One of the foremost experts on KL Dachau, Sr Stephanie A. Hayward OCD, wrote in her book about Blessed Stephen Vincent Frelichowski: „Concentration camps in human history were something previously unseen in such a form and on such a scale — something that had not existed before. Humanity had no experience in dealing with such evil; it lacked even the vocabulary to describe what was happening there, and human imagination was insufficient to fully grasp such things”. Quoted one of the prisoner at KL Dachau and KL Buchenwald, the Austrian Fr Conrad Just OCist: „There is no atrocity that did not occur in one of the concentration camps”. And added: „It can be said without exaggeration that what took place in the German concentration camps was absolute evil in all its manifestations”.

The first Catholic clergy became prisoners of KL Dachau as early as 1938. They were Austrians imprisoned following the Germ. Anschluss (Eng. annexation), i.e. the forced annexation of the Austrian state into the German Reich. In 09.1939, immediately after the outbreak of World War II, Catholic clergy from the Czech lands became victims of KL Dachau; they were transported there as part of Germ. Aktion Albrecht I (Eng. Operation Albrecht I), i.e. a campaign of arrests targeting individuals deemed potentially dangerous in the dict. Germ. Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren (Eng. Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia), an administrative unit established by Germany on 16.03.1939, from the territories of Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia, occupied following the Munich Agreement of 30.09.1938 — and, in particular, Polish clergy.

Between 1939 and 1940, the Germans interned clergymen arrested in occupied Polish territories in numerous concentration camps, including KL Stutthof, KL Sachsenhausen, KL Buchenwald, KL Mauthausen–Gusen, KL Auschwitz. The Holy See intervened, demanding the release of the prisoners — among them several bishops — or their transfer to the German‐occupied and run quasi‐state called the Germ. General­gouvernement (Eng. General Governorate), i.e. GG, or even permission for them to emigrate to a neutral European country or Latin America. In 06.1940 — at the time of the defeat of France — the Germans rejected these proposals, which had been presented by the Apostolic Nuncio in Berlin, Abp Cesare Orsenigo; they justified their refusal by citing the opinion of the Germ. Generalgouverneur der besetzten Gebiete Polens (Eng. Governor–General of the occupied Polish territories), i.e. GG Governor, a Doctor, you bet!, of Law (the supervisor of his doctoral dissertation, „The Public Legal Entity: A Contribution to the Doctrine of the Characteristics of Public Legal Personality”, was the renowned public law professor of Jewish descent, Walter Jellinek), and a prominent German National Socialist figure — regarding the „anti‐German stance of the Vatican press and radio”. In 11.1940, the Germans made different decision — endorsed by another prominent German National Socialist figure, Reichsführer‐SS Heinrich Luitpold Himmler. The executive order was issued by the head of the Germ. Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Eng. Reich Main Security Office), i.e. RSHA, SS‐Obergruppenführer Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich. On 09.11.1940, in a letter from the Germ. Reichsministerium für die Kirchliche Angelegenheiten (Eng. Reich Ministry for Church Affairs) to Adolf Cardinal Bertram, the Archbishop of Wrocław, one of the paragraphs stated Germ. „Nach einer Entscheidung des Reichsführers SS und Chefs der Deutschen Polizei werden nunmehr sämtliche bisher in verschiedenen Konzentrationslagern untergebrachten Geistlichen im K.L. Dachau zusammengefaßt werden. Dort werden sie nur mit leichten Arbeiten beschäftigt. Auch wird ihnen Gelegenheit gegeben, täglich die Messe zu lesen oder zu besuchen” (Eng. „In accordance with the decision of the Reichsführer‐SS and Chief of the German Police, all clergy previously held in various concentration camps will now be gathered at the Dachau concentration camp. There, they will be assigned only light work. They will also be given the opportunity to celebrate or attend Holy Mass daily”). This measure was also to be applied to military chaplains, constituting a violation of the Hague Convention.

The decision resulted i.a. in the transfer — on 08.12.1940 — of c. 152 members of the clergy from the KL Mauthausen–Gusen concentration camp complex. Of these, 139 were definitively identified as Polish clergy. Fr Henry Malak, who arrived at the KL Dachau concentration camp a few days later from the KL Sachsenhausen camp, recalled: „The transports from Mauthausen and Gusen to Dachau presented a truly wretched sight. Our fellow priests from those camps were so terribly emaciated and ill that they looked more like shadows than human beings […] They were all priests, aged between 27 and their early forties. Looking at these hunched skeletons and gaunt faces — with sunken eyes gleaming with an unhealthy light — it was hard to hold back tears. Seeing what months of labor in the quarries had done to these young men, who, not long ago, had been in the prime of health”. A transport of c. 527 clergymen — c. 500 among them were Poles — who had been held at the KL Sachsenhausen concentration camp, arrived at KL Dachau on 14.12.1940. A day earlier, on 12‐13.12.1940, 68 Polish clergymen were brought from the KL Auschwitz concentration camp. In KL Dachau, at the gate bearing the inscription Germ. „Arbeit macht frei” (Eng. „Work sets you free”), they were greeted by one of the deputies to the Germ. Lagerkommandant (Eng. camp commandant), the notorious SS‐Sturmbannführer Alexander Bernhard Hans Piorkowski, with:

„You are in Dachau; no one leaves this place […] This is not a sanatorium. The only way out of here is through the chimney or in a coffin”….

