Liana Millu's Smoke Over Birkenau

In her book, “Smoke Over Birkenau”, Liana Millu writes a short story about two sisters, Lotti and Gustine. In this short story, the reader learns that one of the sisters, Lotti, signed herself up to work in the Puffkommando, German for camp brothels. In this paper, I will provide background information the use of brothels in concentration camps, with specific emphasis on the brothel in Auschwitz I, offer details about what women worked in the brothels, and conclude with the consequences of working in the brothel for the women, by offering examples from the text and additional resources. In 1942, when the first brothel was established in Mauthausen/Gusen, the purpose of having a brothel in the camp was to reward the male inmates that worked the hardest and please the guards the most. As time went on, the customer base shifted from hardworking male inmates to green triangle inmates (kapos) and Aryan VIP’s, such as SS officers. Many historians also believe that homosexual men were forced to have sex with women prostitutes to “cure” their homosexuality. Grant Oster writes in his article titled “The Brothels of Auschwitz” that many believe the brothels were “established to ‘stop the spread of male homosexuality within the camp’”.
164) from Birkenau. The brothel in Auschwitz opened on June 30, 1943 and was the second of its kind. The brothel itself has similar features as its counterparts, such as yet had similar features as small rooms with doors that have peepholes, which were primarily used by the SS officers monitor and enforce the sexual intercourse rules of the brothel set by Hitler’s Nuremberg Laws in 1935, as stated in the blog post titled “Block 24 at Auschwitz- The Brothel” written by WordPress user