Auschwitz concentration camp
Encyclopedia
Concentration camp Auschwitz ( ˈaʊʃvɪts) was a network of Nazi concentration
and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany
during World War II
. It was the largest of the German concentration camps, consisting of Auschwitz I (the Stammlager or base camp); Auschwitz II–Birkenau (the Vernichtungslager or extermination camp); Auschwitz III–Monowitz, also known as Buna–Monowitz (a labor camp); and 45 satellite camps.
Auschwitz had for a long time been a German name for Oświęcim
, the town by and around which the camps were located; the name "Auschwitz" was made the official name again by the Germans after they invaded Poland
in September 1939. Birkenau, the German translation of Brzezinka
(= "birch tree"), referred originally to a small Polish village that was destroyed by the Germans to make way for the camp.
Auschwitz II–Birkenau was designated by the Reichsführer-SS
Heinrich Himmler
, Germany's Minister of the Interior, as the place of the "final solution of the Jewish question in Europe
". From early 1942 until late 1944, transport trains delivered Jews to the camp's gas chambers from all over Nazi-occupied Europe. The camp's first commandant, Rudolf Höss, testified after the war at the Nuremberg Trials
that up to three million people had died there (2.5 million gassed, and 500,000 from disease and starvation), a figure since revised to 1.1 million, around 90 percent of them Jews. Others deported to Auschwitz included 150,000 Poles
, 23,000 Roma and Sinti
, 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war
, some 400 Jehovah's Witnesses
and tens of thousands of people of diverse nationalities. Those not killed in the gas chambers died of starvation, forced labor, infectious disease
, individual executions, and medical experiments.
On January 27, 1945, Auschwitz was liberated by Soviet troops
, a day commemorated around the world as International Holocaust Remembrance Day
. In 1947, Poland founded a museum on the site of Auschwitz I and II, which by 2010 had seen 29 million visitors—1,300,000 annually—pass through the iron gates crowned with the infamous motto, Arbeit macht frei
("work makes free").
, the Auschwitz complex of camps encompassed a large industrial area rich in natural resources. There were 48 camps in all. The three main camps were Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, and a work camp called Auschwitz III-Monowitz, or the Buna. Auschwitz I served as the administrative center, and was the site of the deaths of roughly 70,000 people, mostly ethnic Poles and Soviet prisoners of war. Auschwitz II was an extermination camp or Vernichtungslager, the site of the deaths of at least 960,000 Jews, 75,000 Poles, and some 19,000 Roma. Auschwitz III-Monowitz served as a labor camp for the Buna-Werke factory of the IG Farben
concern. The SS-Totenkopfverbände
(SS-TV) was the SS organization responsible for administering the Nazi concentration camps for the Third Reich. The SS-TV was an independent unit within the SS
with its own ranks and command structure.
Obersturmbannführer
Rudolf Höss was overall commandant of the Auschwitz complex from May 1940 – November 1943; Obersturmbannführer Arthur Liebehenschel
from November 1943 – May 1944; and Sturmbannführer
Richard Baer
from May 1944 – January 1945.
Yisrael Gutman writes that it was in the concentration camps that Hitler
's concept of absolute power came to fruition. Primo Levi
, who described his year in Auschwitz in If This Is a Man
, wrote:
Auschwitz I was the original camp, serving as the administrative center for the whole complex. The site for the camp (16 one-story buildings) had earlier served as Polish army artillery barracks. It was first suggested as a site for a concentration camp for Polish prisoners by SS-Oberfuhrer Arpad Wigand
, an aide to Higher SS and Police Leader for Silesia
, Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski. Bach-Zelewski had been searching for a site to house prisoners in the Silesia region as the local prisons were filled to capacity. Richard Glucks
, head of the Concentration Camps Inspectorate
, sent former Sachsenhausen concentration camp
commandant, Walter Eisfeld, to inspect the site. Glucks informed SS- Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler
that a camp would be built on the site on February 21, 1940. Rudolf Höss would oversee the development of the camp and serve as the first commandant, SS-Obersturmführer Josef Kramer
was appointed Höss's deputy.
Local residents were evicted, including 1,200 people who lived in shacks around the barracks, creating an empty area of 40 km2, which the Germans called the "interest area of the camp". 300 Jewish residents of Oświęcim
were brought in to lay foundations. From 1940 to 1941 17,000 Polish and Jewish residents of the western districts of Oświęcim
town, from places adjacent to Auschwitz Concentration Camp
, were expelled. Germans ordered also expulsions from the villages of Broszkowice
, Babice
, Brzezinka
, Rajsko
, Pławy, Harmęże
, Bór
, and Budy. The expulsion of Polish civilians
was a step towards establishing the Camp Interest Zone, which was set up to isolate the camp from the outside world and to carry out business activity to meet the needs of the SS
. German and Volksdeutsche
settlers moved into some buildings whose Jewish population had been deported to the ghetto.
The first prisoners (30 German criminal prisoners from the Sachsenhausen
camp) arrived in May 1940, intended to act as functionaries within the prison system. The first transport of 728 Polish prisoners which included 20 Jews
arrived on June 14, 1940 from the prison in Tarnów
, Poland. They were interned in the former building of the Polish Tobacco Monopoly adjacent to the site, until the camp was ready. The inmate population grew quickly, as the camp absorbed Poland's intelligentsia and dissidents, including the Polish underground resistance
. By March 1941, 10,900 were imprisoned there, most of them Poles.
The SS selected some prisoners, often German criminals, as specially privileged supervisors of the other inmates (so-called kapos
). Although involved in numerous atrocities, only two Kapos were ever prosecuted for their individual behavior; many were deemed to have had little choice but to act as they did. The various classes of prisoners were distinguishable by special marks on their clothes; Jews and Soviet prisoners of war were generally treated the worst. All inmates had to work in the associated arms factories, except on Sundays, which were reserved for cleaning and showering. The harsh work requirements, combined with poor nutrition and hygiene, led to high death rates among the prisoners.
Block 11 of Auschwitz was the "prison within the prison", where violators of the numerous rules were punished. Some prisoners were made to spend the nights in "standing cell
s". These cells were about 1.5 m² (16.1 sq ft), and four men would be placed in them; they could do nothing but stand, and were forced during the day to work with the other prisoners. In the basement were located the "starvation cells"; prisoners incarcerated here were given neither food nor water until they were dead.
In the basement were the "dark cells"; these cells had only a very tiny window, and a solid door. Prisoners placed in these cells would gradually suffocate as they used up all of the oxygen in the cell; sometimes the SS would light a candle in the cell to use up the oxygen more quickly. Many were subjected to hanging with their hands behind their backs for hours, even days, thus dislocating their shoulder joints.
On September 3, 1941, deputy camp commandant SS-Hauptsturmführer
Fritzsch
experimented on 600 Russian POWs and 250 Polish inmates by gathering them in the basement of Block 11 and gassing them with Zyklon B
, a highly lethal cyanide
-based pesticide
. This paved the way for the use of Zyklon B as an instrument for extermination at Auschwitz, and a gas chamber and crematorium were constructed by converting a bunker. This gas chamber operated from 1941 to 1942, during which time some 60,000 people were killed therein; it was then converted into an air-raid shelter for the use of the SS. This gas chamber still exists, together with the associated crematorium, which was reconstructed after the war using the original components, which remained on-site.
's preparations for the Final Solution of the Jewish Question, the extermination of the Jews. The first gas chamber at Birkenau was "The Little Red House," a brick cottage converted into a gassing facility by tearing out the inside and bricking up the walls. It was operational by March 1942. A second brick cottage, "The Little White House," was similarly converted some weeks later.
The Nazis had committed themselves to the final solution no later than January 1942, the date of the Wannsee Conference
. In his Nuremberg testimony on April 15, 1946, Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz, testified that Heinrich Himmler personally ordered him to prepare Auschwitz for that purpose:
British historian Laurence Rees
writes, that Höss may have misremembered the year Himmler said this. Himmler did indeed visit Höss in the summer of 1941, but there is no evidence that the final solution had been planned at this stage. Rees writes that the meeting predates the killings of Jewish men by the Einsatzgruppen in the East and the expansion of the killings in July 1941. It also predates the Wannsee Conference
. Rees speculates that the conversation with Himmler was most likely in the summer of 1942. The first gassings, using an industrial gas derived from prussic acid and known by the brand name Zyklon-B, were carried out at Auschwitz in September 1941.
In early 1943, the Nazis decided to increase greatly the gassing capacity of Birkenau. Crematorium II, originally designed as a mortuary, with morgues in the basement and ground-level furnaces, was converted into a killing factory by placing a gas-tight door on the morgues and adding vents for Zyklon B
and ventilation equipment to remove the gas. It went into operation in March. Crematorium III was built using the same design. Crematoria IV and V, designed from the start as gassing centers, were also constructed that spring. By June 1943 all four crematoria were operational. Most of the victims were killed during the period afterwards.
The camp was staffed partly by prisoners, some of whom were selected to be kapos (orderlies, most of whom were convicts) and sonderkommando
s (workers at the crematoria). The kapos were responsible for keeping order in the barrack huts; the sonderkommandos prepared new arrivals for gassing (ordering them to remove their clothing and surrender their personal possessions) and transferred corpses from the gas chambers to the furnaces, having first pulled out any gold that the victims might have had in their teeth. Members of these groups were killed periodically. The kapos and sonderkommandos were supervised by members of the SS; altogether 6,000 SS members worked at Auschwitz.
Command of the women's camp, which was separated from the men's area by the incoming railway line, was held in turn by Johanna Langefeld
, Maria Mandel
, and Elisabeth Volkenrath
.
and Roma (gypsies) to concentration camps with Auschwitz being one of the main camps; they had been previously sent to internment camps and ghettos such as the Lodz ghetto, to which 5,000 Ungrika (Hungarian) Roma from Burgenland
, Austria were sent. A separate camp for the Roma was set up at Auschwitz II-Birkenau known as the Zigeunerfamilienlager ("Gypsy Family Camp"). The first transport of German Gypsies arrived on February 26, 1943,and housed in Section B-IIe of Asuchwitz II. The "Gypsy Family Camp", which was still under construction at the time was to become a separate subcamp within Auschwitz II. The camp would eventually contain 32 residential and 6 sanitation barracks and house a total of 20,967 Romani men, women, and children. This does not include a transport of approximately 1,700 Polish Sinti and Roma men, women, and children mentioned which arrived from Białystok on March 23, 1943. Some of the people on the transport had typhus
; to avoid an outbreak in the camp they were all murdered in the gas chamber.
Amongst the victims who were killed after being shipped to the "Gypsy camp" was 9-year-old Dutch girl Anna Maria Steinbach
(Settela) who appears in an iconic haunting still image from a film peering out from a transport train that would take her from the Westerbork detention camp in the Netherlands
to her eventual death in the gas chambers at Auschwitz. Steinbach was believed to be Jewish until research uncovered her Sinti heritage in 1994.
German psychologist Eva Justin
did a pseudo-scientific study for her doctoral dissertation, titled "Lebensschicksale artfremd erzogener Zigeunerkinder und ihrer Nachkommen" (English: the life history of alien-raised Gypsy children and their descendants). The basis of the study was to ascertain the prevalence of "Gypsy traits" in "Zigeunermischlinge", (Gypsy half-breed) half-Romani children, many half-German, were taken from their parents and raised in orphanages and foster homes without any contact with Romani culture.
Of the 41 children in the study at St. Josefspflege orphanage in Mulfingen
, Germany
, 39 of them (20 boys and 19 girls) were shipped to Auschwitz on May 6, 1944. Of the 39 children, two survived Auschwitz; all the others were killed, most during the final liquidation of the camp on the night of August 2–3, 1944.
During the final liquidation of the Gypsy camp, the remaining 2,897 Romani in the camp were sent to the gas chambers. The murder of the Romani people by the Nazis during World War II is known in the Romani language
as the "The Porajmos
" ("The Devouring").
. The camp was established in October 1942 by the SS at the behest of I.G. Farben executives to provide slave labor for their Buna-Werke (Buna Works) industrial complex. The name Buna was derived from the butadiene-based synthetic rubber and the chemical symbol for sodium Na utilized in the process of synthetic rubber production developed in Germany. Various other German industrial enterprises built factories with their own subcamps, such as Siemens-Schuckert
's Bobrek
subcamp, close to Monowitz in order to profit from the use of slave labor. The German armaments manufacturer Krupp
headed by SS member Alfried Krupp also built their own manufacturing facilities near Monowitz.
Monowitz was built as an arbeitslager
(workcamp), it also contained a "ArbeitsausbildungLager" (Labor Education Camp)" for non-Jewish prisoners perceived not up to par with German work standards. It held approximately 12,000 prisoners, the great majority of whom were Jewish, but also carried non-Jewish criminals and political prisoners. Monowitz prisoners were leased out by the SS to IG Farben
to labor at the Buna-Werke, a collection of chemical factories including those used to manufacture Buna (synthetic rubber
) and synthetic oil
. The SS charged IG Farben three Reichsmarks (RM) per hour for unskilled workers, RM4 per hour for skilled workers and RM1½ for children. Elie Weisel author of the Pulitzer Prize winning book Night
was a teenage inmate at Monowitz along with his father. The life expectancy of Jewish workers at Buna Werke was three to four months, for those working in the outlying mines, only one month. Those deemed unfit for work were gassed at Birkenau or sent "to Birkenau" (nach Birkenau), according to a euphemism used in I.G. Farben record books.
Fritz Löhner-Beda
(prisoner number 68561) was a popular song lyricist who was murdered in Monowitz-Buna at the behest of an I.G. Farben executive, as his friend Raymond van den Straaten testified at the Nuremberg trial of 24 I.G. Farben executives:
, Blechhammer
and Althammer. Women's subcamps were constructed at Budy, Pławy, Zabrze
, Gleiwitz
I, II, III, Rajsko
, and Lichtenwerden (now Světlá). The satellite camps were named Aussenlager (external camp), Nebenlager (extension or subcamp), and Arbeitslager (labor camp).
Danuta Czech of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
writes that most of the satellite camps were pressed into service on behalf of German industry. Inmates of 28 of them worked for the German armaments industry. Nine camps were set up near foundries and other metal works, six near coal mines, six supplied prisoners to work in chemical plants, and three to light industry. One was built next to a plant making construction materials and another near a food processing plant. Apart from the weapons and construction industries, prisoners were also made to work in forestry and farming.
The overall command authority for the entire camp was the SS-Economics Main Office, known as the SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt
or SS-WVHA. Within the WVHA, it was Department D (the Concentration Camps Inspectorate
) which commanded directly the activities at Auschwitz.