All the clergymen were housed in three adjacent barracks — Nos. 26, 28, and 30. A few months later, on 26.03.1941, these barracks were enclosed with barbed wire, creating a sector that went down in history as the Germ. Priesterblöcke (Eng. priests' barracks), thereby isolating the clergy from the rest of the prisoners. Earlier, on 21.01.1941, a chapel had been set up in room No. 1 of barrack No. 26, where a Polish priest, Fr Paul Prabucki, celebrated Mass for his fellow clergymen every morning. The clergy were exempted from the most arduous physical labor, provided with breviaries, and granted extra food rations — such as wine, beer, and cocoa — though they were required, by order of the SS‐man present, to consume these in a single gulp.

Yet in German plans the Polish clergy — and throughout the entire period of operation of KL Dachau, they constituted the majority, c. 1,780 out of 2,720, of the imprisoned clergy — were to be treated separately. As early as 25.09.1939, Arthur Greiser — who would soon become the Germ. Gauleiter (Eng. district leader) of the ruling National Socialist German Workers' Party NSDAP and the Germ. Reichsstatthalter (Eng.Reich Governor) of the Germ. Reichsgau Wartheland (Eng. Warta Country Reich District) — stated that „all religiosity is contrary to common sense and cannot be reconciled with the NSDAP program”. Seeking to make the province under his jurisdiction a Germ. „Mustergau” (Eng. model district), made one of the pillars of his policy the tenet: Germ. „Ohne Gott, ohne Religion, ohne Priesters und Sakramenten” (Eng. „without God, without religion, without priest and sacrament”). In 1940, the preparation of the practical assumptions of this policy was led by a German Evangelical theologian, Germ. Regierungsrat (Eng. Government Counselor) and Germ. Kirchenreferent (Eng. Church Referent), Wilhelm Dudzus. On 10.07.1940, prob. at a party meeting in Munich, barely 17 km from KL Dachau, he revealed the „13 Points”, which were to become the basis of German policy in the Germ. Reichsgau Wartheland. Point 1 read: „There are no churches in the national sense, but only religious groups in the sense of associations”, and Dudzus added that „Churches cease to be corporations under public law”. In point 2, he informed that „There are no relations with groups outside the Germ. Reichsgau, nor any ties of a legal, financial, or service nature with the Reich Church”. And explained: „The churches of the Germ. Reichsgau Wartheland are to be independent” and that „The union of the Catholic Church with the Vatican will be dissolved”. And in point 12, it informed that „All religious institutions and monastic associations are subject to dissolution because they are contrary to the German concept of decency and nationality policy”. These postulate were subsequently implemented step by step, culminating in the decree issued on 13.09.1941 by the Germ. Gauleiter Arthur Greiser Germ. „Verordnung des Reichsstatthalters im Wartheland über religiöse Vereinigungen und Religionsgesellschaften im Reichsgau Wartheland” (Eng. „Regulation of the Reich Governor in Wartheland regarding religious associations and religious unions in Reichsgau Wartheland”). § 1.1 stated: „In the Germ. Reichsgau Wartheland […] [the three Churches and] the "Roman Catholic Church of German Nationality in the Wartheland" exist as legal entities under private law. They replace the legal entities of the Evangelical and Roman Catholic Churches that existed on September 1, 1939, in the Wartheland”. De facto, this meant the delegalization of the Roman Catholic Church, retroactively to 01.09.1939, the date of the German invasion of Poland. At the same time, § 6.1 sanctioned a racial policy towards religious denominations: „[…] a German may be a member of a religious association or society exclusively of German nationality. Poles may not be members of a religious association or society of German nationality”.

