position. Internal complaints within the SS they began to accumulate. These were no longer crimes against humanity, that was tolerated and even celebrated, but of crimes against Reich bureaucracy. Finally, in September 1944, Amon Gott was arrested not for murder, not for genocide, but for corruption, for misappropriating of Nazi state property.
It was transferred to a Gestapo prison and put under investigation. Ironically, It was his greed that marked the beginning of the end of his career within the third Richig, not his ruthless brutality. Among, capture, trial and death of Nazi executioner As the troops Soviet troops were approaching in the summer of 1944, The Nazis began an attempt to erase the traces of the crime.
In August of that year, the bodies of those murdered They were exhumed and cremated in a covert operation to hide the evidence of genocide. The prisoners, who still remained alive, they were gradually transported to other fields located within the German territory and also to the countryside Mutthausen concentration.
The last transport was organized in January 1945, shortly before the entry of the Army Red to Krakow. According to various sources, between 1943 and 1945, when the field was officially classified as a concentration camp, between 50,000 and 150,000 passed through it people. Among the survivors They found around 100 employees from Oscar Schindler’s factory, whose story was immortalized in the novel Schindler’s List, adapted to film in 1993 by Steven Spielberg.
The land itself of the former Puassov camp was used as a filming location for this multiple award-winning film international awards. Nowadays, the original buildings of the countryside no longer they exist. Neither the barracks or watchtowers. In a part of the land where before the field worked, it has even been built a housing neighborhood modern.
However, some elements historical ones have survived to the present current events, including the chalet Among, located at 22 Heltmana Street, and the so-called Gray House on the street Jerozolimska, which during the war was inhabited by SS officers known for their extreme cruelty. The Amongth’s crimes were too much even by third-party standards reich.
His outbursts of violence, his arbitrary executions, their looting personal and their illegal businesses with slave labor turned it into an uncomfortable figure for his own superiors. It was brutal, corrupt, unpredictable and was calling too much the attention. In the basement of that house, According to survivors’ testimonies, systematic torture was practiced and It was said that no one left there alive.
The victims of the concentration camp have been commemorated with a series of small obelisks. Furthermore, along with the Cementarsisca street was erected on monument to the victims of fascism, a moving statue 7 m high which represents a group of figures Humans with hearts ripped out, symbol of loss, pain and dehumanization suffered.
The interpretation of Aon Goth by the British actor Ralph Fin on the list Schindler, 1993 It was especially shocking. The coldness in his gaze and expression of pure evil he projected turned out chilling Unlike other Nazi villains fictional characters from cinema, such as Colonel Hans Landa, played masterfully by Christop Walz in Inglourious Basterds 2009, Amongotth was a real character, historical.
His existence and his crimes are documented and confirmed by hundreds of testimonies. During the filming of Schindler’s List, the survivor Mila Fefferberg, who had been a prisoner in Puashov, was presented to Ralph Finns dressed in the SS uniform. Seeing him, he began to shake uncontrollably. That image vividly reminded him of true Amon Guth, the man who had marked his life with horror and fear.
Gth was known as the Passasov butcher or even like the Krakow butcher. He was an alcoholic, extremely violent and participated actively in operation Reinhard, code name for the Nazi plan total extermination of Polish Jews. In his speech at the inauguration of the camp of Puaschev, Guth, already as commander officer warned the prisoners of their destiny with some terrifying words: “I am your God.
” Before arriving in Puasov, Goh had state involved in the liquidation of the Krakow getet and had worked in the extermination camps of Treblinca and Sobibor, two of the most infamous places of the holocaust. In Puasov it was delivered without restrictions on his darker side. He drank uncontrollably, practiced sick cruelty and enjoyed the suffering of others.
He not only dealt with brutality to Jewish prisoners, He also mistreated his own subordinates and actively participated on the black market to finance their alcoholism. He was finally arrested by the Gestapo in Vienna in 1944, accused of corruption, theft of property state, Jewish and illegal trade. Without However, after being questioned, he was released.
Paradoxically, the minutes of that interrogation prepared by their own Nazi comrades would later used in the trials of Nuremberg as evidence against him and They would help seal his death sentence. There he discovered his true identity. The charges were not related to mass murders nor with its brutality. That’s in logic of Nazism was part of the job.
