Otto Küsel

Otto Kiisel ( born May 16, 1909 in Berlin, † November 17, 1984 in Oberviechtach ) was a German prisoner functionary in the concentration camp of Auschwitz, the exemplary began its limited room for maneuver in favor of other prisoners.

Detention in German concentration camps

Kiisel had been imprisoned for various offenses against property. He was transferred as one of 30 criminal prisoners from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp to the main camp of Auschwitz on 20 May 1940. The 30 prisoners were accompanied by the SS man Gerhard Palitzsch. In Auschwitz Kiisel received the prisoner number 2 and was thus one of the first prisoners in this camp.

Kiisel coordinated in Auschwitz as a function of the use of inmate labor details. Unlike many other prisoners in similar positions Kiisel used his room for maneuver to help prisoners, for example, by assigning a lighter work.

Kiisel expressed in 1969 in a conversation with Hermann Langbein follows: "Of course I could not each make for a good command who has asked me to. If I had to reject one, then I said to him: Come again! Once it is then nevertheless succeeded. I have divided new additions to the bad commands and those who've had to work there for a time, put in better. "

On the afternoon of December 29, 1942 Otto Kiisel fled along with the three Poland Jan Baras (actually January Komski ), Mieczyslaw Januszewski and Bolesław Kuczbara from Auschwitz. The four prisoners escaped by means of an organized through the working horses service car, which was left outside the commuting area of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Kiisel left in a carriage a letter, which was later found by members of the SS camp. In this letter he pointed to the stove in the parlor of the dreaded among the prisoners camp elder of the main camp Bruno Brodniewicz ( Häftlingsnr. 1). In the furnace Brodniewicz gold and other valuables had hidden illegal, have been found by the camp SS after Küsels Note. Brodniewicz then came into the bunker and was replaced as camp elder.

Kusel, who was then active in a Polish resistance group in Warsaw, was arrested after nine months by the Gestapo. From September 1943 to November 1943 Kiisel was again interned in Auschwitz. While in custody, he got back to the more familiar, notorious SS sergeant Palitzsch, who was also imprisoned in the bunker. Palitzsch was arrested a female Jewish prisoner because of an illicit intimate relationship.

As part of an amnesty at the inauguration of the new camp commander Arthur Liebehenschel Kiisel was discharged from the bunker. On November 9, 1944, he was transferred from Auschwitz to Flossenbiirg.

After the war

After the war Kiisel was in 1945, Polish citizenship offered honorary. Kiisel lived in Bavaria and was later withdrawn due to its aid many letters of thanks former inmates. His livelihood, he played as a substitute.

Kiisel was one of 211 Auschwitz survivors, who made a statement in the first Frankfurt Auschwitz trial.