Otto Küsel, Between Kapo And Human Being

Discover Otto Küsel’s story, one of the overlooked heroes of Nazi camps.

Otto Küsel may not be as famous as Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg or Oskar Schindler, but prisoner 2 from Auschwitz became responsible for saving hundreds of prisoners’ lives. Back then, he was just a burglar who ended up thrown in the middle of the Nazi machinery.

Somehow, he became a hero without even trying.

Otto Küsel was born close to Berlin in 1909. At 14 years old, he quit school to study for being an electrician. Meanwhile, he sold shoelaces and fruits. He was known for shouting shamelessly while selling bananas, offering them to single women.

Things became much worse in 1929. For Otto Küsel, selling was more of a survival game, as he had to stay away from police too. However, he was still arrested a few times, mainly for light burglaries. He also had issues with authority, so his feelings were strong when a group of people was considered superior.

When Nazis took over, Otto Küsel’s life became even harder. He was kicked out of an office once for refusing to use the Nazi salute. For the Nazi regime, he was the classic criminal, the type of person who couldn’t fit in the society.

According to the Nazi law, criminals with at least three convictions who spent at least six months in prison could be sent to concentration camps. Otto Küsel was taken over by police officers in 1937 and sent to Sachsenhausen.

He received a special role in the camp and was named a kapo. His role was to help officers and ensure everything was smooth in the camp. Professional criminals were preferred for this role because they had no ideologies, unlike communists or political prisoners.

One of kapos’ roles was to give prisoners tasks. They were small pieces in a big Nazi puzzle and had to make sure prisoners would work to death.

Most kapos did what they were asked to do. Some of them used to drown or beat prisoners for fun. Bruno Brodniewicz was one of the most notorious ones. Known as the first prisoner, he was often referred to as the Black Death.

Otto Küsel was different. He was sent to Auschwitz in 1940, when the camp was still new and managed by Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Höss.

During his first few years, most prisoners were local Poles, not Jews. Otto Küsel used to warn them about identifying themselves as military staff or academicians. It would’ve been a death sentence.

Exhausted prisoners were often sent to work in kitchens, where they had access to more food. His little office became a place of hope where prisoners could catch their breath and relax for a few minutes before going back to work.

Otto Küsel could speak Polish, which helped him communicate to other prisoners without alerting guards. He often warned them about Gerhard Palitzsch, an officer who was notorious for his brutal treatment of those in Auschwitz.

The officer used to greet new prisoners by telling them to forget about their children and families because they’ll face a certain death in Auschwitz.

Otto Küsel was seen as a hardworking individual, so he managed to hide his resistance from the Nazi regime. No other kapo suspected him of helping prisoners either. Despite all the obstacles in the camp, he somehow managed to retain his humanity.

In the winter of 1942, he managed to escape from Auschwitz. He learnt about the escape plan made by a few Polish prisoners and decided to join them. Using a cart and a guard’s uniform, four prisoners escaped and got in touch with the resistance.

The story didn’t end here because Otto Küsel was betrayed by a jealous woman. He hid in a family’s house after he escaped from Auschwitz. When she spotted him with a girl living in the same house, she became jealous and suspected him of having a relationship with her.

Nine months later, he was back in Auschwitz. This time, he was placed in the 11^th block, along others who were sentenced to death. Day by day, all he did was wait for his execution.

The new camp leader decided to pardon more prisoners who were initially sentenced to death, including Otto Küsel. They were moved back to the camp. Some other prisoners believed he was a traitor because he was spared.

When the Soviet army approached Auschwitz in 1944, Otto Küsel was moved to the Flossenbürg camp in a death march, which he also survived.

In 1945, Otto Küsel’s suffering reached to an end. The war was over, he got married and had two children. He also returned to selling fruits and vegetables, one of his early jobs. In 1964, he joined 210 other Auschwitz survivors who testified in the first trial after World War 2.

He was sometimes suspected of being an informant, mainly because it was difficult to believe that someone could survive so many incidents in different camps.

He kept in touch with Polish survivors until he passed away in 1984.