It What really sank him was his greed. was accused of robbery systematic Jewish ownership, use misappropriation of confiscated property, trade illegal on the black market, abuse of power and personal appropriation of wealth that, according to the laws of the Third Reich, They had to be sent to the State.
It was extremely rare that a Nazi officer of his rank was arrested, but the situation with Goht had reached a critical point. His behavior not only aroused the suspicion of other officers, but it was beginning to endanger the chain of command and internal order system. He was removed from office in Krakow concentration camp Puasov and the SS began a internal investigation.
It was supposed to would be tried in a military court own regime, but the events of the war they were already out of control. The Vermacht suffered defeats devastating. The fronts were collapsing and The infrastructure of the Third Reich It was collapsing at full speed. The process judicial against Got was postponed again and again and it was never held under Nazi justice.
The regime that protected and of which he was one of the most brutal faces, I was about to disappear forever. The real Justice came in May 1945, just a few days after the surrender unconditional of Nazi Germany. God was captured by American troops in Austria, where he tried to hide. He did not have time to organize an escape or to create a new identity.
For then he was already a known name among the allies. His figure had emerged repeatedly during the first interviews with survivors of the holocaust, especially those who had passed through the getto of Krakow or through the Puasov field. all They remembered his name and no one forgot his face. Got lived the end of the war in a Austrian military hospital and went there where the military police detained him United States.
He was first transferred to Munich and then to the internment camp from Dachau. Poland had been one of the nations most devastated by war and Furthermore, the Puasov field was located on Polish territory. The authorities Polish authorities requested his extradition immediate and this was quickly approved. Goh was returned to Krakow, the city where he had spread terror and where he would now be judged.
The tests against him they were overwhelming. not only There were hundreds of testimonies of eyewitnesses, but also official documents signed by him same, field records, reports Nazis who linked him directly to execution orders, lists of deportations and written notes of his handwriting.
There were photographs, letters and even statements from ancient Nazi guards confirming their sadism His trial began on 27 August 1946 in a special court in Krakow. The charges were clear, war crimes, crimes against humanity, murder massive and systematic looting. You will accused of having personally murdered to Jewish prisoners with his weapon, having ordered collective shootings and having directed the field with extreme cruelty, killing on a whim or for mere entertainment.
It is also accused of having stolen huge amounts of gold, art, jewelry and money Jewish civilian population. for weeks the survivors testified. some They spoke through tears, others maintained a tense serenity. Each one contributed details of the terror they lived under command. Scenes were reconstructed atrocious, executions at dawn, public punishments, children separated from their mothers, improvised ovens for Burning corpses and Gohth walks around the field shooting from his balcony alone for fun. Gth did not completely deny the
facts. He admitted that people had died under his supervision, but like so many other war criminals, used the excuse of the obedient soldier. He said that I was just following orders, acting under higher instructions, which was a one more gear in a lot of machinery older than him. But in 1946 That excuse was no longer enough.
The Polish court was ruthless, The evidence was irrefutable. The verdict arrived on September 13, 1946. Among was found guilty of all The charges: murder, genocide, looting and crimes against humanity. Your conviction, death penalty for hanging Instead of execution It had powerful symbolism. Got was taken to Montelupich prison in Krakow, a few kilometers from where had once been master and lord of the Puasov field.
He was hung in a nearby hill, visible from it place where he had committed so many crimes. Many survivors of field attended. Some wanted to see how history closed a cycle. I don’t know It was about revenge, it was about justice. Justice for the thousands of men, women and children who died under his regime.
Among was only 37 years when he died, but his legacy was of a monster During his time at Passasov front it is estimated that more than 8000 people were killed. Some died shot in executions massive, others of hunger, disease, cold or exhaustion. Some were victims of their dogs, others were thrown into common graves. Each of those lost lives left a story truncated, an irreparable void, a inherited trauma.
With its execution, the world took a small but firm step towards recognition of the holocaust as the most heinous crime of the 20th century. But no punishment could equal the pain left by his name. Amongo was simply a murderer, was the face of a genocidal system that turned the ideology of hate in politics state.