The command personnel of Auschwitz, who lived on site and ran the camp complex, were all members of the SS-Totenkopfverbande
, or the SS-TV. Due to a 1941 personnel directive from the SS Personalhauptamt
, members of the SS-TV were also considered full members of the Waffen-SS
. Such personnel were further authorized to display the Death's Head Collar Patch, indicating full membership in both the SS-TV and Waffen-SS.
The Gestapo
also maintained a large office at Auschwitz, staffed by uniformed Gestapo officers and personnel. Auschwitz also maintained a medical corps, led by Eduard Wirths
, whose doctors and medical personnel were from various backgrounds in the SS. The infamous Joseph Mengele, for example, was a combat field doctor in the Waffen-SS before transferring to Auschwitz after being wounded in combat.
Internal camp order was under the authority of another SS group, answering directly to the Camp Commander through officers known by the title Lagerführer
. Each of the three main camps at Auschwitz was assigned a Lagerführer to which answered several SS-non-commissioned officers known as Rapportführer
s. The Rapportführer commanded several Blockführer
who oversaw order within individual prisoner barracks. Assisting the SS with this task was a large collection of Kapos, who were trustee prisoners. SS personnel assigned to the gas chambers were technically under the same chain of command as other internal camp SS personnel, but in practice were segregated and worked and lived locally on site at the crematorium. In all, there were usually four SS personnel per gas chamber, led by a non-commissioned officer, who oversaw around one hundred Jewish prisoners (known as the Sonderkommando) forced to assist in the extermination process. The actual delivery of the gas to the victims was always handled by the SS, this was accomplished by a special SS unit known as the "Hygiene Division" which would drive Zyklon B
to the crematorium in an ambulance and then empty the canister into the gas chamber. The Hygiene Division was under the control of the Auschwitz Medical Corps, with the Zyklon B ordered and delivered through the camp supply system.
External camp security was under the authority of an SS unit known as the "Guard Battalion", or Wachbattalion. These guards manned watchtowers and patrolled the perimeter fences of the camp. During an emergency, such as a prisoner uprising, the Guard Battalion could be deployed within the camp as the need arose; a scene in the film The Grey Zone
depicts the Guard Battalion entering and machine gunning a crematorium after the Jewish Sonderkommando rose up against the normal contingent of SS guards.
Various administrative and supply SS personnel were also assigned to Auschwitz, usually "out of the way" of the more horrific activities of the camp, based out of command administrative offices in the main camp of Auschwitz I. Oskar Gröning
is one such well known Auschwitz clerk, who has appeared on several documentaries speaking about life in Auschwitz for the SS, and how living in the camp was in fact an enjoyable experience. Auschwitz also maintained a motor pool
as well as an arsenal from which all the SS personnel would draw weapons and ammunition, although several of the SS were known to purchase their own handguns and pistols.
In addition to the command and control proper of Auschwitz Concentration Camp, the camp further frequently received orders and directives from other organs of the SS and the Nazi state. The camp itself was located in the Nazi Region of Upper Silesia
and therefore under the geographical control of the corresponding Gauleiter
(prior to 1942, the camp had been under geographical jurisdiction of the General Government
). Furthermore, the camp fell under the subordinate command of the SS and Police Leader
of the region and was often issued orders from the SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt or RSHA, which was a key SS organization involved in the genocide program. Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler
was known to issue orders to the camp commander, bypassing all other chains of command, in response to his own directives. Himmler would also occasionally receive broad instructions from Adolf Hitler
or Hermann Göring
, which he would interprete as he saw fit and transmit to the Auschwitz Camp Commander.
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SS officers told the victims they were to take a shower and undergo delousing. The victims would undress in an outer chamber and walk into the gas chamber, which was disguised as a shower facility, complete with dummy shower heads. After the doors were shut, SS men would dump in the cyanide pellets via holes in the roof or windows on the side. In Auschwitz II-Birkenau, more than 20,000 people could be gassed and cremated each day. The Nazis used a cyanide
gas produced from Zyklon B pellets, manufactured by two companies who had acquired licensing rights to the patent held by IG Farben
. Despite the thick concrete walls of the gas chambers, screaming and moaning from within could be heard outside for 15 to 20 minutes. In one failed attempt to muffle the noise, two motorcycle engines were revved up to full throttle nearby, but the sound of yelling could be heard over the engines.
Sonderkommandos removed gold teeth from the corpses of gas chamber victims; the gold was melted down and collected by the SS. The belongings of the arrivals were seized by the SS and sorted in an area of the camp called "Canada," so-called because Canada was seen as a land of plenty. Many of the SS at the camp enriched themselves by pilfering the confiscated property.
The gas chambers worked to their fullest capacity from April–July 1944, during the massacre of Hungary's Jews. Hungary was an ally of Germany during the war, but it had resisted turning over its Jews to the Germans until Germany invaded in March 1944. From April until July 9, 1944, 475,000 Hungarian Jews, half of the pre-war population, were deported to Auschwitz, at a rate of 12,000 a day for a considerable part of that period. The incoming volume was so great that the SS resorted to burning corpses in open-air pits as well as in the crematoria.
—prisoners who had been promoted to foremen—were responsible for the prisoners' behavior while they worked, as was an SS escort. The working day lasted 12 hours during the summer, and a little less in the winter. No rest periods were allowed. One prisoner would be assigned to the latrines to measure the time the workers took to empty their bladders and bowels.
After work, there was a mandatory evening roll call. If a prisoner was missing, the others had to remain standing in place until he was either found or the reason for his absence discovered, even if it took hours, regardless of the weather conditions. After roll call, there were individual and collective punishments, depending on what had happened during the day, and after these, the prisoners were allowed to retire to their blocks for the night to receive their bread rations and water. Curfew was two or three hours later, the prisoners sleeping in long rows of wooden bunks, lying in and on their clothes and shoes to prevent them from being stolen.
German doctors performed a wide variety of experiments on prisoners at Auschwitz. SS doctors tested the efficacy of X-rays as a sterilization device by administering large doses to female prisoners. Prof. Dr. Carl Clauberg
injected chemicals into women's uteruses in an effort to glue them shut. Bayer
, then a subsidiary of IG Farben
, bought prisoners to use as guinea pigs for testing new drugs.
The most infamous doctor at Auschwitz was Josef Mengele
, known as the "Angel of Death". Particularly interested in research on identical twins, Mengele performed cruel experiments on them, such as inducing diseases in one twin and killing the other when the first died to perform comparative autopsies. He also took a special interest in dwarfs, and he deliberately induced gangrene
in twins, dwarfs and other prisoners to study the effects.
Mengele, at the behest of fellow Nazi physician Kurt Heissmeyer
, was responsible for picking the twenty Jewish children to be used in Heissmeyers' pseudoscientific medical experiments at the Neuengamme concentration camp. These children, at the conclusion of the experiments, were infamously hanged from wall hooks in the basement of the Bullenhuser Damm
school in Hamburg.
and Wolfram Sievers
, general manager of the Ahnenerbe
, were responsible for collecting the skeletons for the collection of the Anatomy Institute at the Reich University of Strasbourg
in the Alsace
region of Occupied France. Due to a typhus
epidemic, the candidates chosen for the skeleton collection were quarantine
d in order to prevent them from becoming ill and ruining their value as anatomical specimens; from a letter written by Sievers in June 1943: "Altogether 115 persons were worked on, 79 were Jews, 30 were Jewesses, 2 were Poles, and 4 were Asiatics. At the present time these prisoners are segregated by sex and are under quarantine in the two hospital buildings of Auschwitz."
The collection was sanctioned by Heinrich Himmler and under the direction of August Hirt
.
Ultimately 87 of the inmates were shipped to Natzweiler-Struthof
. The deaths of 86 of these inmates was, in the words of Hirt, "induced" at a jury rigged gassing facility over the course of a few days in August 1943. One of the victims was shot by the SS when he fought entering the gas chamber. The corpses; 57 men and 29 women were sent to Strasbourg. Josef Kramer
who would become the last commandant of Bergen Belsen personally carried out the gassing of 80 of the victims. In 1944 with the approach of the allies, there was concern over the possibility of the corpses being discovered, at this point they had still not been defleshed. The first part of the process for this "collection" was to make anatomical casts of the bodies prior to reducing them to skeletons. In September, 1944 Sievers telegrammed Brandt: "The collection can be defleshed and rendered unrecognizable. This, however, would mean that the whole work had been done for nothing – at least in part – and that this singular collection would be lost to science, since it would be impossible to make plaster casts afterwards."
Brandt and Sievers would be indicted, tried and convicted in the Doctor's Trial in Nuremberg. Hirt committed suicide in Schonenbach
, Austria, on June 2, 1945 with a gunshot to the head.
The names and biographical information of the murder victims were published in the book Die Namen der Nummern (The Names of the Numbers) by German historian Dr. Hans-Joachim Lang.
Information regarding Auschwitz was available to the Allies during the years 1940–43 by the accurate and frequent reports of Polish Army Captain Witold Pilecki
. Pilecki was the only known person to volunteer to be imprisoned at Auschwitz concentration camp, spending 945 days there, not only actively gathering evidence of genocide and supplying it to the British in London by Polish resistance movement
organization Home Army but also organizing resistance structures at the camp known as ZOW, Związek Organizacji Wojskowej
. His first report was smuggled to the outside world in November 1940, through an inmate who was released from the camp. He eventually escaped on April 27, 1943, but his personal report of mass killings was dismissed as exaggeration by the Allies, as were his previous ones.
The attitude of the Allies changed with receipt of the very detailed Vrba-Wetzler report
, compiled by two Jewish prisoners, Rudolf Vrba
and Alfréd Wetzler
, who escaped on April 7, 1944, and which finally convinced Allied leaders of the truth about Auschwitz. Details from the Vrba-Wetzler report were broadcast on June 15, 1944 by the BBC, and on June 20 by The New York Times, causing the Allies to put pressure on the Hungarian government to stop the mass deportation of Jews to the camp.
Starting with a plea from the Slovakian rabbi Weissmandl
in May 1944, there was a growing campaign to persuade the Allies to bomb Auschwitz or the railway lines leading to it. At one point Winston Churchill
ordered that such a plan be prepared, but he was told that bombing the camp would most likely kill prisoners without disrupting the killing operation, and that bombing the railway lines was not technically feasible. The debate over what could have been done, or what should have been attempted even if success was unlikely, has continued ever since.
published by inmates and distributed as well to the resistance movement in Kraków
. Writers included the Communist Party
member Bruno Baum. A shortwave
transmitter hidden in Block 11 sent information directly to the Polish government-in-exile in London.
These reports were the first revelation about the Holocaust and were the principal source of intelligence on Auschwitz for the Western Allies. Nonetheless, those reports were for a long time discarded as "too extreme" by the Allies.
s (those inmates kept separate from the main camp
and put to work in the gas chambers and crematoria) of Birkenau Kommando III staged an uprising. They attacked the SS with makeshift weapons: stones, axes, hammers, other work tools and homemade grenade
s. They caught the SS guards by surprise, overpowered them and blew up the Crematorium IV, using explosives smuggled in from a weapons factory by female inmates. At this stage they were joined by the Birkenau Kommando I of the Crematorium II, which also overpowered their guards and broke out of the compound
. Hundreds of prisoners escaped, but were all soon captured and, along with an additional group who participated in the revolt, executed.
There were also plans for a general uprising in Auschwitz, coordinated with an Allied
air raid
and a Polish resistance (Armia Krajowa
, Home Army) attack from the outside. That plan was authored by Polish resistance fighter, Witold Pilecki
, who organized in Auschwitz an underground Union of Military Organization – (Związek Organizacji Wojskowej
, ZOW). Pilecki and ZOW hoped that the Allies would drop arms or troops into the camp (most likely the Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade
, based in Britain), and that the Home Army would organize an assault on the camp from outside. By 1943, however, he realized that the Allies had no such plans. Meanwhile, the Gestapo redoubled its efforts to ferret out ZOW members, succeeding in killing many of them. Pilecki decided to break out of the camp, with the hope of personally convincing Home Army leaders that a rescue attempt was a valid option. He escaped on the night of April 26 – 27, 1943, but his plan was not accepted by the Home Army as the Allies considered his reports about the Holocaust exaggerated.
The most spectacular escape from Auschwitz took place on June 20, 1942, when Ukrainian Eugeniusz Bendera and three Poles, Kazimierz Piechowski
, Stanisław Gustaw Jaster and Józef Lempart made a daring escape. The escapees were dressed as members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände
, fully armed and in an SS staff car. They drove out the main gate in a stolen automobile, a Steyr
220 belonging to Rudolf Höss. Jaster carried with him a report about conditions in the camp, written by Witold Pilecki
. The Germans never recaptured any of them.
In 1943, the "Kampfgruppe Auschwitz" was organised with the aim to send out as much information about what was happening in Auschwitz as possible. They buried notes in the ground in the hope a liberator would find them and smuggled out photos of the crematoria and gas chambers.
June 24, 1944, Mala Zimetbaum
escaped with her Polish boyfriend, Edek Galinski. They also wanted to smuggle out deportation lists Zimetbaum had been able to copy due to her translator job in the office of the "Lagerleitung". They both were arrested on July 6 near the Slovakian frontier and sentenced to be executed on September 15, 1944 in Birkenau; Galinski managed to kill himself before being executed, while Zimetbaum, having failed to commit suicide, died finally after being tortured by the SS.
reached the camp. The gas chambers of Birkenau were blown up by the SS in January 1945 in an attempt to hide the German crimes from the advancing Soviet troops. The SS command sent orders on January 17, 1945 calling for the execution of all prisoners remaining in the camp, but in the chaos of the Nazi retreat the order was never carried out. On January 17, 1945, Nazi personnel started to evacuate the facility. Nearly 60,000 prisoners were forced on a death march
toward a camp in Wodzisław Śląski (German: Loslau). Those too weak or sick to walk were left behind. These remaining 7,500 prisoners were liberated by the 322nd Rifle Division of the Red Army
on January 27, 1945. Approximately 20,000 Auschwitz prisoners made it to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
in Germany, where they were liberated by the British in April 1945. Among the artifacts of automated murder found by the Russians were 348,820 men's suits and 836,255 women's garments.
The exact number of victims at Auschwitz is impossible to fix with certainty. Since the Nazis destroyed a number of records, immediate efforts to count the dead depended on the testimony of witnesses and the defendants on trial at Nuremberg
. While under interrogation Rudolf Höss, commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp from 1940 to 1943, said that Adolf Eichmann
told him that two and a half million Jews had been killed in gas chambers and about half a million had died "naturally". Later he wrote "I regard two and a half million far too high. Even Auschwitz had limits to its destructive possibilities".
