| Solahütte | |
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.jpg) General view of theSolahütte guest-house of the Nazi German personnel and administration of theAuschwitz concentration camp complex duringthe Holocaust in occupied Poland. Photograph from theHöcker Album | |
 Lake Międzybrodzkie on theSoła river at the foot ofMiędzybrodzie Bialskie village, located 30 kilometres (19 mi) south of Auschwitz; about half-an-hour drive along RoadDW 948 |
Solahütte (a.k.a.Solehütte,Soletal,SS-Hütte Soletal, orSS Hütte Porombka)[1] was a resort inPoland for theNazi German guards, administrators, and auxiliary personnel of theAuschwitz/Birkenau/Buna facilities duringthe Holocaust in occupied Poland. Although postcards of the era sent by German staff sometimes bore the mysterious pre-printedreturn address "SS Hütte Soletal", the rustic hamlet remained largely unknown to historians until 2007, when theHöcker Album of memorabilia owned by SS officerKarl-Friedrich Höcker including vintage Auschwitz photographs was donated to theUnited States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which then released images from the album online for study. Some of the photographs identifiedSolahütte for the first time.[2][3]
Solahütte is around 29 kilometres (18 miles) by car from Auschwitz. The site is located near the bends in theSoła river where in 1935 engineers finished a heavy dam which created the scenic Międzybrodzkie reservoir lake. The villages ofPorąbka andMiędzybrodzie Żywieckie are close by, along with the Żar glider airstrip and the Żar peak with itsfunicular incline-tram. The region was already popular with tourists beforeWorld War II.
Solahütte can be considered a tinysubcamp of Auschwitz because Auschwitz prisoners, overseen by SS officerFranz Hössler, constructed the rustic getaway facility, and a crew of Auschwitz detainees performed groundskeeping and cleanup work there.[4]Sola andSole were Germanic approximations of the PolishSoła andHütte is German forhut, hence the German nameSolahütte, meaning "Sola hut" — even though the "hut" was actually a motel-sized building with a full-length sun-deck porch and numerous smaller campus buildings also made up part of the complex.[5][6][7] The main lodge building was demolished by the owner in 2011, at the time that it was considered to become a protected monument. But various side buildings remain, including the cabin used by Auschwitz commandantRudolf Höss.
Among the SS officers photographed atSolahütte wereOswald Pohl (executed through theNuremberg Tribunal), Höss (executed through theSupreme National Tribunal of Poland), andJosef Mengele (nicknamed the "Angel of Death").[8][9][10][11] The latter was almost never seen photographed in hisSS uniform with Auschwitz colleagues until theSolahütte snapshots and a few other images became known.[2] Other guests of theSolahütte resort featured in the Höcker Album include Höcker himself,Richard Baer,Otto Moll,Josef Kramer and variousAufseherinnen.
For the SS guards and SSHelferinnen — the female volunteer typists and clerks of theextermination camp — Solahütte was a nearby vacation option, usually reached by bus. Activities for guests included hunting, hiking, sunbathing, and excursions to the nearby lake and peaks. Wartime snapshots made at Solahütte are jarring because of the lightheartedness of the people pictured. Some of history's most infamouswar criminals are shown cheerily singing along toaccordion music, loafing ondeckchairs, or giggling over desserts with the femaleAufseherinnen orHelferinnen.[12][13][14]
The critically acclaimed novelThe Constant Soldier by William Ryan is inspired by the photographs of theSolahütte guest-house.[15]
The 2022 playHere There Are Blueberries, written by playwrightsMoisés Kaufman and Amanda Gronich, examines the history of the donation of Karl-Friedrich Höcker’s album of photographs of Solahütte, including the titular photograph of SS female auxiliaries eatingblueberries, to theUnited States Holocaust Memorial Museum.[16][17]
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