Rudolf Höss was the first commandant of Auschwitz, serving from May 1940 to November 1943. He returned in May 1944 in a distinct senior SS role during the deportation and murder of Jews from Hungary. Auschwitz, in German-occupied Poland, became both a concentration camp and a killing center where historians estimate approximately 1.1 million people were murdered, predominantly Jews.

This episode follows people subjected to the camp system and the evidence that survived it: Sophie Stippel, a Jehovah’s Witness prisoner compelled to work in the Höss household; Rudolf Vrba and Alfréd Wetzler, who escaped and prepared a wartime warning report; Lili Jacob, who preserved and identified an SS photograph album containing images of her family and community; and survivor Feliks Myłyk, whose evidence contributed to the Polish case.

After British personnel arrested Höss in March 1946, Polish investigators assembled evidence from the camp site, surviving records, witness testimony, wartime reports, photographs, and Höss’s own statements. The episode examines how his documented authority functioned within the SS and deportation apparatus, and how Poland’s Supreme National Tribunal convicted and sentenced him after the war.

This podcast uses artificial intelligence in its research, writing, production, and narration. Episodes are editorially reviewed before publication.

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