page_title: Arthur Dodd (soldier)
section_title: Auschwitz III (Monowitz)
hierarchical_section_title: Arthur Dodd (soldier) / Biography / Auschwitz III (Monowitz)
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. 08 Übersicht Buna + Montan Information added by Wikimedia users.Français&#160;: 1941, usine de Buna et Montan de IG Farben, près d'Auschwitz"&#160;; Source&#160;: Archives fédérales allemandes English: 1941, IG Farben's plant of Buna + Montan, near Auschwitz"&#160;; Overview&#160;; Source&#160;: German Federal Archive
context_page_description: Arthur Dodd served in the British Army during World War II. After being captured at Tobruk, he became a Prisoner of War and was imprisoned at E715, an Allied POW camp attached to Auschwitz III, a sub-camp of the notorious Auschwitz.
context_section_description: When Dodd and the POWs disembarked they noticed dozens of bundles of clothing that had just been left by the rail tracks. As they were marched to the concentration camp and factory where they would be working, Dodd tells of a teenage Jewish girl, stripped to the waist, who he says was being savagely whipped by an SS officer. Dodd and the other POWs attempted to get between him and the bleeding girl. The SS officer pulled out his pistol and threatened to shoot Dodd, who was at the front, if he interfered further. A Wehrmacht soldier warned Dodd that he meant what he said. The British troops stepped aside and the officer resumed his task of beating the girl.
  The filth of Camp E715, with its accompanying smell of burning flesh from the crematorium at nearby Auschwitz II, was to be Dodd's home for the next 14 months. During his imprisonment in Camp E715, Dodd said he witnessed the mistreatment and killing of Jewish inmates at the camp by their SS guards, including Jews hanging from the gallows in Auschwitz I and several pushed off high scaffolding.
  Some of the British POWs frequently put themselves in danger to try to get any scraps of food they could spare to the prisoners in the Jewish section. Others refused to help, believing that the Jewish inmates were simply being rightfully punished for some crime they must have committed. Forced to work, many POWs deliberately sabotaged the pipes they were working on by placing stones or blank flanges into the pipes. Suspicious, on one occasion, a German engineer ordered a pressure test on the pipes. Horrified, the POWs knew that not one single pipe would pass such a test and realised that they would be shot in no less than 20 minutes. As the test was being prepared, the air raid siren went off and they were ordered into the shelters. Dodd later said:
  "We knew that they had found out what we had done. They had us lined up against a wall to shoot us as soon as the pipes failed the test. I had just said a prayer, when the air-raid siren went and everyone, guards and prisoners, dived into the air raid shelters. We heard a bomb fall and when the raid was over we saw that the only bomb to hit the factory had blown out the wall where the pipes were. God was looking after us that day. Maybe John Wesley had a hand in it as well."
  When the air raid ended, the British troops were led out of the shelter and, to their relief, saw that the only building hit by a bomb had been the BAU 38 - the place where the pressure test was to take place. All of the pipes had been destroyed.
  During a further air raid on 20 August 1944, Dodd and other POWs were in a shelter which was hit by a bomb, killing 38 British POWs and injuring Dodd and others. These 38 POWs are commemorated on a plaque which was unveiled on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, in 2005. Their remains were interred in the Kraków Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery.
  In late 1944, the British POWs heard a noise outside their huts. On going outside to investigate, they saw about a thousand Jews, old men, women and children, walking towards Auschwitz II on the other side of the perimeter wire. The children were playing and singing as they passed. Once they had gone, the men returned to their huts in silence. They had been told in the past of the fate of such columns of walking Jews.
caption: IG Farben factory in Monowitz (near Auschwitz)
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