And his story until the end remember what happens when humanity loses all compassion. If It is estimated that about 30,000 people passed through the concentration camp Krakow Puasov during his operation. Most never came out alive. they died by executions summary, illness, hunger, cold or exhaustion. Many of their deaths They were not even registered, they were simply They disappeared under the weight of terror everyday.
And although Amongth was executed in 1946, The full magnitude of his crimes took years to fully come to light. During the following decades, survivors of the camp began to tell their stories. some wrote books, others granted interviews or spoke in court. Each testimony added another piece to the portrait of a regime of mind and a particularly sadistic commander.
Many told how they lived every day under a permanent state of fear, a fear that was embodied in Goth, a man who could decide between life or death just by lifting your finger. Some of the testimonies shocking came from those who They worked at home. There, in his residence built within the field, God’s sadism was shown without filters.
He walked around armed, trained their dogs to attack the prisoners, beat the servants and maintained a routine of violence that It looked like something out of a horror novel. Among those who saw it up close, highlights a young Jewish woman named Helen Jonas, who was forced to serve as maid at home. Helen lived all days with the terror of committing the most minimal error.
I didn’t know if the next minute he would still be alive. a look wrong, a word out of place or simply their presence could unleash the fury of the commander. Helen later stated, “I thought it wasn’t I would survive another day, but I survived and I had to tell what I saw. Your testimony was essential to reconstruct the environment of systematic cruelty that surrounded Got.
But his story is not it ends there. At the time of his arrest, Amon Got had already fathered a daughter Monica Got was born shortly before his execution in 1946. His mother, Ru Irene Calder, was the mistress of the commander during his time in Puashov and publicly defended him even after the war. To Monica the truth was hidden from him for years about his father.
He grew up believing that He had been an honorable soldier. was only in his young adulthood when discovered the horrible truth. When finally read the files, listened the testimonies and saw the images, Monica fell into a state of shock deep emotional. I couldn’t believe that the man who had given him life was the same one who had murdered thousands.
In his quest to understand the last, he agreed to participate in the documentary titled Inheritance, directed by James Mall in 2006. There it happened something extraordinary. Monica Goth came face to face with Helen Jonas, the woman who had been enslaved by her father. It was a moment full of pain, but also truth and catharsis. two Lives united by the horror of the past They faced each other not to blame each other, but to reconstruct a memory that for years had been silenced.
Amongth’s name could have been faded like that of so many others Nazi officers, but in 1993 the world once again faced its figure thanks to a movie that shocked millions, The list of Schindler, directed by Steven Spielberg. The film based on true story of Oscar Schindler, a German businessman who saved more than 100 Jews employing them in their factory, He also rescued the dark figure of Got.
In the film, Ralph Finns played to Commander Naz. His performance was so intense, so disturbing, that many viewers stated that they felt scary just seeing it on the screen. The representation was not free. Fiens deeply investigated the personality de Gooth and, in his own words, was deeply disturbed by that he discovered.
The more I read about him, the more I understood that it was not a common man with errors, but of someone who had embraced evil with conviction. Spielberg did not try to show all the brutality of the Puassov camp. That would have been unbearable for him. public. But even the little that is sample was enough to plant the horror.
The coldness with which Goht He shot prisoners from the balcony of his villa, his indifference to the suffering of others, their daily sadism. All that was recorded in the conscience collective. And the most shocking thing was the contrast. In 1993 Schindler’s List was released, a crude historical film directed by Steven Spielberg who narrated a period of the life of Oscar Schindler, a German businessman party member Nazi, who during the Second War World saved from dying in the holocaust to more than 1000 Polish Jews using them in your factory. How to
said, Gth was played by the actor English Ralph Fiens. It is said that when Mila Ferber, a Jewish survivor of the Plassof field, saw Fienes dressed in the SS uniform during the filming, started to shake uncontrollably, because it reminded him vividly to the authentic Amon Gotth. Amon Leopold Gt, aka Amon Gut, was born in 1908 in Vienna, who It was then the capital of the empire Austro-Hungarian.
In 1927 he joined the paramilitary group anti-Semitic and nationalist Heimberg, homeland guard, and 3 years later joined the Austrian branch of the party Nazi and Austrian SS. After the Anchlus, the annexation of Austria by of Nazi Germany, Gut married in October 1938 with Annie Geiger, with whom he had three children.