Thus it was no coincidence, that a few days later, on 18.09.1941, SS‐Hauptsturmführer (from 30.01.1942 SS‐Sturmbannführer) Egon Zill, the Germ. Schutzhaftlagerführer (Eng. camp leader), i.e. Germ. Lagerführer, and deputy to Germ. Lagerkommandant Piorkowski for prisoner affairs, assembled the Polish clergy for roll call. All prob. hailed from occupied Polish territories directly incorporated into the Reich — specifically the Germ. Reichsgau Wartheland, the Germ. Provinz Oberschlesien (Eng. Province of Upper Silesia), and the Germ. Reichsgau Danzig–Westpreußen (Eng. Reich District of Gdańsk ‐ Zachodnie Prusy). Zill proposed that they sign the Germ. Deutsche Volksliste (Eng. German National List), i.e. DVL, effectively demanding the renounciation of their Polish nationality. The „reward” for doing so was to be a transfer to Barrack No. 26 — where German clergymen were held and which contained a chapel — as well as the retention of certain „privileges”. All of them refused — though some sources suggest that two signed but subsequently withdrew their consent. The following day, 19.09.1941, Barrack No. 26 was physically cordoned off with barbed wire, and Polish clergymen were forbidden from entering it, including the chapel; their breviaries and religious objects were confiscated, and they were prohibited from reciting the rosary, making the sign of the cross, praying, reading the Bible, or hearing confessions. Not only were food privileges revoked, but standard camp rations were also drastically reduced. Furthermore, the prisoners were forced to perform the most grueling physical labor — including work in the fields of the Germ. Kräutergarten Dachau (Germ. Dachau Herb Garden), known as Germ. Die Plantage (Eng. The Plantation). There, according to Wikipedia, the Germans conducted experiments aimed at creating a „German folk medicine consistent with the nationalist and natural–historical concepts of National Socialist ideology”. That same source, citing the recollections of a former prisoner — the Czech historian Stanislav Zámečník — notes that „working conditions were murderous. The terrain was exceptionally unfavorable: the damp, heavy peat soil was unsuitable for growing herbs. It had to be turned over, drained, and de‐acidified. In rainy weather, the prisoners sank into the mud; in summer, they stood in the scorching sun, toiling on ground as hard as concrete”. And adds, „The land could have been plowed by two horses in a few days. Instead, the soil was dug up by hand with shovels”. And quotes Zámečník: „No one will forget how the prisoners returned to the camps in the evenings. Behind the column of exhausted, staggering people, there were always ten or more wheelbarrows filled with corpses and the dying”.

The situation was further exacerbated by overcrowding in the „Polish” barracks, Nos. 28 and 30 — for on 29.10.1941, a transport of c. 530 Polish priests arrived at KL Dachau, many of them elderly, who had been arrested, following the aforementioned decree by Germ. Gauleiter Greiser, primarily in the Germ. Reichsgau Wartheland. Only c. 80‐82 of them would survive KL Dachau. This deterioration was also a consequence of a secret decree issued on 27.08.1941, by Germ. Reichsführer‐SS Himmler, which ordered that Germ. „sämtliche hetzerische Pfaffen… und ähnliches Gesindelgrundsätzlich auf längere Zeit einem Konzentrationslager zugeführt werden sollen” (Eng. „all agitator–shavelings… and similar rabble should, as a rule, be sent to a concentration camp for an extended period”), while noting that „the Dachau concentration camp has been designated as the collection camp for all clergy held in Germ. die Schutzhaft (Eng. protective custody) or slated for such detention within the territory of the Reich, including the annexed and incorporated eastern territories”.

The Polish Institute of National Remembrance IPN reported that „Polish priests felt the ban on entering the chapel and the inability to receive Holy Communion extremely keenly — all the more so because German priests, fearing the chapel might be closed, initially refused to provide them with consecrated Hosts. This caused them understandable distress. Soon however, German and Czech priests were found who began sharing Holy Communion with them. It was most often distributed in the morning while the beds in the barracks were being made. Many priests carried hidden particles of the Host to their workplaces, where they distributed them to prisoners who felt the need to receive the Eucharistic Christ. Father Adam Kozłowiecki — who would later become the Archbishop of Lusaka — noted in his memoirs: "I have a tiny Vaseline tin in which I receive seven consecrated Particles, each measuring no more than 7×5 mm. I carry this little box with me at all times; I consume one daily and, when necessary, administer them to others"”.

An indescribable hunger prevailed, making it impossible to think of anything other than a single goal: how to obtain a piece of bread. A prisoner's weight often did not exceed 40 kg. And in 1942, the Germans reduced starvation rations even further. One former prisoner recalled: „Hunger that lasted not just a day, a month, or a year, but two, three, four, or more years. Hunger caused non‐healing wounds, dysentery, heart and kidney disease, the need to urinate up to 17 times a night, and unquenchable thirst — yet the fluids one drank could kill […] Blood turned to water, leading to edema and dropsy […] During an inspection by a German doctor — I was in the infirmary at the time due to a broken arm — the doctor patted my swollen belly and said, Germ. "Gut für die Arbeit" (Eng. "good for work"). However, the Germ. Stubendienst (Eng. barrack orderly) […] declared that it was not obesity but edema reaching the heart. To prove it, he took a long needle and pierced my abdomen; fluid spurted a meter high from the opening, spraying those standing nearby. Without that procedure, I would have died within a day or two”.