Communist Polish and Soviet authorities maintained a figure "between 2.5 and 4 million", and the Auschwitz State Museum itself displayed a figure of 4 million killed, but "[f]ew (if any) historians ever believed the Museum's four million figure". Raul Hilberg
's 1961 work The Destruction of the European Jews
estimated the number killed at 1,000,000, and Gerald Reitlinger
's 1968 book The Final Solution described the Soviet figures as "ridiculous", and estimated the number killed at "800,000 to 900,000".
In 1983, French scholar George Wellers was one of the first to use German data on deportations to estimate the number killed at Auschwitz, arriving at 1.613 million dead, including 1.44 million Jews and 146,000 Catholic Poles. A larger study started later by Franciszek Piper
used timetables of train arrivals combined with deportation records to calculate 960,000 Jewish deaths and 140,000–150,000 ethnic Polish victims, along with 23,000 Roma and Sinti
, a figure that has met with significant agreement from other scholars.
After the collapse of the Communist government in 1989, the plaque at Auschwitz State Museum was removed and the official death toll given as 1.1 million. Holocaust deniers
have attempted to use this change as propaganda, in the words of the Nizkor Project
:
an aid to the Higher SS and Police Leader for Silesia
Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski. The original intent of the camp was to intern Polish political prisoners. The original uses of the camp were added to and the capacity expanded over the course of the next four years, which reflected the political and economic decisions of the Third Reich, including the implementation of the Final Solution
.
and MBP
prison camp. The Buna–Werke were taken over by the Polish government and became the foundation for the region's chemical industry. At Auschwitz 1 the Gestapo building was demolished and on its site was built a gallows
on which Standartenführer
SS Rudolf Höss was hanged on April 17, 1947 for numerous war crimes. On November 24, 1947, the Auschwitz trial
began in Kraków
, when the Poland's Supreme National Tribunal
tried 41 former staff of the Auschwitz concentration camps complex. The trials ended on December 22, 1947, with 23 death sentences issued, as well as 16 imprisonments ranging from life sentence to 3 years.
After liberation, local Polish farming population returning to the area searched the ruins of Birkenau thoroughly for re-usable fallen bricks, so they could rebuild farm buildings for shelter needed for the next winter. That explains the "missing rubble" argument brought up by Holocaust deniers
.
Today, at Birkenau the entrance building and some of the southern brick-built barracks survive; but of the almost 300 wooden barracks, only 19 have been reconstructed from authentic materials: 18 near the entrance building and one, on its own, farther away. All that survives of the others are chimneys, remnants of a largely ineffective means of heating. Many of these wooden buildings were constructed from prefabricated sections made by a company that intended them to be used as stables; inside, numerous metal rings for the tethering of horses can still be seen.
; Auschwitz II, where buildings (many of which were prefabricated wood structures) were prone to decay, was preserved but not restored. Today, the Auschwitz I museum site combines elements from several periods into a single complex: for example the gas chamber at Auschwitz I (which had been converted into an air-raid shelter for the SS
) was restored and the fence was moved (because of building work being done after the war but before the museum was established). However, in most cases the departure from the historical truth is minor, and is clearly labelled. The museum contains many men's, women's and children's shoes taken from their victims; also suitcases, which the deportees were encouraged to bring with them, and many household utensils. One display case, some 30 metres (98.4 ft) long, is wholly filled with human hair which the Nazis gathered from people before they were sent to labor or before and after they were killed.
Auschwitz II and the remains of the gas chambers there are open to the public. The camp is on the list of UNESCO
World Heritage Sites. The ashes of the victims were scattered between the huts, and the entire area is regarded as a grave site. Most of the buildings of Auschwitz I are still standing. The public entrance area is outside the perimeter fence
in what was the camp admission building, where new prisoners were registered and given their uniforms. At the far end of Birkenau are memorial plaques
in many languages, including Romani
.
The museum has allowed scenes for three films to be filmed on the site: Pasażerka (1963) by Polish director Andrzej Munk, Landscape After the Battle
(1970) by Polish director Andrzej Wajda
, and a television miniseries War and Remembrance
(1978). Permission was denied to Steven Spielberg
to film scenes for Schindler's List
(1993). A "mirror" camp was constructed outside the infamous archway for the scene where the train arrives carrying the women who were saved by Oskar Schindler
.
The 5 metres (16.4 ft), 41 kilograms (90.4 lb) wrought-iron "Arbeit macht frei
" sign over the entrance to Auschwitz I was stolen in the early morning of December 18, 2009. The thieves unscrewed the sign at one end and broke it off its mountings at the other end, then carried the sign 300 metres to a hole in the concrete wall, where they cut four metal bars blocking the opening. After the theft, authorities replaced the stolen sign with a replica, which was originally made to replace the original sign while it was being restored some years earlier. Such was the concern about its theft that Poland declared a state of emergency.
Police found the sign, cut into three parts, in northern Poland two days later in the home of one of five men who were arrested. An unnamed overseas buyer is believed to have been involved. Polish police said that the five were common thieves, not neo-Nazis. The original sign was welded back together on site and will probably form part of a new exhibition. An improved security system will be put in place.
The sign was made by Polish workers on Nazi orders after the Auschwitz barracks were converted into a labor camp
to house captured Polish resistance fighters in 1940.
The Aftonbladet
newspaper reported that the sign had been stolen by Polish thieves paid by and working on behalf of a Swedish right-wing extremist group hoping to use proceeds from the proposed sale of the sign to a collector of Nazi memorabilia, to finance a series of terror attacks aimed at influencing voters in upcoming Swedish parliamentary elections. The theft was organised by the Swedish former Nazi, Anders Högström.
On March 18, 2010, a Polish court sentenced three men to prison for stealing the sign. They pleaded guilty. The sentences were from 18 months to 30 months. They were fined £2,300 each. Two of them were granted compassionate leave, but in April the three did not report to the prison to serve their sentences, and police were trying to find them.
It has been announced that the sign will not be returned to its old location, but rather will only be shown in an enclosed room of the museum.
Nazi concentration camps
Nazi Germany maintained concentration camps throughout the territories it controlled. The first Nazi concentration camps set up in Germany were greatly expanded after the Reichstag fire of 1933, and were intended to hold political prisoners and opponents of the regime...
and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany
Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany
At the beginning of World War II, nearly a quarter of the pre-war Polish areas were annexed by Nazi Germany and placed directly under German civil administration, while the rest of Nazi occupied Poland was named as General Government...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. It was the largest of the German concentration camps, consisting of Auschwitz I (the Stammlager or base camp); Auschwitz II–Birkenau (the Vernichtungslager or extermination camp); Auschwitz III–Monowitz, also known as Buna–Monowitz (a labor camp); and 45 satellite camps.
Auschwitz had for a long time been a German name for Oświęcim
Oswiecim
Oświęcim is a town in the Lesser Poland province of southern Poland, situated west of Kraków, near the confluence of the rivers Vistula and Soła.- History :...
, the town by and around which the camps were located; the name "Auschwitz" was made the official name again by the Germans after they invaded Poland
Invasion of Poland (1939)
The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War in Poland and the Poland Campaign in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II in Europe...
in September 1939. Birkenau, the German translation of Brzezinka
Brzezinka
Brzezinka is a village in southern Poland, located about from Oświęcim , in the district of Gmina Oświęcim, Oświęcim County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship.- General information :...
(= "birch tree"), referred originally to a small Polish village that was destroyed by the Germans to make way for the camp.
Auschwitz II–Birkenau was designated by the Reichsführer-SS
Reichsführer-SS
was a special SS rank that existed between the years of 1925 and 1945. Reichsführer-SS was a title from 1925 to 1933 and, after 1934, the highest rank of the German Schutzstaffel .-Definition:...
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...
, Germany's Minister of the Interior, as the place of the "final solution of the Jewish question in Europe
Final Solution
The Final Solution was Nazi Germany's plan and execution of the systematic genocide of European Jews during World War II, resulting in the most deadly phase of the Holocaust...
". From early 1942 until late 1944, transport trains delivered Jews to the camp's gas chambers from all over Nazi-occupied Europe. The camp's first commandant, Rudolf Höss, testified after the war at the Nuremberg Trials
Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....
that up to three million people had died there (2.5 million gassed, and 500,000 from disease and starvation), a figure since revised to 1.1 million, around 90 percent of them Jews. Others deported to Auschwitz included 150,000 Poles
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
, 23,000 Roma and Sinti
Sinti
Sinti or Sinta or Sinte is the name of a Romani or Gypsy population in Europe. Traditionally nomadic, today only a small percentage of the group remains unsettled...
, 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war
Nazi crimes against Soviet POWs
The Nazi crimes against Soviet Prisoners of War relate to the deliberately genocidal policies taken towards the captured soldiers of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany...
, some 400 Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The religion reports worldwide membership of over 7 million adherents involved in evangelism, convention attendance of over 12 million, and annual...
and tens of thousands of people of diverse nationalities. Those not killed in the gas chambers died of starvation, forced labor, infectious disease
Infectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
, individual executions, and medical experiments.
On January 27, 1945, Auschwitz was liberated by Soviet troops
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
, a day commemorated around the world as International Holocaust Remembrance Day
International Holocaust Remembrance Day
International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27, is an international memorial day for the victims of the Holocaust, the genocide that resulted in the annihilation of 6 million European Jews and millions of others by the Nazi regime.. It was designated by the United Nations General Assembly...
. In 1947, Poland founded a museum on the site of Auschwitz I and II, which by 2010 had seen 29 million visitors—1,300,000 annually—pass through the iron gates crowned with the infamous motto, Arbeit macht frei
Arbeit macht frei
"'" is a German phrase, literally "work makes free," meaning "work sets you free" or "work liberates". The slogan is known for having been placed over the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust, including most infamously Auschwitz I, where it was made by prisoners...
("work makes free").
Main camps
Located approximately 50 km west of KrakówKraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
, the Auschwitz complex of camps encompassed a large industrial area rich in natural resources. There were 48 camps in all. The three main camps were Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, and a work camp called Auschwitz III-Monowitz, or the Buna. Auschwitz I served as the administrative center, and was the site of the deaths of roughly 70,000 people, mostly ethnic Poles and Soviet prisoners of war. Auschwitz II was an extermination camp or Vernichtungslager, the site of the deaths of at least 960,000 Jews, 75,000 Poles, and some 19,000 Roma. Auschwitz III-Monowitz served as a labor camp for the Buna-Werke factory of the IG Farben
IG Farben
I.G. Farbenindustrie AG was a German chemical industry conglomerate. Its name is taken from Interessen-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG . The company was formed in 1925 from a number of major companies that had been working together closely since World War I...
concern. The SS-Totenkopfverbände
SS-Totenkopfverbände
SS-Totenkopfverbände , meaning "Death's-Head Units", was the SS organization responsible for administering the Nazi concentration camps for the Third Reich....
(SS-TV) was the SS organization responsible for administering the Nazi concentration camps for the Third Reich. The SS-TV was an independent unit within the SS
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
with its own ranks and command structure.
Obersturmbannführer
Obersturmbannführer
Obersturmbannführer was a paramilitary Nazi Party rank used by both the SA and the SS. It was created in May 1933 to fill the need for an additional field grade officer rank above Sturmbannführer as the SA expanded. It became an SS rank at the same time...
Rudolf Höss was overall commandant of the Auschwitz complex from May 1940 – November 1943; Obersturmbannführer Arthur Liebehenschel
Arthur Liebehenschel
Arthur Liebehenschel was a commandant at the Auschwitz and Majdanek death camps during World War II. He was convicted of war crimes after the war and executed.-Biography:...
from November 1943 – May 1944; and Sturmbannführer
Sturmbannführer
Sturmbannführer was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party equivalent to major, used both in the Sturmabteilung and the Schutzstaffel...
Richard Baer
Richard Baer
Richard Baer was a German Nazi official with the rank of SS-Sturmbannführer and commander of the Auschwitz I concentration camp from May 1944 to February 1945. He was a member of N.S.D.A.P...
from May 1944 – January 1945.
Yisrael Gutman writes that it was in the concentration camps that Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
's concept of absolute power came to fruition. Primo Levi
Primo Levi
Primo Michele Levi was an Italian Jewish chemist and writer. He was the author of two novels and several collections of short stories, essays, and poems, but is best known for If This Is a Man, his account of the year he spent as a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland...
, who described his year in Auschwitz in If This Is a Man
If This Is a Man
If This Is a Man is a work by the Italian writer, Primo Levi, describing his 11 months—from February 21, 1944 until liberation on January 27, 1945—in the German concentration camp at Auschwitz in Poland, during the Second World War...
, wrote:
Auschwitz I
Arpad Wigand
Arpad Wigand ; was an SS-Oberführer who served as the SS and Police Leader in Warsaw from August 4, 1941 until April 23, 1943....
, an aide to Higher SS and Police Leader for Silesia
Silesia
Silesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with smaller parts also in the Czech Republic, and Germany.Silesia is rich in mineral and natural resources, and includes several important industrial areas. Silesia's largest city and historical capital is Wrocław...
, Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski. Bach-Zelewski had been searching for a site to house prisoners in the Silesia region as the local prisons were filled to capacity. Richard Glucks
Richard Glücks
Richard Glücks was a high-ranking Nazi official. He attained the rank of a SS-Gruppenführer and a Generalleutnant of the Waffen-SS and from 1939 until the end of World War II was the head of Amt D: Konzentrationslagerwesen of the WVHA; the highest-ranking Concentration Camps Inspector in Nazi...
, head of the Concentration Camps Inspectorate
Concentration Camps Inspectorate
The Concentration Camps Inspectorate was the central SS administrative and managerial authority for the concentration camps of the Third Reich. Created by Theodor Eicke, it was originally known as the "General Inspection of the Enhanced SS-Totenkopfstandarten, after Eicke's position in the SS...
, sent former Sachsenhausen concentration camp
Sachsenhausen concentration camp
Sachsenhausen or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used primarily for political prisoners from 1936 to the end of the Third Reich in May, 1945. After World War II, when Oranienburg was in the Soviet Occupation Zone, the structure was used as an NKVD...
commandant, Walter Eisfeld, to inspect the site. Glucks informed SS- Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...
that a camp would be built on the site on February 21, 1940. Rudolf Höss would oversee the development of the camp and serve as the first commandant, SS-Obersturmführer Josef Kramer
Josef Kramer
Josef Kramer was the Commandant of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Dubbed "The Beast of Belsen" by camp inmates; he was a notorious Nazi war criminal, directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people...
was appointed Höss's deputy.