By acquiring a certain reputation as administrator in the efforts Nazis for isolating and relocating the Jewish population, was promoted to second lieutenant of the SS and transferred to Lublin, in occupied Poland, where participated in operation Reinhard, the code name for construction the extermination camps of Beek, Sobibor and Treblinca.
Later it was appointed camp commander Plasov concentration in Krakow. From there he personally supervised the liquidation of the Krakow getet. All the occupants who were considered fit to work were transferred to the new field, while those who were not were sent to extermination camps or directly executed in the streets of Geto.
A from September 3, 1943, Guth was the officer in charge of the liquidation of the Tarnov getto, which housed since the beginning of the war 25,000 Jews, about 45% of the city population. They were all transported by train to the countryside Auschwitz concentration. less than the half survived the trip and most of the survivors was killed immediately upon arrival.
Of according to testimonies from several witnesses, Goh shot and killed personally between 30 and 90 women and children during the liquidation of the geteto. In the Plasov concentration camp, which housed up to 25,000 prisoners, committed many of the arbitrary murders for which became infamous. killed prisoners every day without justification, and his two dogs, Rolf and Ralph, they were trained to tear apart the inmates to death.
Fefferberg, one of the saved Jews by Oscar Schindler, assured years after. When you saw G, you saw the death. During Yom Kippur in 1943, G and his men took 50 Jews out of their barracks and shot them. often prisoners were hanged publicly while the other inmates They were forced to watch. Mosebi, a Jew of Schindler, who later became as judge of the Supreme Court of Israel, He related that on one occasion a prisoner called Hmer was called by the Commander Gth.
He released his dogs that they began to devour him alive. When was still breathing, Goth shot him. In another occasion, a group of prisoners who unloading merchandise stole some food. When Ket asked whose was, no one responded. Then he killed several at random shots until one he confessed. The rest were punished with 100 lashes each.
one of the men older, seriously beaten, was forced to thank him for the punishment. At turn around, Gut executed. Witnesses They report that, as seen in the movie Schindler’s List, Gth He used to shoot with his rifle from his office to the prisoners who They walked slowly or rested in the field.
Rena Finder, who was 14 years old then, remember that Gth spent the mornings shooting at children they played He was the most vicious man and sadist I knew. On another occasion he shot and killed a cook because the soup was too much hot. He also tortured his Jewish maids Helen Jonas Rosensbike and Helen Hirsch, who feared daily for their lives.
The first assured, “As survivor I can tell you that everyone We were traumatized people. Never I believed that a human being could be capable of such horrors. The worker of Schindler, Isaac Pila, then 20 years he made the mistake of staying asleep under a table in the factory the same day Goth went to inspect.
Seeing him, Goth ordered Schindler to execute him. Schindler He pretended to hit him and then said, “It’s already I’ve had enough, I need it.” So Isaac survived. Gut firmly believed What if a member of a work group committed an infraction, the entire team he had to be punished. On one occasion, ordered that all be killed second members of a gang because one had fled.
In another he killed shots at one of each work group because an inmate did not return to the camp. The main executions in Plaschov It was Ujova Gorka, a hill where They committed mass murders. Without However, Goh also had rare moments of indulgence, such as when He spared the life of the prisoner Natalia Hubler and his sister, after listening to them play a chopín nocturne on the piano on the same day of his arrival in Plaov.
It was relieved of his position and accused by the SS of stealing Jewish property that, according to Nazi laws, they belonged to the State, of violating the norms on the treatment of prisoners and allowing access to records to non-individuals authorized. Although the charges were dropped before the imminent Nazi defeat, the doctors Germans diagnosed him with a mental illness and was committed to a psychiatric hospital in Bad Tolz.
there was arrested by the military Americans in May 1945. In his memoirs, Rudolf H, commander of Auschwitz, he said. A crowd gathered together and cursed us angrily. The Goth commander was recognized immediate. If the car had not arrived when it did, we would have been stoned Gotthy and Schindler were two men Germans born in the same country, under the same regime, with the same power.
But while one used his position to save lives, the other used it to annihilate without mercy. That duality was and continues to be one of the most powerful messages of the movie. Even in the midst of evil Absolutely, there are those who choose compassion and others barbarism. Today the former concentration camp site of Krakow, Puasov, still exists.