The camp authorities' de facto exclusion of Poles from the ranks of the Roman Catholic clergy also entailed an intensification of the camp regime. A particularly stark example of this was the „Bloody Holy Week” of 1942; after a few hundred dollars were found on one of the Polish priests, the Germans imposed a collective punishment on all the clergy held in barracks Nos. 28 and 30. From 28.03.1942 (the eve of Palm Sunday) until 06.04.1942 (Easter Monday), between the hours of 6:00 a.m.

and 6:00 p.m., the priests were forced to perform exhausting physical exercises. Were made to carry out these drills at a run across the roll‐call square, which was covered in mud and puddles — all while a cold, drizzling rain fell and a freezing wind blew from the nearby Alps. Those who collapsed from exhaustion were beaten, kicked, and trampled into the mud. During this time, a special detachment — composed of young Luxembourgish police officers who had been imprisoned for refusing to obey the German occupation authorities — ransacked the barracks, throwing everything out into the mud and onto the camp thoroughfare. Once the „exercises” concluded, the utterly exhausted men were forced to immediately restore their barracks to „order”. Fr Malak, mentioned earlier, described it as follows:

„— Ten days of non‐stop physical exertion! — came the punitive decree.

It was not until Monday, April 6, that we were finally dismissed from the parade ground […] Averaging 50 kilometers a day — comprising marching, running, jumping, hitting the ground, and running again — we covered roughly five hundred kilometers over those ten days. This was the very same route as the later foot–based evacuation transports, during which a great many prisoners perished. No fewer died from our own ranks during those days”. Perhaps to heighten the effect, the Germans — at that very same time — chose not to intervene when German priests from Barrack No. 26 organized clandestine, internal „literary lectures”….

C. 1,500 Polish priests were driven to a state of extreme exhaustion. As a result, many were deemed unfit for work and transferred to Barrack No. 29 — known as the Germ. Invalidenblock (Eng. Invalid Barracks) — from where, starting in late 1941, prisoners were transported to an unknown destination under the pretext of being moved to a „sanatorium”. It soon became clear that they were being taken away to be killed. Although the first priest involved in such a Germ. Invalidentransport (Eng. invalid transport) — in 01.1942 — was a German priest, the overwhelming majority of victims among the clergy, i.e. c. 92.5%, where Poles. From 05.1942 — barely a month after „Bloody Holy Week” — hundreds of Polish priests were transported to the Germ. Tötungsanstalt (Eng. Killing/Euthanasia Center) TA Hartheim and murdered in the gas chamber there, as part of the continuation of the genocidal German program known as Germ. «Aktion T4» and its extension, Germ. «Aktion 14 f 13» (Eng. „Operation 14 f 13”).

The year 1942 was the most tragic in the history of KL Dachau. Yet, against the backdrop of this unspeakable cruelty and criminality — with the Germans murdering c. 656 Polish clergymen during that time — a series of events unfolded at the highest levels of the German leadership that led to unexpected changes. First, the all‐powerful Germ. Lagerkommandant Alex Piorkowski, was dismissed from his post in late summer 1942 for „corrupt practices” (the aforementioned Germ. Lagerführer, Egon Zill, had already been transferred out in 12.1941). More importantly, however — given the scale of hostilities in the East, which had begun on 22.06.1941, with the German attack on their erstwhile allies, the Russians — Reichsführer‐SS Heinrich Himmler on 31.01.1942 established the Germ. SS‐Wirtschafts‐ und Verwaltungshauptamt (Eng. SS Main Economic and Administrative Office), i.e. SS‐WVHA. The SS‐WVHA was headed by SS‐bergruppenführer Oswald Pohl. Directly subordinate were e.g. Germ. die Konzentrationslager (Eng. concentration camps) and Germ. die Vernichtungslager (Eng. extermination camps) — including KL Dachau — which, from 03.1942, were administered by its Germ. Amtsgruppe D (Eng. Office Group D), a division that included the Germ. Inspektion der Konzentrationslager (Eng. Inspectorate of Concentration Camps). As the English‐language Wikipedia states: „In 1942, the WVHA's main remit was to expand the SS's contribution to the war effort by using forced labor in armaments manufacture and construction projects. Slave labour at the camps was part of the effort to maximize economic utility”.