Local residents were evicted, including 1,200 people who lived in shacks around the barracks, creating an empty area of 40 km2, which the Germans called the "interest area of the camp". 300 Jewish residents of Oświęcim
Oswiecim
Oświęcim is a town in the Lesser Poland province of southern Poland, situated west of Kraków, near the confluence of the rivers Vistula and Soła.- History :...
were brought in to lay foundations. From 1940 to 1941 17,000 Polish and Jewish residents of the western districts of Oświęcim
Oswiecim
Oświęcim is a town in the Lesser Poland province of southern Poland, situated west of Kraków, near the confluence of the rivers Vistula and Soła.- History :...
town, from places adjacent to Auschwitz Concentration Camp
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
, were expelled. Germans ordered also expulsions from the villages of Broszkowice
Broszkowice
Broszkowice is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Oświęcim, within Oświęcim County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, in southern Poland. It lies approximately north of Oświęcim and west of the regional capital Kraków....
, Babice
Babice, Oswiecim County
Babice is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Oświęcim, within Oświęcim County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, in southern Poland.The village has a population of 1,582.-References:...
, Brzezinka
Brzezinka
Brzezinka is a village in southern Poland, located about from Oświęcim , in the district of Gmina Oświęcim, Oświęcim County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship.- General information :...
, Rajsko
Rajsko, Oswiecim County
Rajsko is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Oświęcim, within Oświęcim County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, in southern Poland. It lies approximately south-west of Oświęcim and west of the regional capital Kraków....
, Pławy, Harmęże
Harmeze
Harmęże is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Oświęcim, within Oświęcim County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, in southern Poland. It lies approximately south-west of Oświęcim and west of the regional capital Kraków....
, Bór
Bór, Lesser Poland Voivodeship
Bór is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Szaflary, within Nowy Targ County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, in southern Poland....
, and Budy. The expulsion of Polish civilians
Expulsion of Poles by Germany
The Expulsion of Poles by Germany was a prolonged anti-Polish campaign of ethnic cleansing by violent and terror-inspiring means lasting nearly a century. It began with the concept of Pan-Germanism developed in early 19th century and continued in the racial policy of Nazi Germany asserting the...
was a step towards establishing the Camp Interest Zone, which was set up to isolate the camp from the outside world and to carry out business activity to meet the needs of the SS
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
. German and Volksdeutsche
Volksdeutsche
Volksdeutsche - "German in terms of people/folk" -, defined ethnically, is a historical term from the 20th century. The words volk and volkische conveyed in Nazi thinking the meanings of "folk" and "race" while adding the sense of superior civilization and blood...
settlers moved into some buildings whose Jewish population had been deported to the ghetto.
The first prisoners (30 German criminal prisoners from the Sachsenhausen
Sachsenhausen concentration camp
Sachsenhausen or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used primarily for political prisoners from 1936 to the end of the Third Reich in May, 1945. After World War II, when Oranienburg was in the Soviet Occupation Zone, the structure was used as an NKVD...
camp) arrived in May 1940, intended to act as functionaries within the prison system. The first transport of 728 Polish prisoners which included 20 Jews
First mass transport to Auschwitz concentration camp
On June 14, 1940, German occupying authorities organized the first mass transport of prisoners to the recently opened Auschwitz Concentration Camp. The transport, which set from southern Polish city of Tarnów, consisted of 728 Poles, including some Jewish Poles...
arrived on June 14, 1940 from the prison in Tarnów
Tarnów
Tarnów is a city in southeastern Poland with 115,341 inhabitants as of June 2009. The city has been situated in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship since 1999, but from 1975 to 1998 it was the capital of the Tarnów Voivodeship. It is a major rail junction, located on the strategic east-west connection...
, Poland. They were interned in the former building of the Polish Tobacco Monopoly adjacent to the site, until the camp was ready. The inmate population grew quickly, as the camp absorbed Poland's intelligentsia and dissidents, including the Polish underground resistance
Polish resistance movement in World War II
The Polish resistance movement in World War II, with the Home Army at its forefront, was the largest underground resistance in all of Nazi-occupied Europe, covering both German and Soviet zones of occupation. The Polish defence against the Nazi occupation was an important part of the European...
. By March 1941, 10,900 were imprisoned there, most of them Poles.
The SS selected some prisoners, often German criminals, as specially privileged supervisors of the other inmates (so-called kapos
Kapo (concentration camp)
A kapo was a prisoner who worked inside German Nazi concentration camps during World War II in any of certain lower administrative positions. The official Nazi word was Funktionshäftling, or "prisoner functionary", but the Nazis commonly referred to them as kapos.- Etymology :The origin of "kapo"...
). Although involved in numerous atrocities, only two Kapos were ever prosecuted for their individual behavior; many were deemed to have had little choice but to act as they did. The various classes of prisoners were distinguishable by special marks on their clothes; Jews and Soviet prisoners of war were generally treated the worst. All inmates had to work in the associated arms factories, except on Sundays, which were reserved for cleaning and showering. The harsh work requirements, combined with poor nutrition and hygiene, led to high death rates among the prisoners.
Block 11 of Auschwitz was the "prison within the prison", where violators of the numerous rules were punished. Some prisoners were made to spend the nights in "standing cell
Standing cell
A standing cell was a special cell used in Nazi concentration camps during the Third Reich. It was used as extra and severe punishment within the concentration camp system, being constructed so as to prevent the prisoner from doing anything but standing while held there. In addition, prisoners in...
s". These cells were about 1.5 m² (16.1 sq ft), and four men would be placed in them; they could do nothing but stand, and were forced during the day to work with the other prisoners. In the basement were located the "starvation cells"; prisoners incarcerated here were given neither food nor water until they were dead.
In the basement were the "dark cells"; these cells had only a very tiny window, and a solid door. Prisoners placed in these cells would gradually suffocate as they used up all of the oxygen in the cell; sometimes the SS would light a candle in the cell to use up the oxygen more quickly. Many were subjected to hanging with their hands behind their backs for hours, even days, thus dislocating their shoulder joints.
On September 3, 1941, deputy camp commandant SS-Hauptsturmführer
Hauptsturmführer
Hauptsturmführer was a Nazi rank of the SS which was used between the years of 1934 and 1945. The rank of Hauptsturmführer was a mid-grade company level officer and was the equivalent of a Captain in the German Army and also the equivalent of captain in foreign armies...
Fritzsch
Karl Fritzsch
SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Fritzsch , was a German concentration camp officer and deputy, who first suggested and experimented with using Zyklon B gas for the purpose of mass murder.- Background :...
experimented on 600 Russian POWs and 250 Polish inmates by gathering them in the basement of Block 11 and gassing them with Zyklon B
Zyklon B
Zyklon B was the trade name of a cyanide-based pesticide infamous for its use by Nazi Germany to kill human beings in gas chambers of extermination camps during the Holocaust. The "B" designation indicates one of two types of Zyklon...
, a highly lethal cyanide
Cyanide
A cyanide is a chemical compound that contains the cyano group, -C≡N, which consists of a carbon atom triple-bonded to a nitrogen atom. Cyanides most commonly refer to salts of the anion CN−. Most cyanides are highly toxic....
-based pesticide
Pesticide
Pesticides are substances or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling or mitigating any pest.A pesticide may be a chemical unicycle, biological agent , antimicrobial, disinfectant or device used against any pest...
. This paved the way for the use of Zyklon B as an instrument for extermination at Auschwitz, and a gas chamber and crematorium were constructed by converting a bunker. This gas chamber operated from 1941 to 1942, during which time some 60,000 people were killed therein; it was then converted into an air-raid shelter for the use of the SS. This gas chamber still exists, together with the associated crematorium, which was reconstructed after the war using the original components, which remained on-site.
Auschwitz II-Birkenau
Construction on Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the extermination camp, began in October 1941 to ease congestion at the main camp. It was larger than Auschwitz I, and more people passed through its gates than through Auschwitz I. It was designed to hold several categories of prisoners, and to function as an extermination camp in the context of Heinrich HimmlerHeinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...
's preparations for the Final Solution of the Jewish Question, the extermination of the Jews. The first gas chamber at Birkenau was "The Little Red House," a brick cottage converted into a gassing facility by tearing out the inside and bricking up the walls. It was operational by March 1942. A second brick cottage, "The Little White House," was similarly converted some weeks later.
The Nazis had committed themselves to the final solution no later than January 1942, the date of the Wannsee Conference
Wannsee Conference
The Wannsee Conference was a meeting of senior officials of the Nazi German regime, held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942. The purpose of the conference was to inform administrative leaders of Departments responsible for various policies relating to Jews, that Reinhard Heydrich...
. In his Nuremberg testimony on April 15, 1946, Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz, testified that Heinrich Himmler personally ordered him to prepare Auschwitz for that purpose:
Laurence Rees
Laurence Rees is a British historian. He is the former Creative Director of History Programs for the BBC, a documentary filmmaker, and the author of five books on war.-Biography:...
writes, that Höss may have misremembered the year Himmler said this. Himmler did indeed visit Höss in the summer of 1941, but there is no evidence that the final solution had been planned at this stage. Rees writes that the meeting predates the killings of Jewish men by the Einsatzgruppen in the East and the expansion of the killings in July 1941. It also predates the Wannsee Conference
Wannsee Conference
The Wannsee Conference was a meeting of senior officials of the Nazi German regime, held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942. The purpose of the conference was to inform administrative leaders of Departments responsible for various policies relating to Jews, that Reinhard Heydrich...
. Rees speculates that the conversation with Himmler was most likely in the summer of 1942. The first gassings, using an industrial gas derived from prussic acid and known by the brand name Zyklon-B, were carried out at Auschwitz in September 1941.
In early 1943, the Nazis decided to increase greatly the gassing capacity of Birkenau. Crematorium II, originally designed as a mortuary, with morgues in the basement and ground-level furnaces, was converted into a killing factory by placing a gas-tight door on the morgues and adding vents for Zyklon B
Zyklon B
Zyklon B was the trade name of a cyanide-based pesticide infamous for its use by Nazi Germany to kill human beings in gas chambers of extermination camps during the Holocaust. The "B" designation indicates one of two types of Zyklon...
and ventilation equipment to remove the gas. It went into operation in March. Crematorium III was built using the same design. Crematoria IV and V, designed from the start as gassing centers, were also constructed that spring. By June 1943 all four crematoria were operational. Most of the victims were killed during the period afterwards.
The camp was staffed partly by prisoners, some of whom were selected to be kapos (orderlies, most of whom were convicts) and sonderkommando
Sonderkommando
Sonderkommandos were work units of Nazi death camp prisoners, composed almost entirely of Jews, who were forced, on threat of their own deaths, to aid with the disposal of gas chamber victims during The Holocaust...
s (workers at the crematoria). The kapos were responsible for keeping order in the barrack huts; the sonderkommandos prepared new arrivals for gassing (ordering them to remove their clothing and surrender their personal possessions) and transferred corpses from the gas chambers to the furnaces, having first pulled out any gold that the victims might have had in their teeth. Members of these groups were killed periodically. The kapos and sonderkommandos were supervised by members of the SS; altogether 6,000 SS members worked at Auschwitz.
Command of the women's camp, which was separated from the men's area by the incoming railway line, was held in turn by Johanna Langefeld
Johanna Langefeld
Johanna Langefeld was a German female guard and supervisor at three Nazi concentration camps.-Early life:Born in Kupferdreh , Johanna Langefeld was brought up in a Lutheran-Protestant, nationalistic family. Her father was a blacksmith. In 1924 she moved to Mülheim and married Wilhelm Langefeld,...
, Maria Mandel
Maria Mandel
Maria Mandel was an Austrian SS-Helferin infamous for her key role in The Holocaust as a top-ranking official at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp where she is believed to have been directly responsible for the deaths of over 500,000 female prisoners.-Life:Mandel was born in Münzkirchen,...
, and Elisabeth Volkenrath
Elisabeth Volkenrath
Elisabeth Volkenrath was German supervisor at several Nazi concentration camps during World War II....
.
The Gypsy camp
On December 1942, Heinrich Himmler issued an order to send all SintiSinti
Sinti or Sinta or Sinte is the name of a Romani or Gypsy population in Europe. Traditionally nomadic, today only a small percentage of the group remains unsettled...
and Roma (gypsies) to concentration camps with Auschwitz being one of the main camps; they had been previously sent to internment camps and ghettos such as the Lodz ghetto, to which 5,000 Ungrika (Hungarian) Roma from Burgenland
Burgenland
Burgenland is the easternmost and least populous state or Land of Austria. It consists of two Statutarstädte and seven districts with in total 171 municipalities. It is 166 km long from north to south but much narrower from west to east...
, Austria were sent. A separate camp for the Roma was set up at Auschwitz II-Birkenau known as the Zigeunerfamilienlager ("Gypsy Family Camp"). The first transport of German Gypsies arrived on February 26, 1943,and housed in Section B-IIe of Asuchwitz II. The "Gypsy Family Camp", which was still under construction at the time was to become a separate subcamp within Auschwitz II. The camp would eventually contain 32 residential and 6 sanitation barracks and house a total of 20,967 Romani men, women, and children. This does not include a transport of approximately 1,700 Polish Sinti and Roma men, women, and children mentioned which arrived from Białystok on March 23, 1943. Some of the people on the transport had typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
; to avoid an outbreak in the camp they were all murdered in the gas chamber.
Amongst the victims who were killed after being shipped to the "Gypsy camp" was 9-year-old Dutch girl Anna Maria Steinbach
Settela Steinbach
Anna Maria Steinbach was a Dutch girl who was gassed in Nazi Germany's Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp...
(Settela) who appears in an iconic haunting still image from a film peering out from a transport train that would take her from the Westerbork detention camp in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
to her eventual death in the gas chambers at Auschwitz. Steinbach was believed to be Jewish until research uncovered her Sinti heritage in 1994.
German psychologist Eva Justin
Eva Justin
Eva Justin, PhD was a German anthropologist and psychologist.She was born in Dresden in 1909, the daughter of a railroad official Charles Justin and his wife Margarethe...
did a pseudo-scientific study for her doctoral dissertation, titled "Lebensschicksale artfremd erzogener Zigeunerkinder und ihrer Nachkommen" (English: the life history of alien-raised Gypsy children and their descendants). The basis of the study was to ascertain the prevalence of "Gypsy traits" in "Zigeunermischlinge", (Gypsy half-breed) half-Romani children, many half-German, were taken from their parents and raised in orphanages and foster homes without any contact with Romani culture.
Of the 41 children in the study at St. Josefspflege orphanage in Mulfingen
Mulfingen
Mulfingen is a town in the district of Hohenlohe in Baden-Württemberg in Germany....
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, 39 of them (20 boys and 19 girls) were shipped to Auschwitz on May 6, 1944. Of the 39 children, two survived Auschwitz; all the others were killed, most during the final liquidation of the camp on the night of August 2–3, 1944.
