The creation of the camp was a result of an initiative by the German chemical company IG Farben to build the third-largest synthetic rubber and liquid fuels plant.

Among the sites proposed between December 1940 and January 1942 the chosen location was the flat land between the eastern part of Oświęcim and the villages of Dwory and Monowice, justified by good geological conditions, access to transport routes, water supply, and the availability of raw materials such as: coal from mines in Libiąż, Jawiszowice, and Jaworzno, limestone from Krzeszowice, and salt from Wieliczka.

However, the primary reason for building the industrial complex in that location was the immediate access to the slave work-force from the nearby Auschwitz camps.

The company bought the land from the treasury for a low price, after it had been seized from Polish owners without compensation and their houses were vacated and demolished.

Worried over losing the laborers, factory management decided to turn the barracks camp being built in Monowice for civilians over to the SS, to house prisoners.

The plant construction was commissioned by the Italian State interested in importing nitrile rubber (Buna-N) from IG Farben after the collapse of its own synthetic oil production.

The 29 page-long contract signed by the Confederazione Fascista degli Industriali and printed on 2 March 1942 secured the arrival of 8,636 workers from Italy tasked with erecting the installations with the investment of 700 million Reichsmarks (equivalent to 3 billion 2021 €) by IG Farben (Farben was the producer of nearly all explosives for the German army, with its subsidiary also producing Zyklon-B).

[10] The synthetic rubber was to be made virtually for free in occupied Poland using slave labor from among prisoners of Auschwitz, and raw materials from the formerly Polish coalfields.

By 1942 the new labour camp complex occupied about half of its projected area, the expansion was for the most part finished in the summer of 1943.

Because the factory management insisted on removing sick and exhausted prisoners from Monowice, people incapable of continuing their work were murdered.

While declaring his own opposition to "flogging and mistreating prisoners to death", Faust nevertheless added that "achieving the appropriate productivity is out of the question without the stick."

This was a source of anger and dissatisfaction to factory management, and led to repeated requests that camp authorities increase the numbers of SS men and energetic capos to supervise the prisoners.

[16] In November 1943, after the reorganization of the administrative system and the division of Auschwitz into three quasi-autonomous components, the camp in Monowice received a commandant of its own.

At Monowice, he was given authority over the Jawischowitz, Neu-Dachs in Jaworzno, Fürstengrube, Janinagrube in Libiąż, Golleschau in Goleszów, Eintrachthütte in Świętochłowice, Sosnowitz, Lagischa, and Brünn (in Bohemia) sub-camps.

After the inspection was over, Dr. Löhner-Beda was pulled out of the work party and was beaten and kicked until, a dying man, he was left in the arms of his inmate friend, to end his life in IG Auschwitz.

The 439 of them who made up 1 Company were stationed at Monowice, and included not only guards but also the staff of the offices and stores that saw to the needs of the remaining sub-camps.

On 18 January 1945, all prisoners in Monowitz whom the Nazis deemed healthy enough to walk were evacuated from the camp and sent on a death march to the Gleiwitz (Gliwice) subcamp near the Czech border.

[22] The remaining prisoners were liberated on 27 January 1945 by the Red Army along with others in the Auschwitz camp complex, among them was the renowned writer Primo Levi.

Extant structures and visible remains of the Monowitz camp itself include the original camp smithy, part of the prisoner kitchen building, a ruined building of the SS Barracks, a large concrete air raid shelter for the SS guard force (type "Salzgitter/Geilenberg"), and small one-man SS air raid shelters (these can also be found on the grounds of the Buna Werke factory, along with larger concrete air raid shelters for the factory workers).

After Italy’s change of sides in 1943, the German Army took them to prisoner of war camps in Silesia and finally to Auschwitz.

Reynolds, from the Royal Army Service Corps, was shot dead on the spot after refusing to climb up to a 70 ft (21 m) high ice-covered gantry because he was ill-equipped and thought it too dangerous.

[25] The British POWs could see what was going on in the Monowitz concentration camp; they could hear shots at night and see the bodies of men who had been hanged.