Monowitz

Monowice · subcamp of KL Auschwitz

Record no. 12 of 45
Fragments preserved

11 000 Prisoners at peak strength

The largest of the subcamps, which in November 1943 became a camp in its own right, Auschwitz III, and took charge of several dozen others.

German name: Monowitz
Established: October 1942
Closed: 18 January 1945
Subordinate to: Auschwitz III-Monowitz (headquarters)
Employer: I.G. Farbenindustrie AG
Type of work: Construction of the synthetic rubber plant
Surviving structures: Parts of the camp and of the works buildings
Access: Oświęcim-Monowice, ul. Fabryczna, partly accessible

Period of operation against the Auschwitz system

OCT 1942 — JAN 1945

1940

1941

1942

1943

1944

1945

All 45 subcamps of KL Auschwitz on one map, this one marked with a ring. The filled square is Auschwitz I, the empty one Auschwitz II-Birkenau.

Distances in a straight line — approximate

Auschwitz I≈ 6 km
Auschwitz II-Birkenau≈ 7 km
Krakow≈ 45 km
TownMonowice

Measured from the centre of the town, accurate to within a few kilometres.

Branch of industry in the register

Chemicals and fuel

What happened here

The camp came into being because I.G. Farbenindustrie was building a synthetic rubber plant at Dwory and needed workers on the spot. The number of prisoners grew from two thousand in November 1942 to more than eleven thousand in the second half of 1944.

In November 1943 Monowitz was given the status of a separate camp, Auschwitz III, and took over supervision of the industrial subcamps in Upper Silesia.

What is left

In the Oświęcim-Monowice district, on the road towards Zator and Krakow, numerous remains of the Buna-Monowitz camp and of the works buildings survive.

There are two monuments here: one on the grounds of the former camp, the other on ul. Chemikow, near the plant at Dwory.

This is one of the few places in the register that can be visited today; we show it in our educational programmes as the Auschwitz III Monowitz exhibition at Jawiszowice. See the programmes →

Archival photographs of this place
Photographs and documents from the time the camp existed are held and made available by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim.

Museum gallery →

Sources — the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim, archive and historical collections · Re-Finding the Sub Camps of Auschwitz, field research by the Tiergartenstrasse4 Association 2005–2008, subcamps-auschwitz.org · field documentation by Auschwitz Subcamps.

Auschwitz Subcamps is a brand of KrakowOmnia sp. z o.o.

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