On 30.04.1942, Oswald Pohl issued an order to all commandants of the niem.

die Konzentrationslager: „The camp commandant bears sole responsibility for the utilization of available labor. This utilization must — in the full sense of the word — lead to the total exhaustion of the [prisoner's] strength, so as to achieve the highest possible productivity […] Working hours are subject to no limitations […] Any circumstances that might result in a reduction of working time (e.g., meals, roll calls) must therefore be limited to the absolute minimum, beyond which no further reduction is possible”. However, the clergy held in Barrack No. 26 were exempt from this order; just nine days earlier, on 21.04.1942, the head of the Germ. Amtsgruppe D, SS‐Brigadeführer Richard Glücks — who reported directly to Oswald Pohl — had issued a circular mandating that „the Reichsführer‐SS and Chief of German Police has ordered that Polish and Lithuanian Germ. Pfaffen (Eng. shovellings) work properly, meaning they may be assigned to all types of labor. German, Dutch, and Norwegian clergy, etc., are, however, to continue being employed exclusively in the medicinal herb gardens”. Ergo — to use modern terminology — two fundamental changes occurred in the German approach to the prisoners' slave labor. Primo: the slaves were still to be subjected to extermination through labor, yet the principle of "maintenance" was to be applied — meaning the incurrence of minimal costs of operating and maintaining human resources — as opposed to killing through labor without incurring any costs for keeping the individuals alive. Secundo: the work performed had to make sense from the perspective of German National Socialist objectives.

Paradoxically, those criminal orders saved the lives of many Polish clergymen — although the Germ. die Invalidentransport (Eng. invalid transports) to the TA Hartheim continued until 12.1942 (German clergymen had been exempted from the Germ. Invalidenblock as early as 13.08.1942, following a protest by the family of one condemned man); although in 07.1942, Claus Karl Schilling — a „distinguished” German scientist and employee of the renowned Germ. Robert Koch‐Institut (Eng. Robert Koch Institute), as well as a professor, naturally!, at the even more renowned Germ. Friedrich–Wilhelms–Universität (Eng. Friedrich Wilhelm University) in Berlin, now Germ. Humboldt–Universität (Eng. Humboldt University) — began medical experiments in KL Dachau involving malaria, using e.g. 120 Polish clergymen as „guinea pigs”. A fellow prisoner, Fr Henry Malak, put it this way in his recollections: „A different wind is beginning to blow in the camp. We do not understand much of it, but we know for certain that […] being assigned to privileged work details might save us from annihilation. Each of us — provided two conditions are met: possessing sufficient physical strength and some vocational skill — now has the chance to get into a viable work detail, where there is a roof over one’s head and a food allowance is provided, and where work is not merely mindless rushing about designed to torment. One after another, men return to the barracks with excitement on their faces and news on their lips:

— I've got a work detail!”.

Fr Henry Malak, a prisoner at KL Dachau, recounted the deportation of Polish priests to their deaths as follows:

„Buffalo selects prisoners for transport, conducts roll calls, and decides matters of life and death! He is ably assisted in this monstrous operation by the barracks orderly Emil Joas, as well as the Cretin from Barrack 4. It is difficult to determine exactly how many of the three hundred Polish priests suffocated in the gas chambers were sent to their deaths by Buffalo himself; however, based on personal observations and the opinions of fellow prisoners, it is safe to estimate that roughly half of them fell victim to the actions of […] Fritz Baecher, a Bavarian and, by birth, a Catholic!

[…] The clerk of our barracks — a Pole — reads out the names of the first prisoners from the list, those scheduled to be sent away that day in the transport for the disabled. Knowing the nature of the act he is performing, he reads in a voice just as wooden as the one he uses every day when calling men to clear snow or perform other camp chores […].

— Here! — calls out [the first man named], his voice trembling.

— Fall in on the left flank, old man! Come on! Move it!

Bawół hastens the […] man’s exit from the ranks with kicks.

[…] The clerk reads on [the next name] in an even more wooden voice […].

— Here!

— To the left flank!

And the man shuffles to the left, his slippers dragging behind him.

A deathly silence hangs over the ranks. These are death sentences being handed down! Trembling, pale lips whisper faint prayers.

And the men walk away, one by one, to the left flank. After a name is called out, there is a brief moment of deathly silence, followed only by the shuffling of clogs on bare feet… They walk on […] and in eyes […] so much terror, so much pleading and silent protest….

Merciful Jesus! Will this roll call never end? We stand helpless; only tears fall onto the street’s gravel….

There is still a long way to go to the end of the alphabet! How many of them went away that terrible day? It is hard to count when the soul within one is withering and tears cloud the eyes….

The end.

— Achtung! — Buffalo's shout snaps the "chosen ones" to attention. — March in step!

In Dachau, even when marching to one’s death, one must keep in step!

They marched off.