During the final liquidation of the Gypsy camp, the remaining 2,897 Romani in the camp were sent to the gas chambers. The murder of the Romani people by the Nazis during World War II is known in the Romani language
Romani language
Romani or Romany, Gypsy or Gipsy is any of several languages of the Romani people. They are Indic, sometimes classified in the "Central" or "Northwestern" zone, and sometimes treated as a branch of their own....
as the "The Porajmos
Porajmos
The Porajmos was the attempt made by Nazi Germany, the Independent State of Croatia, Horthy's Hungary and their allies to exterminate the Romani people of Europe during World War II...
" ("The Devouring").
Auschwitz III
Monowitz (also called Monowitz-Buna or Auschwitz III), initially established as a subcamp of Auschwitz concentration camp, Monowitz became one of the three main camps in the Auschwitz concentration camp system, with an additional 45 subcamps in the surrounding area. It was named after the town of Monowice (German, Monowitz) upon which it was built which was located in the annexed portion of PolandPoland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
. The camp was established in October 1942 by the SS at the behest of I.G. Farben executives to provide slave labor for their Buna-Werke (Buna Works) industrial complex. The name Buna was derived from the butadiene-based synthetic rubber and the chemical symbol for sodium Na utilized in the process of synthetic rubber production developed in Germany. Various other German industrial enterprises built factories with their own subcamps, such as Siemens-Schuckert
Siemens-Schuckert
Siemens-Schuckert was a German electrical engineering company headquartered in Berlin, Erlangen and Nuremberg that was incorporated into the Siemens AG in 1966....
's Bobrek
Bobrek concentration camp
Bobrek was a subcamp of Monowitz concentration camp and part of the Auschwitz concentration camp complex. It was built by Siemens predecessor Siemens-Schuckert near the town of Bobrek, Poland, it held approximately 250-300 prisoners who were used as slave labor to produce electrical parts for...
subcamp, close to Monowitz in order to profit from the use of slave labor. The German armaments manufacturer Krupp
Krupp
The Krupp family , a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, have become famous for their steel production and for their manufacture of ammunition and armaments. The family business, known as Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th...
headed by SS member Alfried Krupp also built their own manufacturing facilities near Monowitz.
Monowitz was built as an arbeitslager
Arbeitslager
Arbeitslager is a German language word which means labor camp.The German government under Nazism used forced labor extensively, starting in the 1930s but most especially during World War II....
(workcamp), it also contained a "ArbeitsausbildungLager" (Labor Education Camp)" for non-Jewish prisoners perceived not up to par with German work standards. It held approximately 12,000 prisoners, the great majority of whom were Jewish, but also carried non-Jewish criminals and political prisoners. Monowitz prisoners were leased out by the SS to IG Farben
IG Farben
I.G. Farbenindustrie AG was a German chemical industry conglomerate. Its name is taken from Interessen-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG . The company was formed in 1925 from a number of major companies that had been working together closely since World War I...
to labor at the Buna-Werke, a collection of chemical factories including those used to manufacture Buna (synthetic rubber
Synthetic rubber
Synthetic rubber is is any type of artificial elastomer, invariably a polymer. An elastomer is a material with the mechanical property that it can undergo much more elastic deformation under stress than most materials and still return to its previous size without permanent deformation...
) and synthetic oil
Synthetic oil
Synthetic oil is a lubricant consisting of chemical compounds that are artificially made . Synthetic lubricants can be manufactured using chemically modified petroleum components rather than whole crude oil, but can also be synthesized from other raw materials...
. The SS charged IG Farben three Reichsmarks (RM) per hour for unskilled workers, RM4 per hour for skilled workers and RM1½ for children. Elie Weisel author of the Pulitzer Prize winning book Night
Night (book)
Night is a work by Elie Wiesel about his experience with his father, Shlomo, in the Nazi German concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald in 1944–1945, at the height of the Holocaust and toward the end of the Second World War...
was a teenage inmate at Monowitz along with his father. The life expectancy of Jewish workers at Buna Werke was three to four months, for those working in the outlying mines, only one month. Those deemed unfit for work were gassed at Birkenau or sent "to Birkenau" (nach Birkenau), according to a euphemism used in I.G. Farben record books.
Fritz Löhner-Beda
Fritz Löhner-Beda
Fritz Löhner-Beda , born Friedrich Löwy, was an Austrian librettist, lyricist and writer.- Life :He was born in Wildenschwert, Bohemia ....
(prisoner number 68561) was a popular song lyricist who was murdered in Monowitz-Buna at the behest of an I.G. Farben executive, as his friend Raymond van den Straaten testified at the Nuremberg trial of 24 I.G. Farben executives:
Subcamps
There were 45 smaller satellite camps, some of them tens of kilometers from the main camps, with prisoner populations ranging from several dozen to several thousand. The largest were built at TrzebiniaTrzebinia
Trzebinia is a town in Chrzanów County, Lesser Poland, Poland with an Orlen oil refinery and a major rail junction of the Kraków - Katowice line that connections to Oświęcim and Spytkowice.-History:...
, Blechhammer
Blechhammer
The Blechhammer area was the location of Nazi Germany chemical plants, prisoner of war camps, and forced labor camps . Labor camp prisoners began arriving as early as June 17, 1942, and in July 1944, 400-500 men were transferred from the Terezin family camp to Blechhammer...
and Althammer. Women's subcamps were constructed at Budy, Pławy, Zabrze
Zabrze
Zabrze is a city in Silesia in southern Poland, near Katowice. The west district of the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union is a metropolis with a population of around 2 million...
, Gleiwitz
Gliwice
Gliwice is a city in Upper Silesia in southern Poland, near Katowice. Gliwice is the west district of the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union – a metropolis with a population of 2 million...
I, II, III, Rajsko
Rajsko, Oswiecim County
Rajsko is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Oświęcim, within Oświęcim County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, in southern Poland. It lies approximately south-west of Oświęcim and west of the regional capital Kraków....
, and Lichtenwerden (now Světlá). The satellite camps were named Aussenlager (external camp), Nebenlager (extension or subcamp), and Arbeitslager (labor camp).
Danuta Czech of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum is a memorial and museum in Oświęcim, Poland , which includes the German concentration camps Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau. It is devoted to the memory of the murders in both camps during World War II...
writes that most of the satellite camps were pressed into service on behalf of German industry. Inmates of 28 of them worked for the German armaments industry. Nine camps were set up near foundries and other metal works, six near coal mines, six supplied prisoners to work in chemical plants, and three to light industry. One was built next to a plant making construction materials and another near a food processing plant. Apart from the weapons and construction industries, prisoners were also made to work in forestry and farming.
Command and control
Due to its large size and key role in the Nazi genocide program, the Auschwitz Concentration Camp encompassed personnel from several different branches of the SS, some of which held overlapping and shared areas of responsibility. In all, there were over 7000 members of the SS assigned to Auschwitz during the entirety of the camp's existence.The overall command authority for the entire camp was the SS-Economics Main Office, known as the SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt
SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt
The SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt was responsible for managing the finances, supply systems and business projects for the Allgemeine-SS...
or SS-WVHA. Within the WVHA, it was Department D (the Concentration Camps Inspectorate
Concentration Camps Inspectorate
The Concentration Camps Inspectorate was the central SS administrative and managerial authority for the concentration camps of the Third Reich. Created by Theodor Eicke, it was originally known as the "General Inspection of the Enhanced SS-Totenkopfstandarten, after Eicke's position in the SS...
) which commanded directly the activities at Auschwitz.
The command personnel of Auschwitz, who lived on site and ran the camp complex, were all members of the SS-Totenkopfverbande
SS-Totenkopfverbände
SS-Totenkopfverbände , meaning "Death's-Head Units", was the SS organization responsible for administering the Nazi concentration camps for the Third Reich....
, or the SS-TV. Due to a 1941 personnel directive from the SS Personalhauptamt
SS Personalhauptamt
The SS Personalhauptamt was the central recording office for all officers and potential officers for the SS in Nazi Germany.-Formation:The Personalhauptamt was responsible maintaining the service records for all commissioned Waffen-SS and Allgemeine-SS personnel. However it did not keep extensive...
, members of the SS-TV were also considered full members of the Waffen-SS
Waffen-SS
The Waffen-SS was a multi-ethnic and multi-national military force of the Third Reich. It constituted the armed wing of the Schutzstaffel or SS, an organ of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS saw action throughout World War II and grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions, and served alongside...
. Such personnel were further authorized to display the Death's Head Collar Patch, indicating full membership in both the SS-TV and Waffen-SS.
The Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
also maintained a large office at Auschwitz, staffed by uniformed Gestapo officers and personnel. Auschwitz also maintained a medical corps, led by Eduard Wirths
Eduard Wirths
Eduard Wirths was the Chief SS doctor at the Auschwitz concentration camp from September 1942 to January 1945...
, whose doctors and medical personnel were from various backgrounds in the SS. The infamous Joseph Mengele, for example, was a combat field doctor in the Waffen-SS before transferring to Auschwitz after being wounded in combat.
Internal camp order was under the authority of another SS group, answering directly to the Camp Commander through officers known by the title Lagerführer
Lagerführer
Lagerführer was a paramilitary title of the SS, specific to the Totenkopfverbande . A Lagerführer was the head SS officer assigned to a particular Concentration Camp, serving as the commander of the said camp.The term Lagerführer was distinct and separate from the position of Kommondant...
. Each of the three main camps at Auschwitz was assigned a Lagerführer to which answered several SS-non-commissioned officers known as Rapportführer
Rapportführer
Rapportführer was a paramilitary title of the SS, specific to the Totenkopfverbande . An SS-Rapportführer was usually a mid-level SS-non-commissioned officer who served as the commander of a group of Blockführer who themselves were assigned to oversee barracks within a...
s. The Rapportführer commanded several Blockführer
Blockführer
Blockführer was a paramilitary title of the SS, specific to the Totenkopfverbande . An SS-Blockführer was typically in charge of a prisoner barracks of between two to three Concentration Camp prisoners; in larger camps, this number could be as a high as 1000...
who oversaw order within individual prisoner barracks. Assisting the SS with this task was a large collection of Kapos, who were trustee prisoners. SS personnel assigned to the gas chambers were technically under the same chain of command as other internal camp SS personnel, but in practice were segregated and worked and lived locally on site at the crematorium. In all, there were usually four SS personnel per gas chamber, led by a non-commissioned officer, who oversaw around one hundred Jewish prisoners (known as the Sonderkommando) forced to assist in the extermination process. The actual delivery of the gas to the victims was always handled by the SS, this was accomplished by a special SS unit known as the "Hygiene Division" which would drive Zyklon B
Zyklon B
Zyklon B was the trade name of a cyanide-based pesticide infamous for its use by Nazi Germany to kill human beings in gas chambers of extermination camps during the Holocaust. The "B" designation indicates one of two types of Zyklon...
to the crematorium in an ambulance and then empty the canister into the gas chamber. The Hygiene Division was under the control of the Auschwitz Medical Corps, with the Zyklon B ordered and delivered through the camp supply system.
External camp security was under the authority of an SS unit known as the "Guard Battalion", or Wachbattalion. These guards manned watchtowers and patrolled the perimeter fences of the camp. During an emergency, such as a prisoner uprising, the Guard Battalion could be deployed within the camp as the need arose; a scene in the film The Grey Zone
The Grey Zone
The Grey Zone is a 2001 film directed by Tim Blake Nelson and starring David Arquette, Steve Buscemi, Harvey Keitel, Mira Sorvino and Daniel Benzali. It is based on the book Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account written by Dr. Miklós Nyiszli....
depicts the Guard Battalion entering and machine gunning a crematorium after the Jewish Sonderkommando rose up against the normal contingent of SS guards.
Various administrative and supply SS personnel were also assigned to Auschwitz, usually "out of the way" of the more horrific activities of the camp, based out of command administrative offices in the main camp of Auschwitz I. Oskar Gröning
Oskar Gröning
Oskar Gröning was a German SS-Rottenführer at Auschwitz concentration camp.He was born in Lower Saxony. After his mother died when he was four, he received a strict upbringing from his father, a skilled textile worker...
is one such well known Auschwitz clerk, who has appeared on several documentaries speaking about life in Auschwitz for the SS, and how living in the camp was in fact an enjoyable experience. Auschwitz also maintained a motor pool
Motor pool
In neuroscience, a motor pool refers to a group of motor spinal neurons that innervate the same muscle. The biological significance of motor pool organization is in the fact that motor pools with many neurons produce finer movements...
as well as an arsenal from which all the SS personnel would draw weapons and ammunition, although several of the SS were known to purchase their own handguns and pistols.
In addition to the command and control proper of Auschwitz Concentration Camp, the camp further frequently received orders and directives from other organs of the SS and the Nazi state. The camp itself was located in the Nazi Region of Upper Silesia
Upper Silesia
Upper Silesia is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia. Since the 9th century, Upper Silesia has been part of Greater Moravia, the Duchy of Bohemia, the Piast Kingdom of Poland, again of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown and the Holy Roman Empire, as well as of...
and therefore under the geographical control of the corresponding Gauleiter
Gauleiter
A Gauleiter was the party leader of a regional branch of the NSDAP or the head of a Gau or of a Reichsgau.-Creation and Early Usage:...
(prior to 1942, the camp had been under geographical jurisdiction of the General Government
General Government
The General Government was an area of Second Republic of Poland under Nazi German rule during World War II; designated as a separate region of the Third Reich between 1939–1945...
). Furthermore, the camp fell under the subordinate command of the SS and Police Leader
SS and Police Leader
SS and Police Leader was a title for senior Nazi officials that commanded large units of the SS, of Gestapo and of the regular German police during and prior to World War II.Three levels of subordination were established for bearers of this title:...
of the region and was often issued orders from the SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt or RSHA, which was a key SS organization involved in the genocide program. Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...
was known to issue orders to the camp commander, bypassing all other chains of command, in response to his own directives. Himmler would also occasionally receive broad instructions from Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
or Hermann Göring
Hermann Göring
Hermann Wilhelm Göring, was a German politician, military leader, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. He was a veteran of World War I as an ace fighter pilot, and a recipient of the coveted Pour le Mérite, also known as "The Blue Max"...
, which he would interprete as he saw fit and transmit to the Auschwitz Camp Commander.
