Budy

About five kilometers southwest of Auschwitz, a satellite camp subordinated to Auschwitz was set up in April 1942. Its main purpose was to conduct agriculture. The camp itself  had already been there since 1941. Back then prisoners marched back and forth from Auschwitz to work at Budy. This was time consuming and therefore the SS decided to set up a prisoner camp on site. Initially there were no more than 40 male prisoners, mainly polish men. Later prisoners from other nationalities also end up in the camp, including jews. At the turn of the year 42/43, the camp was expanded with dozens of barracks and in 1944 it was expanded further. In 1943 a female penal camp was set up along the men’s camp. The commander of the camp was SS-Oberscharführer, Hermann Ettinger, before he was replaced by SS-Unterscharführer Bernard Glause. The majority of the prisoners were women and in 1943 there were about 600 women in the camp. In January 1945, the SS began evacuating the camp and sent the prisoners to camps westwards.