AUSCHWITZ SUBCAMPS
IG Farben had a factory, built in Dwory near Auschwitz because this place offered security from air-raids, the coal mines were near and the existence of Auschwitz concentration camp made it possible to receive as many cheap labourers as necessary. In April 1941, inmates of Auschwitz started building the Buna-plants in Dwory. At the beginning, the slave workers had to walk the whole distance from Auschwitz to their work-place, one direction measured seven kilometres. Due to difficulties with these transports, like exhaustion of the prisoners which led to a fall in of the work power, IG Farben decided to build a special camp for the prisoners working in the Buna plants: This subcamp of Auschwitz was settled in an evacuated village named Monowice. At the end of October 1942, the prisoners were transferred to Monowice. Until November 1943, the camp was called "Bunalager" (camp Buna) and belonged to Auschwitz concentration camp. Since November 1943, Monowice contained its own command headquarter Auschwitz III. It comprised 28 camps, which developed in the years 1942 to 1944 mainly in Silesia close to mines, metallurgical plants and other industrial zones. Those were the subcamps built between 1942 and 1944:
The treatment of prisoners in the subcamps varied according to the labour assignments the inmates worked in. Within building and digging works, the guards had more chances to beat the inmates than at machines which required a steady work-rhythm.