Selection process and genocide
By July 1942, the SS were conducting the infamous "selections," in which incoming Jews were divided into those deemed able to work, who were sent to the right and admitted into the camp, and those who were sent to the left and immediately gassed. Prisoners were transported from all over German-occupied Europe by rail, arriving in daily convoys. The SS forced an orchestra to play as new inmates walked towards their "selection" and possible extermination; the musicians had the highest suicide rate of anyone in the camps, besides Sonderkommandos. The group selected to die, about three-quarters of the total, included almost all children, women with children, all the elderly, and all those who appeared on brief and superficial inspection by an SS doctor not to be completely fit. Auschwitz II-Birkenau claimed more victims than any other German extermination camp, despite coming into use after all the others.Cyanide
A cyanide is a chemical compound that contains the cyano group, -C≡N, which consists of a carbon atom triple-bonded to a nitrogen atom. Cyanides most commonly refer to salts of the anion CN−. Most cyanides are highly toxic....
gas produced from Zyklon B pellets, manufactured by two companies who had acquired licensing rights to the patent held by IG Farben
IG Farben
I.G. Farbenindustrie AG was a German chemical industry conglomerate. Its name is taken from Interessen-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG . The company was formed in 1925 from a number of major companies that had been working together closely since World War I...
. Despite the thick concrete walls of the gas chambers, screaming and moaning from within could be heard outside for 15 to 20 minutes. In one failed attempt to muffle the noise, two motorcycle engines were revved up to full throttle nearby, but the sound of yelling could be heard over the engines.
Sonderkommandos removed gold teeth from the corpses of gas chamber victims; the gold was melted down and collected by the SS. The belongings of the arrivals were seized by the SS and sorted in an area of the camp called "Canada," so-called because Canada was seen as a land of plenty. Many of the SS at the camp enriched themselves by pilfering the confiscated property.
The gas chambers worked to their fullest capacity from April–July 1944, during the massacre of Hungary's Jews. Hungary was an ally of Germany during the war, but it had resisted turning over its Jews to the Germans until Germany invaded in March 1944. From April until July 9, 1944, 475,000 Hungarian Jews, half of the pre-war population, were deported to Auschwitz, at a rate of 12,000 a day for a considerable part of that period. The incoming volume was so great that the SS resorted to burning corpses in open-air pits as well as in the crematoria.
Speech (paraphrased) given by Obersturmführer Franz Hössler to a group of Greek Jews in the undressing room just prior to being killed in the gas chamber: "On behalf of the camp administration I bid you welcome. This is not a holiday resort but a labor camp. Just as our soldiers risk their lives at the front to gain victory for the Third Reich, you will have to work here for the welfare of a new Europe. How you tackle this task is entirely up to you. The chance is there for every one of you. We shall look after your health, and we shall also offer you well-paid work. After the war we shall assess everyone according to his merits and treat him accordingly." "Now, would you please all get undressed. Hang your clothes on the hooks we have provided and please remember your number [of the hook]. When you've had your bath there will be a bowl of soup and coffee or tea for all. Oh yes, before I forget, after your bath, please have ready your certificates, diplomas, school reports and any other documents so that we can employ everybody according to his or her training and ability." "Would diabetics who are not allowed sugar report to staff on duty after their baths". |
Life in the camps
The prisoners' day began at 4:30 am with "reveille" or roll call, with 30 minutes allowed for morning ablutions. After roll call, the Kommando, or work details, would walk to their place of work, five abreast, wearing striped camp fatigues, no underwear, and wooden shoes without socks, most of the time ill-fitting, which caused great pain. A prisoner's orchestra (such as the Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz) was forced to play grotesquely cheerful music as the workers marched through the gates in step. KaposKapo (concentration camp)
A kapo was a prisoner who worked inside German Nazi concentration camps during World War II in any of certain lower administrative positions. The official Nazi word was Funktionshäftling, or "prisoner functionary", but the Nazis commonly referred to them as kapos.- Etymology :The origin of "kapo"...
—prisoners who had been promoted to foremen—were responsible for the prisoners' behavior while they worked, as was an SS escort. The working day lasted 12 hours during the summer, and a little less in the winter. No rest periods were allowed. One prisoner would be assigned to the latrines to measure the time the workers took to empty their bladders and bowels.
After work, there was a mandatory evening roll call. If a prisoner was missing, the others had to remain standing in place until he was either found or the reason for his absence discovered, even if it took hours, regardless of the weather conditions. After roll call, there were individual and collective punishments, depending on what had happened during the day, and after these, the prisoners were allowed to retire to their blocks for the night to receive their bread rations and water. Curfew was two or three hours later, the prisoners sleeping in long rows of wooden bunks, lying in and on their clothes and shoes to prevent them from being stolen.
Medical experiments
Carl Clauberg
Carl Clauberg was a German medical doctor who conducted medical experiments on human beings in Nazi concentration camps during World War II...
injected chemicals into women's uteruses in an effort to glue them shut. Bayer
Bayer
Bayer AG is a chemical and pharmaceutical company founded in Barmen , Germany in 1863. It is headquartered in Leverkusen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany and well known for its original brand of aspirin.-History:...
, then a subsidiary of IG Farben
IG Farben
I.G. Farbenindustrie AG was a German chemical industry conglomerate. Its name is taken from Interessen-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG . The company was formed in 1925 from a number of major companies that had been working together closely since World War I...
, bought prisoners to use as guinea pigs for testing new drugs.
The most infamous doctor at Auschwitz was Josef Mengele
Josef Mengele
Josef Rudolf Mengele , also known as the Angel of Death was a German SS officer and a physician in the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. He earned doctorates in anthropology from Munich University and in medicine from Frankfurt University...
, known as the "Angel of Death". Particularly interested in research on identical twins, Mengele performed cruel experiments on them, such as inducing diseases in one twin and killing the other when the first died to perform comparative autopsies. He also took a special interest in dwarfs, and he deliberately induced gangrene
Gangrene
Gangrene is a serious and potentially life-threatening condition that arises when a considerable mass of body tissue dies . This may occur after an injury or infection, or in people suffering from any chronic health problem affecting blood circulation. The primary cause of gangrene is reduced blood...
in twins, dwarfs and other prisoners to study the effects.
Mengele, at the behest of fellow Nazi physician Kurt Heissmeyer
Kurt Heissmeyer
Kurt Heissmeyer was a Nazi physician involved in medical experimentation on concentration camp inmates including children. He was involved in an infamous tuberculosis experiment conducted on 20 Jewish children at Neuengamme concentration camp...
, was responsible for picking the twenty Jewish children to be used in Heissmeyers' pseudoscientific medical experiments at the Neuengamme concentration camp. These children, at the conclusion of the experiments, were infamously hanged from wall hooks in the basement of the Bullenhuser Damm
Bullenhuser Damm
Bullenhuser Damm School is located at 92–94 Bullenhuser Damm, a street in the Rothenburgsort section of Hamburg, Germany. During heavy air raids many portions of Hamburg were destroyed including the Rothenburgsort section which received heavy damage. The school was only partly damaged. By 1943 the...
school in Hamburg.
Jewish skeleton collection
The Jewish skeleton collection was obtained from among a pool of 115 Jewish inmates at Auschwitz, chosen for their perceived stereotypical racial characteristics. Rudolf BrandtRudolf Brandt
Rudolf Brandt was a German SS officer during 1933-1945 and a civil servant.A lawyer by profession, Brandt was Personal Administrative Officer to the Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, and a defendant at the Doctors' Trial at Nuremberg for his part in securing the 86 victims of the Jewish skeleton...
and Wolfram Sievers
Wolfram Sievers
Wolfram Sievers was Reichsgeschäftsführer, or managing director, of the Ahnenerbe from 1935 to 1945.-Early life:...
, general manager of the Ahnenerbe
Ahnenerbe
The Ahnenerbe was a Nazi German think tank that promoted itself as a "study society for Intellectual Ancient History." Founded on July 1, 1935, by Heinrich Himmler, Herman Wirth, and Richard Walther Darré, the Ahnenerbe's goal was to research the anthropological and cultural history of the Aryan...
, were responsible for collecting the skeletons for the collection of the Anatomy Institute at the Reich University of Strasbourg
Reichsuniversität Straßburg
The Reichsuniversität Straßburg was founded 1941 by the National Socialists in Alsace while the regular University of Strasbourg had moved to Clermont-Ferrand since 1940. The purpose was to create a continuity to the German character of the German Imperial University of Strasbourg, that had been...
in the Alsace
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...
region of Occupied France. Due to a typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
epidemic, the candidates chosen for the skeleton collection were quarantine
Quarantine
Quarantine is compulsory isolation, typically to contain the spread of something considered dangerous, often but not always disease. The word comes from the Italian quarantena, meaning forty-day period....
d in order to prevent them from becoming ill and ruining their value as anatomical specimens; from a letter written by Sievers in June 1943: "Altogether 115 persons were worked on, 79 were Jews, 30 were Jewesses, 2 were Poles, and 4 were Asiatics. At the present time these prisoners are segregated by sex and are under quarantine in the two hospital buildings of Auschwitz."
The collection was sanctioned by Heinrich Himmler and under the direction of August Hirt
August Hirt
August Hirt , an SS-Hauptsturmführer , served as a chairman at the Reich University in Strasbourg during World War II....
.
Ultimately 87 of the inmates were shipped to Natzweiler-Struthof
Natzweiler-Struthof
Natzweiler-Struthof was a German concentration camp located in the Vosges Mountains close to the Alsatian village of Natzwiller in France, and the town of Schirmeck, about 50 km south west from the city of Strasbourg....
. The deaths of 86 of these inmates was, in the words of Hirt, "induced" at a jury rigged gassing facility over the course of a few days in August 1943. One of the victims was shot by the SS when he fought entering the gas chamber. The corpses; 57 men and 29 women were sent to Strasbourg. Josef Kramer
Josef Kramer
Josef Kramer was the Commandant of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Dubbed "The Beast of Belsen" by camp inmates; he was a notorious Nazi war criminal, directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people...
who would become the last commandant of Bergen Belsen personally carried out the gassing of 80 of the victims. In 1944 with the approach of the allies, there was concern over the possibility of the corpses being discovered, at this point they had still not been defleshed. The first part of the process for this "collection" was to make anatomical casts of the bodies prior to reducing them to skeletons. In September, 1944 Sievers telegrammed Brandt: "The collection can be defleshed and rendered unrecognizable. This, however, would mean that the whole work had been done for nothing – at least in part – and that this singular collection would be lost to science, since it would be impossible to make plaster casts afterwards."
Brandt and Sievers would be indicted, tried and convicted in the Doctor's Trial in Nuremberg. Hirt committed suicide in Schonenbach
Bizau
Bizau is a town in the Bregenzerwald, Vorarlberg, Austria, part of the district Bregenz. As of 2006 it has a population of 1,013.-External links:*http://www.bizau.at...
, Austria, on June 2, 1945 with a gunshot to the head.
The names and biographical information of the murder victims were published in the book Die Namen der Nummern (The Names of the Numbers) by German historian Dr. Hans-Joachim Lang.
Escapes, resistance, and the Allies' knowledge of the camps
Witold Pilecki
Witold Pilecki was a soldier of the Second Polish Republic, the founder of the Secret Polish Army resistance group and a member of the Home Army...
. Pilecki was the only known person to volunteer to be imprisoned at Auschwitz concentration camp, spending 945 days there, not only actively gathering evidence of genocide and supplying it to the British in London by Polish resistance movement
Polish resistance movement in World War II
The Polish resistance movement in World War II, with the Home Army at its forefront, was the largest underground resistance in all of Nazi-occupied Europe, covering both German and Soviet zones of occupation. The Polish defence against the Nazi occupation was an important part of the European...
organization Home Army but also organizing resistance structures at the camp known as ZOW, Związek Organizacji Wojskowej
Zwiazek Organizacji Wojskowej
Związek Organizacji Wojskowej was an underground resistance organization formed by Witold Pilecki at Auschwitz concentration camp in 1940.-Beginning:...
. His first report was smuggled to the outside world in November 1940, through an inmate who was released from the camp. He eventually escaped on April 27, 1943, but his personal report of mass killings was dismissed as exaggeration by the Allies, as were his previous ones.
The attitude of the Allies changed with receipt of the very detailed Vrba-Wetzler report
Vrba-Wetzler report
The Vrba-Wetzler report, also known as the Vrba-Wetzler statement, the Auschwitz Protocols, and the Auschwitz notebook, is a 32-page document about the German Auschwitz concentration camp in occupied Poland during the Holocaust...
, compiled by two Jewish prisoners, Rudolf Vrba
Rudolf Vrba
Rudolf "Rudi" Vrba, born Walter Rosenberg was a Slovak-Canadian professor of pharmacology at the University of British Columbia, who came to public attention during the Second World War when, in April 1944, he escaped from the Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland with the first...
and Alfréd Wetzler
Alfréd Wetzler
Alfréd Israel Wetzler , who later wrote under the alias Jozef Lánik, was a Slovak Jew, and one of a very small number of Jews known to have escaped from the Auschwitz death camp during the Holocaust. Wetzler was born on 10 May 1918, in the Slovak town of Trnava where he was a worker in the period...
, who escaped on April 7, 1944, and which finally convinced Allied leaders of the truth about Auschwitz. Details from the Vrba-Wetzler report were broadcast on June 15, 1944 by the BBC, and on June 20 by The New York Times, causing the Allies to put pressure on the Hungarian government to stop the mass deportation of Jews to the camp.
Starting with a plea from the Slovakian rabbi Weissmandl
Chaim Michael Dov Weissmandl
Chaim Michael Dov Weissmandl was a rabbi and shtadlan...
in May 1944, there was a growing campaign to persuade the Allies to bomb Auschwitz or the railway lines leading to it. At one point Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
ordered that such a plan be prepared, but he was told that bombing the camp would most likely kill prisoners without disrupting the killing operation, and that bombing the railway lines was not technically feasible. The debate over what could have been done, or what should have been attempted even if success was unlikely, has continued ever since.
Underground media
Inmates were able to distribute information from the camp without escaping themselves. The Auschwitzer Echo was an underground newspaperPolish underground press
Polish underground press devoted to prohibited materials has a long history of combatting censorship of oppressive regimes in Poland...
published by inmates and distributed as well to the resistance movement in Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
. Writers included the Communist Party
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...
member Bruno Baum. A shortwave
Shortwave
Shortwave radio refers to the upper MF and all of the HF portion of the radio spectrum, between 1,800–30,000 kHz. Shortwave radio received its name because the wavelengths in this band are shorter than 200 m which marked the original upper limit of the medium frequency band first used...
transmitter hidden in Block 11 sent information directly to the Polish government-in-exile in London.
These reports were the first revelation about the Holocaust and were the principal source of intelligence on Auschwitz for the Western Allies. Nonetheless, those reports were for a long time discarded as "too extreme" by the Allies.