They were taken for the invalid transports from the barracks, taken from their work, taken at night from their bunks, taken from the infirmary — with no regard for stitches bursting after recent surgeries, or for entrails spilling from torn‐open bellies”….

On 24.08.1941, the German National Socialist leader, Adolf Hitler, issued — verbally, as German criminals testified after the end of the war — the Germ. Führerbefehl (Eng. Führer's Order) to halt the state euthanasia program, Germ. «Aktion T4» (Eng. Action T4), i.e. the systematic physical murder of mentally retarded, chronically mentally and neurologically ill people, in accordance with the German state's doctrine, Germ. „Vernichtung von lebens­unwertem Leben” (Eng. „elimination of life unworthy of life”). The immediate cause of the Führer's order was a sermon delivered on 03.08.1941, by the bishop of the diocese of Mainz (i.e. Münster), Bl. Clement August Cardinal von Galen, who said, among other things: „Woe to mankind, woe to our German nation if God's Holy Commandment «Thou shalt not kill», which God proclaimed on Mount Sinai amidst thunder and lightning, which God our Creator inscribed in the conscience of mankind from the very beginning, is not only broken, but if this transgression is actually tolerated and permitted to go unpunished”. Von Galen's sermon was de facto the publicization in Germany of the decree of the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office of the Apostolic See, approved on 01.12.1940 by Pope Pius XII and published the next day in „Acta Apostolicae Sedis”, in which, in response to the question of the faithful: „Is it permissible, by order of a public authority, to directly kill those who, although they have not committed a crime deserving of the death penalty, are no longer capable of contributing to the benefit of the nation because of mental or physical infirmities, but are considered a burden to it and an obstacle to its vitality and strength?” the answer was clear: Lat. „Negative, cum sit iuri naturali ac divino positivo contrarium” (Eng. „No, because it is contrary to natural and divine law”). Cardinal von Galen’s protest was, according to a contemporary historian, „the strongest, most explicit and most widespread protest movement against any Nazi policy since the beginning of the Third Reich” in Germany.

Whether the KL Dachau concentration camp prisoners knew about it is difficult to judge. However, they certainly did not know about the continuation of the Germ. «Aktion T4» program, better classified, i.e. program Germ. Sonder­behand­lung (Eng. special treatment), known as the Germ. «Aktion 14 f 13» (Eng. „Action 14 f 13”). According to contemporary sources, this codename includes the following coded terms: „14” — meaning concentration camp, „f” — killing, „13” — gassing. The Germ. «Aktion 14 f 13» was intended to cover concentration camp prisoners — the weakest, the sick, the infirm, the old.

In the spring of 1942, the Germans began implementing the German «Aktion 14 f 13» in KL Dachau. It started with the selection of the sickest and most infirm — including many Polish Catholic priests — and transferring them to the Germ. Invalidenblock (Eng. invalids' barracks). The prisoners were given to understand that the reason for their isolation was preparation for transfer to other camps with a lighter regime, referring to them as Germ. Erholungslager (Eng. rest camp), Germ. Gene­sungs­lager (Eng. convalescence camp), or even Germ. Sanatorium. Many victims left KL Dachau voluntarily, hoping for an improvement in camp conditions.

Prisoners from KL Dachau were however transported to the Germ. Tö­tungs­anstalt (Eng. Killing/Euthanasia Centre) TA Hartheim, at the Schloß Hartheim castle in Alkoven in Upper Austria, which was part of the KL Mauthausen–Gusen concentration camp complex. In KL Dachau, a selected group of prisoners, called the Germ. In­va­li­den­trans­porte (Eng. invalid transport), were loaded onto wagons specially provided on a railway siding and then transported — through Munich, where deceased prisoners were unloaded to be cremated in the city's public crematoria, and across the Alps — to Linz in Austria. From there, prob. also by train, they were taken to the Alkoven station, from where they were taken directly to Schloß Hartheim in grey buses operated by the German company Germ. Gemeinnützige Krankentransport GmbH (Eng. Charitable Association for the Transport of the Sick Ltd.), i.e. GeKraT. The same buses, once every two months, the TA Hartheim staff used to go to Linz, to the cinema….

At the post‐war trial, the Austrian Germ. Brenner (Eng. stoker) of TA Hartheim, Vinzenz Nohel, described the last moments of the victims' lives as follows: „The mentally ill were, as far as I know, brought to Hartheim from the various asylums by rail and by car.

The transports arrived at Hartheim at irregular intervals and at no specific hours… The number of arrivals varied from between forty and one hundred and fifty.

First of all, they were sent to the changing room. There the men and women were made to undress or were undressed in two separate areas. Their clothes and any luggage which they had brought with them was placed in a pile, labelled, recorded and numbered.