Although many of its buildings were destroyed by the Nazis themselves in a attempt to erase the traces of crime, the terrain remains as a memorial monument. You can still see the remains of the mass graves, the foundations of the crematorium, fragments of the perimeter wall, silent witnesses of what happened there.
Every year visitors from all over the world come to that place. They walk between hills covered with grass in silence, reading the names, lighting candles, leaving stones on the tombstones They go to remember, not to forget the tens of thousands who died and also to understand what humanity is capable of doing when Hate becomes politics and indifference in norm.
Joseph Levkovic the Jew who captured Amon Got. joseph Levkovic was born in 1926 in the small Polish village of Solit. He was the oldest of four brothers in a renowned Jewish family. a street called Levkovic surrounded Krakow Square and His ancestral home is today the headquarters of the local police station. Before the war we thought that in Poland We were safe, Joseph remembers.
The Jews had lived there for many centuries. We were Polish citizens protected by Polish law. Not even in our most exaggerated dream we would have could imagine being deported to a death factory But when it started Nazi oppression, no one defended them. The Most Poles followed the Nazi orders. some even They helped them gather the Jews.
In 1939, when the Jews were forced to deliver all his assets, the uncle Josef sold his textile company to a non Jew in exchange for a place to hide The arrangement lasted a very short time. When The man feared being discovered, remember Josep, he gave us all and They killed them. At 13 years old Joseph made a promise If I survive, I will return Find that man and I will make him pay.
But after the war, Josef could no longer remember his name. The Nazis continued Go ahead with your plans. Joseph and others 15,000 Jews were taken to a camp flooded, where they were forced to sit up all night cold, hunger and waist-deep water. The elderly were separated side and they shot them.
In the morning Next, 95% of those Jews, among They are Joseph’s mother and brothers, were taken to the FSEC camp to be exterminated immediately. Only 800 They survived that night. Among them There were Joseph and his father, who They were sent to a labor camp forced. Over the years, Josef was transferred from a camp concentration to another.
Remember a incident at Melk, a subsidiary camp of Mahausen. Since I’m quite short, I was always in the front row during morning inspections. One day, the camp commander, Julius Ludolf, stood right in front of me. Without Thinking about it, I greeted him, I gathered my shoes of wood and I said to him in German, “Sir, I will shine your boots until they shine like the sun.
” Minutes later, an officer took Joseph on the outskirts of the field to the Ludolf’s magnificent villa, located in what top of a hill. After a while, Ludolf appeared, did not speak, barked like a dog. Joseph understood, he had to start polish your boots. Then they took him to a garden and was assigned a new task daily, feed the rabbits and commander’s chickens.
That gave him access to animal food, much better than the ones he received in the field. “I was happy to see the carrots for the rabbits,” says Joseph, and I was the first rabbit that I fed. At night, Ludolf offered parties in his villa for the officers of the SS. they threw huge amounts of food and hungry Joseph I picked it up and ate it.
Risking your life, he also carried part of that food to the field to feed others prisoners. In the village, a lieutenant named Oto Strigle had a hobby cruel, mistreating Joseph. ordered me stand in a corner with my mouth opened and tried to throw small stones inside it. Usually They hit me in the face. After the war, Josef dedicated himself to searching for the Nazis who They had tortured him.
Discovered Julius Ludolf hidden in a small town. He testified against him in court, recounted his crimes and revealed the great amount of jewelry, gold and banknotes foreigners that Ludolf had stolen. Ludolf and also the lieutenant who stone-throwers were executed. Although Josef spent a lot of time without being guarded in the town, outside the field, He never tried to escape.
I had already done it before. On one occasion he managed to get away from a working group and began to search desperately for someone to give him food or shelter. but the people I simply closed the door on him face. I don’t know if they were cruel or if they had fear. I am not the one who should judge them, I would say years later.
In the morning Next, Joseph returned voluntarily to the labor camp. No there was a better option. One morning of winter of 1945, The field was strangely silent. There was no siren. Nobody called them for the morning count. at noon They were ordered to meet at the Apple Plat, the central square of the field. The SS commander and announced, “We want to protect you from enemy. Quick, enter the tunnels.