Birkenau revolt
By 1943, resistance organizations had developed in the camp. These organizations helped a few prisoners escape; these escapees took with them news of exterminations, such as the killing of hundreds of thousands of Jews transported from Hungary between May and July 1944. On October 7, 1944, the Jewish SonderkommandoSonderkommando
Sonderkommandos were work units of Nazi death camp prisoners, composed almost entirely of Jews, who were forced, on threat of their own deaths, to aid with the disposal of gas chamber victims during The Holocaust...
s (those inmates kept separate from the main camp
Internment
Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people, commonly in large groups, without trial. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the meaning as: "The action of 'interning'; confinement within the limits of a country or place." Most modern usage is about individuals, and there is a distinction...
and put to work in the gas chambers and crematoria) of Birkenau Kommando III staged an uprising. They attacked the SS with makeshift weapons: stones, axes, hammers, other work tools and homemade grenade
Grenade
A grenade is a small explosive device that is projected a safe distance away by its user. Soldiers called grenadiers specialize in the use of grenades. The term hand grenade refers any grenade designed to be hand thrown. Grenade Launchers are firearms designed to fire explosive projectile grenades...
s. They caught the SS guards by surprise, overpowered them and blew up the Crematorium IV, using explosives smuggled in from a weapons factory by female inmates. At this stage they were joined by the Birkenau Kommando I of the Crematorium II, which also overpowered their guards and broke out of the compound
Compound (enclosure)
Compound when applied to a human habitat refers to a cluster of buildings in an enclosure, having a shared or associated purpose, such as the houses of an extended family...
. Hundreds of prisoners escaped, but were all soon captured and, along with an additional group who participated in the revolt, executed.
There were also plans for a general uprising in Auschwitz, coordinated with an Allied
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
air raid
Airstrike
An air strike is an attack on a specific objective by military aircraft during an offensive mission. Air strikes are commonly delivered from aircraft such as fighters, bombers, ground attack aircraft, attack helicopters, and others...
and a Polish resistance (Armia Krajowa
Armia Krajowa
The Armia Krajowa , or Home Army, was the dominant Polish resistance movement in World War II German-occupied Poland. It was formed in February 1942 from the Związek Walki Zbrojnej . Over the next two years, it absorbed most other Polish underground forces...
, Home Army) attack from the outside. That plan was authored by Polish resistance fighter, Witold Pilecki
Witold Pilecki
Witold Pilecki was a soldier of the Second Polish Republic, the founder of the Secret Polish Army resistance group and a member of the Home Army...
, who organized in Auschwitz an underground Union of Military Organization – (Związek Organizacji Wojskowej
Zwiazek Organizacji Wojskowej
Związek Organizacji Wojskowej was an underground resistance organization formed by Witold Pilecki at Auschwitz concentration camp in 1940.-Beginning:...
, ZOW). Pilecki and ZOW hoped that the Allies would drop arms or troops into the camp (most likely the Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade
Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade
The 1st Independent Parachute Brigade was a parachute brigade under command of Maj.Gen. Stanisław Sosabowski, created in Scotland in September 1941, with the exclusive mission to drop into occupied Poland in order to help liberate the country. The British government, however, pressured the Polish...
, based in Britain), and that the Home Army would organize an assault on the camp from outside. By 1943, however, he realized that the Allies had no such plans. Meanwhile, the Gestapo redoubled its efforts to ferret out ZOW members, succeeding in killing many of them. Pilecki decided to break out of the camp, with the hope of personally convincing Home Army leaders that a rescue attempt was a valid option. He escaped on the night of April 26 – 27, 1943, but his plan was not accepted by the Home Army as the Allies considered his reports about the Holocaust exaggerated.
Individual escape attempts
At least 802 prisoners attempted to escape from the Auschwitz camps during the years of their operation, of which 144 were successful. The fates of 331 of the escapees are still unknown. A common punishment for escape attempts was death by starvation; the families of successful escapees were sometimes arrested and interned in Auschwitz and prominently displayed to deter others. If someone did manage to escape, the SS would pick 10 people at random from the prisoner's block and starve them to death.The most spectacular escape from Auschwitz took place on June 20, 1942, when Ukrainian Eugeniusz Bendera and three Poles, Kazimierz Piechowski
Kazimierz Piechowski
Kazimierz Piechowski is a retired engineer, a Boy Scout during the Second Polish Republic, a political prisoner of the Nazis at Auschwitz concentration camp, a soldier in the Polish Home Army then a prisoner for seven years of the communist government of Poland...
, Stanisław Gustaw Jaster and Józef Lempart made a daring escape. The escapees were dressed as members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände
SS-Totenkopfverbände
SS-Totenkopfverbände , meaning "Death's-Head Units", was the SS organization responsible for administering the Nazi concentration camps for the Third Reich....
, fully armed and in an SS staff car. They drove out the main gate in a stolen automobile, a Steyr
Steyr automobile
Steyr was an Austrian automotive company from 1915 until 1990.Formed as a branch of Steyr Osterreichische Waffenfabriks-Gesellschaft in 1915, to diversify manufacturing, the founders hired 38-year-old designer Hans Ledwinka after he resigned from Nesselsdorfer-Wagenbau...
220 belonging to Rudolf Höss. Jaster carried with him a report about conditions in the camp, written by Witold Pilecki
Witold Pilecki
Witold Pilecki was a soldier of the Second Polish Republic, the founder of the Secret Polish Army resistance group and a member of the Home Army...
. The Germans never recaptured any of them.
In 1943, the "Kampfgruppe Auschwitz" was organised with the aim to send out as much information about what was happening in Auschwitz as possible. They buried notes in the ground in the hope a liberator would find them and smuggled out photos of the crematoria and gas chambers.
June 24, 1944, Mala Zimetbaum
Mala Zimetbaum
Malka Zimetbaum, also known as "Mala" Zimetbaum or "Mala the Belgian" , was a young Belgian woman of Polish Jewish descent, known for her escape from the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp and the resistance she displayed at her execution following the escape's failure.- Early life and...
escaped with her Polish boyfriend, Edek Galinski. They also wanted to smuggle out deportation lists Zimetbaum had been able to copy due to her translator job in the office of the "Lagerleitung". They both were arrested on July 6 near the Slovakian frontier and sentenced to be executed on September 15, 1944 in Birkenau; Galinski managed to kill himself before being executed, while Zimetbaum, having failed to commit suicide, died finally after being tortured by the SS.
Evacuation, death marches, and liberation
The last selection took place on October 30, 1944. The next month, Heinrich Himmler ordered the crematoria destroyed before the Red ArmyRed Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
reached the camp. The gas chambers of Birkenau were blown up by the SS in January 1945 in an attempt to hide the German crimes from the advancing Soviet troops. The SS command sent orders on January 17, 1945 calling for the execution of all prisoners remaining in the camp, but in the chaos of the Nazi retreat the order was never carried out. On January 17, 1945, Nazi personnel started to evacuate the facility. Nearly 60,000 prisoners were forced on a death march
Death marches (Holocaust)
The death marches refer to the forcible movement between Autumn 1944 and late April 1945 by Nazi Germany of thousands of prisoners from German concentration camps near the war front to camps inside Germany.-General:...
toward a camp in Wodzisław Śląski (German: Loslau). Those too weak or sick to walk were left behind. These remaining 7,500 prisoners were liberated by the 322nd Rifle Division of the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
on January 27, 1945. Approximately 20,000 Auschwitz prisoners made it to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
Bergen-Belsen was a Nazi concentration camp in Lower Saxony in northwestern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle...
in Germany, where they were liberated by the British in April 1945. Among the artifacts of automated murder found by the Russians were 348,820 men's suits and 836,255 women's garments.
Death toll
Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....
. While under interrogation Rudolf Höss, commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp from 1940 to 1943, said that Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Otto Eichmann was a German Nazi and SS-Obersturmbannführer and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust...
told him that two and a half million Jews had been killed in gas chambers and about half a million had died "naturally". Later he wrote "I regard two and a half million far too high. Even Auschwitz had limits to its destructive possibilities".
Communist Polish and Soviet authorities maintained a figure "between 2.5 and 4 million", and the Auschwitz State Museum itself displayed a figure of 4 million killed, but "[f]ew (if any) historians ever believed the Museum's four million figure". Raul Hilberg
Raul Hilberg
Raul Hilberg was an Austrian-born American political scientist and historian. He was widely considered to be the world's preeminent scholar of the Holocaust, and his three-volume, 1,273-page magnum opus, The Destruction of the European Jews, is regarded as a seminal study of the Nazi Final...
's 1961 work The Destruction of the European Jews
The Destruction of the European Jews
The Destruction of the European Jews is a book published in 1961 by historian Raul Hilberg. Hilberg revised his work in 1985, and it appeared in a new three-volume edition. It is largely held to be the first comprehensive historical study of the Holocaust. According to Holocaust historian, Michael R...
estimated the number killed at 1,000,000, and Gerald Reitlinger
Gerald Reitlinger
Gerald Roberts Reitlinger was a scholar of the economics of art and of history, particularly the Holocaust...
's 1968 book The Final Solution described the Soviet figures as "ridiculous", and estimated the number killed at "800,000 to 900,000".
In 1983, French scholar George Wellers was one of the first to use German data on deportations to estimate the number killed at Auschwitz, arriving at 1.613 million dead, including 1.44 million Jews and 146,000 Catholic Poles. A larger study started later by Franciszek Piper
Franciszek Piper
Franciszek Piper is a Polish scholar, historian and author. Most of his work concerns the Jewish Holocaust, especially the history of the concentration camps at Auschwitz. Dr. Piper is credited as one of the historians who helped establish a more accurate number of victims of Auschwitz-Birkenau...
used timetables of train arrivals combined with deportation records to calculate 960,000 Jewish deaths and 140,000–150,000 ethnic Polish victims, along with 23,000 Roma and Sinti
Sinti
Sinti or Sinta or Sinte is the name of a Romani or Gypsy population in Europe. Traditionally nomadic, today only a small percentage of the group remains unsettled...
, a figure that has met with significant agreement from other scholars.
After the collapse of the Communist government in 1989, the plaque at Auschwitz State Museum was removed and the official death toll given as 1.1 million. Holocaust deniers
Holocaust denial
Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...
have attempted to use this change as propaganda, in the words of the Nizkor Project
Nizkor Project
The Nizkor Project is an ongoing Internet-based project run by B'nai Brith Canada which is dedicated to countering Holocaust denial. It was founded by Ken McVay as a central Web-based archive for the large numbers of documents made publicly available by the users of the newsgroup alt.revisionism...
:
Timeline of Auschwitz
The timeline of events at the Auschwitz concentration camp began in January 1940 when the location was first visited by Arpad WigandArpad Wigand
Arpad Wigand ; was an SS-Oberführer who served as the SS and Police Leader in Warsaw from August 4, 1941 until April 23, 1943....
an aid to the Higher SS and Police Leader for Silesia
Silesia
Silesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with smaller parts also in the Czech Republic, and Germany.Silesia is rich in mineral and natural resources, and includes several important industrial areas. Silesia's largest city and historical capital is Wrocław...
Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski. The original intent of the camp was to intern Polish political prisoners. The original uses of the camp were added to and the capacity expanded over the course of the next four years, which reflected the political and economic decisions of the Third Reich, including the implementation of the Final Solution
Final Solution
The Final Solution was Nazi Germany's plan and execution of the systematic genocide of European Jews during World War II, resulting in the most deadly phase of the Holocaust...
.