The unclothed patients then went across a corridor to the dict. registry office. There was a large table in this room and a doctor with a staff of three or four helpers. The doctor on duty there was either Dr. Lonauer or Dr. Renno. As far as I can judge as a layperson, the doctors did not examine the patients; instead they only looked at the files of those who were brought past them. Someone stamped the patients. A nurse had to stamp the individual patients on the shoulder or chest with a consecutive number… Those who had gold teeth or a gold dental bridge were marked with a cross on the back.

Following this procedure the people were taken to an adjacent room where they were photographed. From the photography room they were taken through a second exit back to the registry office and from there through a steel door into the gas chamber. Initially, the gas chamber was very simply furnished… so that one could assume it was a bathroom. There were three shower heads mounted on the ceiling....

Once the entire transport had been processed, i.e. the admissions recorded, the stamping carried out and those persons marked who had gold teeth, everyone was taken to the gas chamber that was disguised as a shower room. The steel doors were closed and the doctor on duty released the gas into the chamber.

Within a short time, the people in the gas chamber were dead”.… Buses arrived in front of a specially constructed wooden annex to Schloß Hartheim, completely hidden from the view of the curious. The gas chamber, c. 2.7 m high, had dimensions of 5.8x3.8 m, and could accommodate a maximum of 150 people. It was located on the ground floor, while the staff quarters and offices were on the first floor of the facility.

The genocide was directed by the Austrian physician Dr Rudolf Lonauer, director of TA Hartheim, who personally ordered the gassing of prisoners using carbon monoxide from gas cylinders. He was often replaced by his deputy, the German Dr Georg Renno. Both boasted — of course! — doctorates: the former studied at the University of Graz; the latter at prestigious German universities in Munich and Heidelberg.

Prob. one of them released gas into the room when the victims were brought into it. The aforementioned Germ. Brenner, Vinzenz Nohel, supplemented his account with the following: „Taking the dead from the gas chamber to the mortuary was a very difficult and nerve‐racking process. It was not easy to separate the corpses, which were stiff and tangled up in one another, and to drag them into the mortuary… In the mortuary the corpses were stacked up. The crematorium was located next to the mortuary. The ovens were fitted with a corpse caddy which could be taken out of the oven. The bodies of the dead were placed on these caddies and then pushed into the crematorium as if into a bakery oven. Depending on the number of dead we incinerated two to eight corpses at a time. The ovens were fuelled with coke.

Work continued night and day as necessary. Before the dead were incinerated the stokers extracted the gold teeth of those who had previously been marked with a cross….

Once the corpses had been incinerated, the remains of the bones which had fallen through the oven grid were placed in a bone crusher and ground to powder. The bone powder obtained in this fashion was then sent to the bereaved relatives as the mortal remains. Approximately 3 kilograms of such ash was calculated for each deceased person”.

The remains of the murdered were not automatically sent to „grieving relatives” ‐ the family had to apply for it and pay inordinately. This, however, did not apply to the Polish priests from KL Dachau.

Their ashes and remains were taken — once a week — to the Danube, c. 3.5 km away, or to the Traun River, c. 10 km away in the opposite direction, and thrown into the water.

TA Hartheim „employees” were handsomely rewarded for their efforts. The Germ. Brenner mentioned above, Vinzenz Nahel, received a salary of 170 RM per month, plus a 50 RM family separation allowance, a 35 RM allowance, and a 35 RM bonus for „keeping mouth shut”. Furthermore, „because the work [as a Brenner] was very strenuous and nerve‐shattering, we also received a quarter litre schnapps every day”.

For many of the «Aktion T4» genocide heroes, TA Hartheim became a testing ground before taking on larger missions. Three of them were promoted in 1942 and transferred to the German‐occupied and run quasi‐state called the Germ. General­gouvernement (Eng. General Governorate), i.e. GG, its Germ. Distrikt Lublin (Eng. Lublin District), in which the German SS‐ und Polizeiführer (Eng. SS and Police Leader) i.e. SSPF, was another Austrian, whom one historian described as „the most vile individual in the most vile organization that has ever existed”, Odilo Lotario Globočnik in the rank of Germ. SS‐Gruppenführer. The German, Christian Wirth, responsible for the security of the Germ. «Aktion T4», became commandant of the TA Belzec extermination camp there. His assistant and deputy, the Austrian Franz Paul Stangl, became commandant of the second extermination camp for Jews, i.e. TA Sobibor, and later commandant of TA Treblinka, where the Germans murdered the Jews of Warsaw. In TA Sobibor he was assisted by an Austrian, Josef Vallasta, Germ. Oberbrenner (Eng. super stoker), who was similarly helpful in TA Hartheim, where he assisted the aforementioned luminaries of German and Austrian science, Dr Lonauer and Dr Renno.