” A rumor spread that those tunnels were loaded with dynamite and that the Nazis were planning to blow them all up together. Thousands of prisoners began to scream “Nein, no!” The SS opened fire against the crowd. I threw myself to the ground, Josef remembers. Many do not They managed to escape the bullets.
They died right there in the square. Eventually The shooting stopped. Josef se rose. Corpses around them. The stage was empty. The SS had disappeared. I was stunned. The nightmare was finally over. Miraculously all the dreams of freedom had become a reality. It was It is possible that he would have survived 5 horrible years of hard labor, blows and famine.
Joseph bent down and He picked up a revolver from the ground. I didn’t have idea how to use it, but it was a new day. I was free. He was only 17 years old. He weighed just 27 kg. He thought, “Which Could it be my next step?” if I was completely alone. No member of his family had survived. As an orphan, Josef began to think about the thousands of Jewish children who at the beginning of the war had been left temporarily with non-Jewish families.
In In many cases, those entire families they had been murdered. Nobody could claim those children. Josef understood that if he didn’t do something, those Jewish children would be lost to always of the Jewish people. Without having the no idea how to accomplish such a task gigantic, discovered a distant cousin.
Daniel, a communist leader in Poland postwar, I told him I had a idea. Reuniting families that the Nazis they had separated. I told you in terms secular, because Jewish was a term hated in Poland. Daniel introduced him to a general in the Polish army. for your surprise, the general agreed to help in rescue activities.
He provided a team of 40 people, including 20 soldiers, rifles, trucks and even a tank. An authority for confront anyone would resist. Locate all those Jewish orphans was like looking for a needle in a haystack. But Joseph, through from a network of informants, continued traces to very specific places. When we arrived at a house, we said, “This child was adopted by you.
Show us your adoption documents.” José had a keen sense, almost instinctive to recognize children Jews hidden in non-Jewish homes. No It was only because of physical features, but because gestures, expressions, silences, signals that only someone who had gone through the hell could detect. Working with psychologists, educators and staff security of the new Polish regime, Josef headed a search network that It spread through villages, towns and cities, facing indifference and sometimes the hostility of those They were opposed to handing over the children. In
many times the families that they had welcomed they refused to admit that They were Jews. Some did it for love genuine, others out of fear, some out of Simple greed. “This child is ours”, they said. But Joseph insisted, presented documents, questioned inconsistencies and When that was not enough, he resorted to authority that had been granted to him by the Polish army.
Sometimes They entered with rifles in hand and took out children by force. many They cried. They didn’t understand why we separated from the people who They had given a roof over their heads, Josef recalls, but if we did not rescue them, Judaism He also died with them. In total rescued 600 orphans, gave them a new opportunity.
many of them were sent to Jewish orphanages foster homes or ended emigrating to Palestine along with others survivors. His humanitarian work went unnoticed. Later, Joseph He was involved with the Zionist movement and started preparing for a race diplomatic. He was convinced that the Jewish people had to have their own state, a homeland where never again would be persecuted again.
It was in that context when one day he saw an advertisement for the Red Cross. He said that in Buenos Aires, Argentina, someone was looking for information about the Levkovic family. He was an uncle Joseph’s grandfather who had emigrated to America decades before the war. I had heard rumors, I had asked, but I had no confirmation about what had happened with his relatives in Europe.
I was the only one there survived from my family, Joseph said. And I was desperate to have relatives, to feel again that belonged to something. He responded to the ad. The Red Cross contacted. They called him. They told him that He had to embark for South America. Argentina was the beginning of a new life. There Joseph started from scratch.
If reinvented himself as a diamond merchant. A complex business, but ideal for someone with his tenacity and nose for the details. His work took him to different countries on the continent. In Colombia met Perla, a young woman with who would share the rest of his life. They married, had three children. but When the children grew up and the time came At the time of his formal education, Joseph and Perla decided to move to a community largest Jewish city, with more schools and community life. Montreal in Canada. In
Canada, Joseph prospered. He continued in the diamond business. Even He ran a factory in Cuba communist. an experience that remembers strangely, he was a Jewish man holocaust survivor, negotiating under a Marxist regime in the middle of the Cold War. Not all your decisions They were correct.
