History of Sorts

Stefan Baretzki was an Auschwitz guard of Bukovina German origin. He was conscripted into the Waffen-SS and stationed at Auschwitz  from 1942 until 1945.

Baretzki was sentenced to life imprisonment and eight years in August 1965, at the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials. Because he only finished primary education, the court described him as a “simpleton” and “less intelligent than all the other defendants”, However I don’t fully subscribe to that point of view. It was not uncommon in those days that people would only have primary education. But his evidence was helpful, his  admission that he knew that the mass murder of Jews was a crime was used as evidence that the other defendants knew that their actions were criminal too.

Barertzki and other guards would be shown propaganda movies like Jud Süß and Ohm Krüger after they finished work. This would than encourage them to beat up Jewish prisoners the…