As one source states: „the local population soon became aware of the nature of the activities being carried on there. After the arrival of one of the grey buses at Hartheim, a dark cloud always appeared over the castle. On days when there was a low cloud base, smoke smelling of burnt flesh and hair would spread over the town of Hartheim, causing the townsfolk to be physically sick. The fact that many people were brought to the castle, but nobody left, resulted in rumours spreading. To reassure the citizens, the Hartheim authorities arranged communal meetings. The townspeople were told that the vile odours had been caused by the use of contaminated oil. A warning was issued against persons speculating to the contrary”… Dr Rudolf Lonauer, director of TA Hartheim, committed suicide after the war, taking his entire family with him. The German, Dr Georg Renno, lived however to a ripe old age — died in 1997. He worked sacrificially, using his „rich experience”, for the German pharmaceutical company Schering AG (today part of Bayer group). According to Google's Gemini AI assistant, the company's products include contraceptive pills, gynecological and dermatological drugs and preparations, etc. In 1960, he appeared before the German justice system, but in 1975 was deemed „unfit to stand trial”. Just before his death, reportedly said that „he does not feel guilty”.

„Buffalo” (Pl. „Bawół”) was a nickname given in KL Dachau to Germ. Schutzhäftling (Eng. political prisoner) Fritz Becher — a former SS‐Obersturmführer, Germ. Blockältester (Eng. block senior) of Barrack No 28, i.e. the main barrack of the Germ. Pfarrerblock (Eng. Priests' Block). „Buffalo”was sentenced to death during the trial of the KL Dachau staff before an American military tribunal.

The sentence was carried out on 29.05.1946, in Landsberg am Lech.

Karl Zimmerman, Germ. Oberkapo (Eng. head kapo) in the Germ. Krankenrevier (Eng. infirmary), i.e. the camp „hospital”, that refused to admit the dying Bishop Michał Kozal, was tried between 24.11‐11.12.1947, as part of one of the subsidiary trials held at the site of the former KL Dachau. Coming to his defense were several Germ. Ehrenhäftlinge (Eng. privileged prisoners) who had been held in isolation, including Bishop Johann Baptist Neuhäusler and the Protestant theologian Martin Niemöller. Neuhäusler, in a Germ. Eidesstattliche Erklärung (Eng. sworn affidavit) — was too busy to appear in court in person — stated that „Zimmerman behaved properly toward them and tried to help within the limits of his ability”. German jurists deliberated with great seriousness — naturally! — as they laid the foundations for a „just” legal system in Germany, one primarily designed to protect the accused; they dismissed the Polish „undocumented” claims regarding a „terrible tormentor and the terror of the camp„ (as described by Fr Henry Malak) and set Zimmerman free. His subsequent fate remains unknown.

Emil Joas, a Germ. Schlosser (Eng. locksmith) by trade and Germ. Schutzhäftling (Eng. political prisoner), arrested for his membership in the Germ. Roter Frontkämpferbund (Eng. Red Front Fighters' League), a communist paramilitary organization, served as a Germ. Stubendienst (Eng. room orderly) in the Germ. Pfarrerblock. Died at KL Dachau on 26.02.1943; sources indicate he was murdered.

„Cretin” (Pl. „Kretyn”) was a nickname given in KL Dachau to Germ. Schutzhäftling (Eng. political prisoner) Wilhelm Eichel, a niem.

Mechaniker (Eng. mechanic) by trade who had been arrested for underground activities within the outlawed Communist Party, prob. served as a Germ. Stubendienst (Eng. room orderly) in the Germ. Pfarrerblock). In 11.1944, conscripted into the Germ. 36. Waffen–Grenadier–Division der SS (Eng. 36th Waffen–Grenadier–Division of the SS), a unit formed from the Germ. SS‐Sondereinheit Dirlewanger (Eng. Dirlewanger SS Special Unit), which had gained notoriety for committing genocide against Poles during the Warsaw Uprising in 08‐10.1944 and for suppressing the Slovak National Uprising. Captured by the Russians and died in Russian captivity.

The latter two, having died either in a Germ Konzentrationslager (Emil Joas) or in captivity following combat at the front (Wilhelm Eichel), are commemorated by Germ. Stolperstein (Eng. stumbling stones), small memorial plaques dedicated to „victims of German National Socialism”. As they walk to school, German children in Stuttgart and Vaihingen an der Enz pass the plaques of Emil Joas and the „Cretin” Wilhelm Eichel, respectively — „heroes” of the Germ. Kulturnation (Eng. nation of culture). Lat. „probitas laudatur et alget” (Eng. „honesty wins praise but freezes to death”).