Once the wife of Painter Pablo Picasso approached him. I wanted to exchange several works her husband’s originals for diamonds. At that time, each painting was worth about few thousand dollars. they seemed to me strange drawings, without form or meaning, and I thought, “This is worthless.” Account Joseph laughing. He rejected the offer.
Today each of those works is worth more of 30 million dollars. But I never know He regretted it completely. For him true value was always in other things. In the 80s he got involved in projects housing in Israel. He was part of a company that built neighborhoods whole. One of them, Arce and Abraham in Jerusalem became his place of residence years later.
Another, in the city of Rehoboth, named a street in Your honor, Levkovich Street. During decades, Joseph remained deeply committed to the State of Israel. If met with prime ministers, diplomatic officials. and helped establish business relationships and cultures between Israel and various countries Latin Americans. He was, without a doubt, a man of action, but also a survivor who was looking justice through progress.
In the In 2016, at the age of 88, he made a decision monumental: leaving his comfortable life in Canada and permanently emigrate to Israel. make Alia fulfill the dream Zionist that he had cherished since young. An Israeli television crew accompanied him for a week in Montreal documenting his departure. Joseph He was received as a hero.
throughout for many years I had wanted to do confessed, but I understood that if I didn’t at that time, then I was never going to do. I am very happy to have taken the decision. I found many friends and very good neighbors. For many years refused to speak publicly about the holocaust I was silent because of pain, because modesty, but his children and grandchildren they encouraged.
Grandpa, your story has to be counted. This is how his book From the Ages to the Legend, A Miraculous Journey, a private edition intended for family and close friends. He didn’t do it for fame, he did it for memory. I understood that if I didn’t tell my story, then no one would do it. I lost all my connection with the past and Now I must warn the future ones generations.
In 2011 he embarked on a journey emotional with his youngest son. They toured Krakow, they visited Auschwitz, Belsek, the field where his mother was murdered and brothers and the town where Josef had grown. They also walked through Plasov, the field rally led by the infamous Amon Gut, whom Joseph witnessed direct.
No matter how much written about the holocaust, it is impossible to describe the terror, the hunger, desperation. for 5 years, from morning to night, I worked in quarries, railways and mines salt. I was willing to do everything that they ordered me. I was just thinking about survive one more moment, without time to think, because if I thought I would go back crazy Those memories do not dissolve with the time.
I often wake up in the morning nights soaked in sweat, Joseph admits. Last week I dreamed that I was fighting with a Nazi who wanted to shoot me. I took him away the rifle and his voice fades away. Does not need finish the sentence. Joseph Levkovic rescued 600 orphaned children, testified against Among and built a decent life, luminous, after the darkest absolute.
That, without a doubt, was his revenge. A revenge without hate, a revenge made of memory, justice and life. Aon God was more than a commander Nazi He was the embodiment of sadism elevated to system, of power without limits exerted on the most vulnerable. From the terrace of his villa in Plasov He fired his rifle at prisoners defenseless as if they were pieces of hunting.
Your dog, trained to tear human flesh completed the picture of a everyday life without soul. It was not a mythological monster, was a man. and that’s the scariest thing. His cruelty was finally judged. In 1946, After being captured by the allies, Got was found guilty of crimes against humanity. He was executed in Poland, but not before listening to the testimonies of who survived his reign terror.
His executioner was history, but The real punishment was that his name, once feared in the barracks, will be recorded in the collective memory as a symbol of Nazi horror. Because In the face of sadism there was also resistance. In the face of hatred there was courage. Faced with the extermination attempt there was life.
Joseph Levkovic, a young Jew who lived under the shadow of Amun Got, survived. Not only did he survive, he saved 600 orphaned children, rebuilt their existence on three continents and raised the voice so that the world never forgets. The God’s story is the story of the most to which human beings can fall. The Josef’s story is proof of the most high to which it can rise, because every bullet fired from the terrace of Plashov was a death sentence, but every child rescued by Joseph was a life sentence.
This is how this ends history. Not with the executioner, but with the survivor. Not with death, but with memory. The Story of Amon Goth should not be forgotten, not because it deserves to be remembered, but because what he ever did must be repeated.
