Höss, Rudolf   (1904-1947)

Founder and commander of the Auschwitz complex between May 1940 and November 1943. After this he was promoted, he became the deputy of the Inspector of the Concentration Camps. Upon the request of Eichmann he returned to Auschwitz and in the summer of 1944, he directed the annihilation of the Hungarian Jews (Operation Höss). In the fall of 1944 he supervised the slave labour in Austria performed by those Hungarian Jews who arrived there with the death marches. After the war he went into hiding, but he was arrested and handed over to the Polish authorities. During the Nuremberg trials he testified surprisingly frankly, and he also spoke mostly truthfully in his own case. He wrote his memoirs in the Polish prison. He was sentenced to death, and he was hanged in front of Crematorium I in Auschwitz, opposite to his own former house.