Poland: Auschwitz-Berkenau

<<< Auschwitz Page     Berkenau Page     Next Page >>>

THE CONCENTRATION AND EXTERMINATION CAMP

After the occupation of Poland by the Third Reich, the name of the city of Oswiecim was changed to Auschwitz by the Germans, and became the name of the camp as well.Auschwitz functioned throughout its existence as a concentration camp, and over time became the largest such Nazi camp.

In the first period of the existence of the camp, it was primarily Poles who were sent here by the German occupation authorities.

These were people regarded as particularly dangerous: the elite of the Polish people, their political, civic, and spiritual leaders, members of the intelligentsia, cultural and scientific figures, and also members of the resistance movement, officers, and so on.

Over time, the Nazis also began to send groups of prisoners from other occupied countries to Auschwitz.

Beginning in 1942, Jews whom the SS physicians classified as fit for labor were also registered in the camp. From among all the people deported to Auschwitz, approximately 400,000 people were registered and placed in the camp and its sub-camps (200,000 Jews, more than 140,000 Poles, about 20,000 Gypsies from various countries, more than 10,000 Soviet prisoners of war, and more than 10,000 prisoners of other nationalities).

Over 50% of the registered prisoners died as a result of starvation, labor that exceeded their physical capacity, the terror that raged in the camp, executions, the inhuman living conditions, disease and epidemics, punishment, torture, and criminal medical experiments.

Auschwitz has become a symbol of terror, genocide, and the Holocaust. It was established by the Nazis in 1940, in the suburbs of the city of Oswiecim which, like other parts of Poland, was occupied by the Germans during the Second World War. The name of the city of Oswiecim was changed to Auschwitz, which became the name of the camp as well.

Over the years, the camp was expanded and consisted of three main parts: Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, and Auschwitz III-Monowitz. It also had over 40 sub-camps. At first, Poles were imprisoned and died in the camp. Afterwards, Soviet prisoners of war, Gypsies, and people of other nationalities were also incarcerated there. Beginning in 1942, the camp became the site of the greatest mass murder in the history of humanity, which was committed against the European Jews as part of Hitler's plan for the complete destruction of that people.

The majority of the Jewish men, women and children deported to Auschwitz were sent to their deaths in the Birkenau gas chambers immediately after arrival. At the end of the war, in an effort to remove the traces of the crimes they had committed, the SS began dismantling and razing the gas chambers, crematoria, and other buildings, as well as burning documents.

Prisoners capable of marching were evacuated into the depths of the Reich. Those who remained behind in the camp were liberated by Red Army soldiers on January 27, 1945.

A July 2, 1947 act of the Polish parliament established the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum on the grounds of the two extant parts of the camp, Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau.
  • German forces occupying Poland set up Auschwitz in 1940 as a labour camp for Polish prisoners, gradually expanding it into a vast labour and death camp
  • The complex contained three camps and at least 40 sub-camps, built outside the town of Oswiecim between 1940 and 1942
  • Auschwitz I was built for Polish political prisoners in June 1940
  • Auschwitz II - Birkenau, was built in October 1941. It held more than 100,000 prisoners and housed gas chambers capable of disposing of 2,000 people a day. By 1944 some 6,000 people a day were being killed
  • Auschwitz III - Monowitz, supplied forced labour for the nearby IG Farben plant, the company which made the Zyklon-B gas used in Nazi death camps
  • Articles printed in U.S. and European newspapers in the early 1940s attest that Allied countries were aware of the camp and the deaths occurring there, yet did nothing
  • Between 1.2 million and 1.5 million people died at the camps, of whom about a million were Jewish
  • Other groups who died included Polish political prisoners, Soviet prisoners of war, Gypsies, people with disabilities, homosexuals and prisoners of conscience or religious faith
  • The decision to kill Europe's Jews was formulated in late 1941, and Nazi officials at the Wannsee Conference in January 1942 coordinated the apparatus of mass murder
  • Most victims were murdered in six extermination camps. Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland was the largest and at least 1.1 million Jews were killed there before its liberation by the Red Army on Jan. 27, 1945. In total 85 percent of the Jewish population in Poland died -- some 2.8 million people
  • Only an estimated 11 percent of Jewish children who were alive in 1933 survived the Holocaust
  • An estimated 5.5 million other victims of Nazi atrocities -- labeled "enemies of the German state" -- included up to half a million Gypsies, an estimated 10,000-15,000 homosexuals and 3 million non-Jewish Poles. Catholic and Protestant clergy also were sent to concentration camps as well as Jehovah's Witnesses
  • Some Holocaust researchers fault the wartime allies for not bombing the railway tracks that brought Jews from across Europe to the camps. Survivors lament what Nobel prize-winning author Elie Wiesel describes as shameful indifference to mass murder
  • The United States and Britain garnered much intelligence about the camps, other historians say, but their priority was a total military defeat of Nazi Germany, not rescuing European Jews
  • The camp was liberated by Soviet soldiers on January 27 1945
  • About 200,000 inmates of the camp between 1940 and 1945 survived
  • Out of a total of about 7,000 guards at Auschwitz, including 170 female staff, 750 were prosecuted and punished after Nazi Germany was defeated

<<< Auschwitz Page     Berkenau Page     Next Page >>>