| Timeline of Auschwitz | ||
|---|---|---|
| February 21, 1940 | In January Arpad Wigand Arpad Wigand Arpad Wigand ; was an SS-Oberführer who served as the SS and Police Leader in Warsaw from August 4, 1941 until April 23, 1943.... aide to Höhere SS- und Polizeiführer for Silesia Silesia Silesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with smaller parts also in the Czech Republic, and Germany.Silesia is rich in mineral and natural resources, and includes several important industrial areas. Silesia's largest city and historical capital is Wrocław... Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski suggests the Polish military barracks at Oświęcim Oswiecim Oświęcim is a town in the Lesser Poland province of southern Poland, situated west of Kraków, near the confluence of the rivers Vistula and Soła.- History :... as a site for a concentration camp for Polish prisoners. Inspector of concentration camps Richard Glücks Richard Glücks Richard Glücks was a high-ranking Nazi official. He attained the rank of a SS-Gruppenführer and a Generalleutnant of the Waffen-SS and from 1939 until the end of World War II was the head of Amt D: Konzentrationslagerwesen of the WVHA; the highest-ranking Concentration Camps Inspector in Nazi... sends Sachenhausen commandant Walter Eisfeld to inspect the site. On Feb. 21 Glücks informs Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo... that the site will be developed into a concentration camp. |
|
| May 20, 1940 | The first prisoners, 30 German career criminals from Sachsenhausen Sachsenhausen concentration camp Sachsenhausen or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used primarily for political prisoners from 1936 to the end of the Third Reich in May, 1945. After World War II, when Oranienburg was in the Soviet Occupation Zone, the structure was used as an NKVD... , arrive. Most will be made kapos, prisoner no. 1 is a German of Polish descent Bruno Brodniewicz. Among this group is Kurt Pachala from Breslau (prisoner no. 24) who was tortured and then sent to a "standing cell" in the basement of Block 11 where he died of thirst and hunger on Jan. 14, 1943 as punishment for the June 20, 1942 escape of four prisoners. |
|
| June 14, 1940 | First mass transport First mass transport to Auschwitz concentration camp On June 14, 1940, German occupying authorities organized the first mass transport of prisoners to the recently opened Auschwitz Concentration Camp. The transport, which set from southern Polish city of Tarnów, consisted of 728 Poles, including some Jewish Poles... , consisting of 728 Polish political prisoners from Tarnow Tarnów Tarnów is a city in southeastern Poland with 115,341 inhabitants as of June 2009. The city has been situated in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship since 1999, but from 1975 to 1998 it was the capital of the Tarnów Voivodeship. It is a major rail junction, located on the strategic east-west connection... . They are held in the building which housed the Polish Tobacco Monopoly, until the camp is ready. Among the prisoners is Edward Galinski who would later make an escape with his girlfriend. |
|
| March 1, 1941 | Reichsführer SS and Chief of German Police Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo... inspects the camp. Because nearby factories use prisoners for forced labor, Himmler is concerned about the camp's capacity. On this visit, he orders both the expansion of Auschwitz I camp facilities to hold 30,000 prisoners and the building of a camp near Birkenau for an expected influx of 100,000 Soviet prisoners of war. Himmler also orders that the camp supply 10,000 prisoners for forced labor to construct an IG Farben IG Farben I.G. Farbenindustrie AG was a German chemical industry conglomerate. Its name is taken from Interessen-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG . The company was formed in 1925 from a number of major companies that had been working together closely since World War I... factory complex at Dwory, about a mile away. Himmler made additional visits to Auschwitz in 1942, when he witnessed the killing of prisoners in the gas chambers. |
|
| September 3, 1941 | |
The first gassings of prisoners occur in Auschwitz I. The SS tests Zyklon B gas by killing 600 Soviet prisoners of war and 250 other ill or weak prisoners. Testing takes place in a makeshift gas chamber in the cellar of Block 11 in Auschwitz I. The success of these experiments leads to the adoption of Zyklon B as the killing agent for Auschwitz II-Birkenau. |
| January 25, 1942 |  |
Himmler informs Richard Glücks Richard Glücks Richard Glücks was a high-ranking Nazi official. He attained the rank of a SS-Gruppenführer and a Generalleutnant of the Waffen-SS and from 1939 until the end of World War II was the head of Amt D: Konzentrationslagerwesen of the WVHA; the highest-ranking Concentration Camps Inspector in Nazi... , the Inspector of Concentration Camps, that 100,000 Jewish men and 50,000 Jewish women are to be deported from Germany to Auschwitz as forced laborers. |
| February 15, 1942 |  |
The first transport of Jews from Bytom Bytom Bytom is a city in Silesia in southern Poland, near Katowice. The central-western district of the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union - metropolis with the population of 2 millions. Bytom is located in the Silesian Highlands, on the Bytomka river .The city belongs to the Silesian Voivodeship since... (Beuthen) in German-annexed Upper Silesia Upper Silesia Upper Silesia is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia. Since the 9th century, Upper Silesia has been part of Greater Moravia, the Duchy of Bohemia, the Piast Kingdom of Poland, again of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown and the Holy Roman Empire, as well as of... arrives in Auschwitz I. The SS camp authorities kill all those on the transport immediately upon arrival with Zyklon B gas. German SS and police authorities deport around 175,000 Jews to Auschwitz in 1942. |
| First transport of Slovakian Jews arrives. | ||
| June 20, 1942 | |
Polish political prisoner Kazimierz Piechowski Kazimierz Piechowski Kazimierz Piechowski is a retired engineer, a Boy Scout during the Second Polish Republic, a political prisoner of the Nazis at Auschwitz concentration camp, a soldier in the Polish Home Army then a prisoner for seven years of the communist government of Poland... (prisoner 918), and three other prisoners, Stanisław Gustaw Jaster, Józef Lempart, and Eugeniusz Bendera, escaped from Auschwitz I. They dressed as members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände SS-Totenkopfverbände SS-Totenkopfverbände , meaning "Death's-Head Units", was the SS organization responsible for administering the Nazi concentration camps for the Third Reich.... , fully armed. They stole an SS staff car, a Steyr Steyr automobile Steyr was an Austrian automotive company from 1915 until 1990.Formed as a branch of Steyr Osterreichische Waffenfabriks-Gesellschaft in 1915, to diversify manufacturing, the founders hired 38-year-old designer Hans Ledwinka after he resigned from Nesselsdorfer-Wagenbau... 220 belonging to Rudolf Höss, from the motor pool and drove out the main gate. The escape was facilitated by Piechowski's fluent command of German. As they drove toward the gate he told the guards to hurry up and open it. None of the four were recaptured. |
 |
First transport of Jews from Belgium are deported to Auschwitz. Due to rescue efforts by resistance groups in Belgium, approximately 25,000 of the country's 57,000 registered Jews find hiding within the country and survive the war. | |
| January 1, 1943 – March 31, 1943 | German SS and police authorities deport approximately 105,000 Jews to Auschwitz | |
| January 29, 1943 |  |
The Reich Central Office for Security orders all designated Roma residing in Germany, Austria, and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to be deported to Auschwitz. |
| February 26, 1943 | The first transport of Roma from Germany arrives. The SS authorities house them in Section B-IIe of Auschwitz-Birkenau, which becomes known as the "Zigeunerlager or the Roma family camp." By the end of 1943 more than 18,000 Roma were incarcerated there, and 23,000 deported to other parts of the camp complex. | |
| March 13, 1943 |  |
Out of a transport of 2,000 Jews from the Kraków Ghetto Kraków Ghetto The Kraków Ghetto was one of five major, metropolitan Jewish ghettos created by Nazi Germany in the General Government territory for the purpose of persecution, terror, and exploitation of Polish Jews during the German occupation of Poland in World War II... , 1,492 are gassed in the basement gas chamber of Crematorium II at Birkenau in the evening. This operation tests the gas chamber's ventilation and air extraction equipment installed by J.A. Topf engineer Heinrich Messing, who declared it operational earlier that day. |
| March 22, 1943 | Crematorium IV is ready for use. | |
| March 31, 1943 | |
Crematorium II is handed over to the Auschwitz authorities. Holocaust scholar Robert Jan van Pelt Robert Jan van Pelt Robert Jan van Pelt is an author, architectural historian, professor at the University of Waterloo and University of Toronto in Ontario and a Holocaust scholar. One of the world's leading experts on Auschwitz, he regularly speaks on Holocaust related topics, through which he has come to address... comments that more people lost their lives in this room than in any other room on Earth: 500,000 people. |
| April 4, 1943 | Crematorium V is ready for use. | |
| April 22, 1943 | |
Transport 20 Twentieth convoy Transport 20 was a Jewish prisoner transport in Belgium organized by the Nazi Germany during World War II. Members of the Belgian Resistance freed Jewish and Gypsy civilians who were being transported by train from the Dossin Barracks located in Mechelen, Belgium to the Auschwitz concentration camp... from the transit camp in Mechelen Mechelen Mechelen Footnote: Mechelen became known in English as 'Mechlin' from which the adjective 'Mechlinian' is derived... , Belgium arrives in Auschwitz. A Jewish doctor Youra Livschitz and his two non-Jewish high school friends Robert Maistriau and Jean Franklemon managed to stop the train on the tracks with only a lantern and a handgun when it rounded a curve in Boortmeerbeek Boortmeerbeek Boortmeerbeek is a farmerhole in the Belgian province of Flemish Brabant. The municipality comprises the towns of Boortmeerbeek proper, Schiplaken and Hever. The total area which gives a population density of 620 inhabitants per km².-External links:* *... , Belgium and open the doors on some of the rail cars. Some prisoners managed to escape then, over 200 more jumped from the train en route. |
| April 26–27, 1943 | Witold Pilecki Witold Pilecki Witold Pilecki was a soldier of the Second Polish Republic, the founder of the Secret Polish Army resistance group and a member of the Home Army... escapes during the night. He would later take part in the Warsaw Uprising Warsaw Uprising The Warsaw Uprising was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance Home Army , to liberate Warsaw from Nazi Germany. The rebellion was timed to coincide with the Soviet Union's Red Army approaching the eastern suburbs of the city and the retreat of German forces... , get captured and spend the remainder of the war in P.O.W. camps. |
|
| May 30, 1943 | Josef Mengele Josef Mengele Josef Rudolf Mengele , also known as the Angel of Death was a German SS officer and a physician in the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. He earned doctorates in anthropology from Munich University and in medicine from Frankfurt University... arrives at Auschwitz. He often took part in "selections" of incoming prisoners on the ramp at Birkenau. During his time at Aushwitz he engaged in pseudoscientific experiments on camp inmates. He had a special fascination with twins TWINS Two Wide-Angle Imaging Neutral-Atom Spectrometers are a pair of NASA instruments aboard two United States National Reconnaissance Office satellites in Molniya orbits. TWINS was designed to provide stereo images of the Earth's ring current. The first instrument, TWINS-1, was launched aboard USA-184... . Mengele was known as "the Angel of Death". He escaped to South America after the war and was never brought to justice. |
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| June 24, 1943 | |
Crematorium III is ready for use. |
| July 19, 1943 | |
Largest mass hanging at Aushwitz, public gallows constructed of train rails and railroad ties, specifically constructed to simultaneously hang 12 Polish prisoners, part of the Survey Kommando, for helping three prisoners escape. Two of the hanged are Boguslaw Ohrt: [no. 367] and Janusz Pogonowskino [no.253] |
| February 21, 1944 | Primo Levi Primo Levi Primo Michele Levi was an Italian Jewish chemist and writer. He was the author of two novels and several collections of short stories, essays, and poems, but is best known for If This Is a Man, his account of the year he spent as a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland... arrives in the camp from Italy. |
|
| April 7, 1944 | Two Jewish prisoners, Rudolf Vrba Rudolf Vrba Rudolf "Rudi" Vrba, born Walter Rosenberg was a Slovak-Canadian professor of pharmacology at the University of British Columbia, who came to public attention during the Second World War when, in April 1944, he escaped from the Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland with the first... and Alfréd Wetzler Alfréd Wetzler Alfréd Israel Wetzler , who later wrote under the alias Jozef Lánik, was a Slovak Jew, and one of a very small number of Jews known to have escaped from the Auschwitz death camp during the Holocaust. Wetzler was born on 10 May 1918, in the Slovak town of Trnava where he was a worker in the period... , escape and pass a 32-page report of what is happening in the camp to Jewish officials in Slovakia. Their information becomes known as the Vrba-Wetzler report Vrba-Wetzler report The Vrba-Wetzler report, also known as the Vrba-Wetzler statement, the Auschwitz Protocols, and the Auschwitz notebook, is a 32-page document about the German Auschwitz concentration camp in occupied Poland during the Holocaust... . |
|
| May 2, 1944 |  |
The first two transports of Hungarian Jews arrive in Auschwitz. Throughout May and June 1944, Hungarian Jews are deported to the camp at a rate of 12,000 a day. |
| May 16, 1944 |  |
Elie Wiesel Elie Wiesel Sir Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel KBE; born September 30, 1928) is a Hungarian-born Jewish-American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He is the author of 57 books, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz, Buna, and... arrives with his family on or around this date. His mother and youngest sister are immediately sent to be gassed. |
| May 22, 1944 | Romani-Sinti, deported from the Netherlands arrive in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Settela Steinbach Settela Steinbach Anna Maria Steinbach was a Dutch girl who was gassed in Nazi Germany's Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp... an eleven year old Sinti girl is caught on film peering out from the transport on May 19, by Jewish prisoner Rudolf Breslauer, who was ordered to film the deportation by the commandant of the Westerbork transit camp. Settela would die in the gas chamber. |
|
| June 6, 1944 | The Allies land in Normandy, France to begin the liberation of Western Europe Operation Overlord Operation Overlord was the code name for the Battle of Normandy, the operation that launched the invasion of German-occupied western Europe during World War II by Allied forces. The operation commenced on 6 June 1944 with the Normandy landings... . |
|
| June 15 and 20, 1944 | The first reports regarded as credible that describe the mass murder taking place in the camp are published by the BBC and The New York Times respectively, based on the Vrba-Wetzler report | |
| June 24, 1944 | Polish born Jewish girl Mala Zimetbaum Mala Zimetbaum Malka Zimetbaum, also known as "Mala" Zimetbaum or "Mala the Belgian" , was a young Belgian woman of Polish Jewish descent, known for her escape from the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp and the resistance she displayed at her execution following the escape's failure.- Early life and... (prison no.19880) and her Polish boyfriend Edward "Edek" Galinski (prison no. 518) escape from Birkenau. Galinski, one of the first deportees to Auschwitz, was wearing an SS uniform provided to him by SS-Rottenfuehrer Edward Lubusch, an ethnic German raised in Poland. They were caught on July 6, 1944 and returned to Auschwitz. They were imprisoned in separate cells in Block 11; both were sentenced to death. On September 15, 1944, Galinski was hung. Mala slit her wrists with a razor blade interrupting her execution. She was, according to various accounts taken to the crematorium to be burned alive. It's not known whether that occurred or she was shot in the crematorium. |
|
| July 7, 1944 | |
In response to the publication of the Vrba-Wetzler Report Vrba-Wetzler report The Vrba-Wetzler report, also known as the Vrba-Wetzler statement, the Auschwitz Protocols, and the Auschwitz notebook, is a 32-page document about the German Auschwitz concentration camp in occupied Poland during the Holocaust... , governments around the world put pressure on Regent Miklós Horthy Miklós Horthy Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya was the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary during the interwar years and throughout most of World War II, serving from 1 March 1920 to 15 October 1944. Horthy was styled "His Serene Highness the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary" .Admiral Horthy was an officer of the... of Hungary to halt the deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz, which he does on July, 7 1944 |
| August 2–3, 1944 | |
The Zigeunerlager family is liquidated during the night; 2,897 men women and children perish in the gas chamber, 1,400 surviving men and women are transferred to Buchenwald and Ravensbruck for slave labor. An estimated 20,000 Roma were killed there in Aushwitz. Among the murdered are Romani mischlinge, used by Nazi race scientist Eva Justin Eva Justin Eva Justin, PhD was a German anthropologist and psychologist.She was born in Dresden in 1909, the daughter of a railroad official Charles Justin and his wife Margarethe... in her pseudoscientific race research. |
| August 12–13, 1944 |  |
Almost 6,000 residents of Warsaw are transported to Auschwitz in response to the Warsaw Uprising Warsaw Uprising The Warsaw Uprising was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance Home Army , to liberate Warsaw from Nazi Germany. The rebellion was timed to coincide with the Soviet Union's Red Army approaching the eastern suburbs of the city and the retreat of German forces... (approximately twice as many females as males, including over a thousand children). |
| September 3, 1944 | Anne Frank Anne Frank Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank is one of the most renowned and most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Acknowledged for the quality of her writing, her diary has become one of the world's most widely read books, and has been the basis for several plays and films.Born in the city of Frankfurt... is transported to Auschwitz along with her mother Edith and sister Margot; on October 28, 1944 Anne and Margot were chosen in a selection to be transferred to Bergen-Belsen Bergen-Belsen concentration camp Bergen-Belsen was a Nazi concentration camp in Lower Saxony in northwestern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle... . Edith was left behind where it was reported she died of starvation. Anne and Margot would both die in March 1945 in the typhus Typhus Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters... epidemic at Bergen-Belsen only weeks before the camp's liberation by the British on April 15, 1945. |
|
| September 4, 1944 | A transport of 3,087 predominantly Polish men, women, and children from Warsaw arrive in Auschwitz in retribution for Warsaw uprising | |
| September 13 and 17, 1944 | Another 4,000 predominantly Polish men and boys from Warsaw arrive in Auschwitz as retribution for the uprising. | |
| October 7, 1944 | |
Members of the Jewish prisoner "special detachment" (Sonderkommando) that was forced to remove bodies from the gas chambers and operate the crematoria stage an uprising. They successfully blow up Crematorium IV and kill several guards. Women prisoners had smuggled gunpowder out of nearby factories to members of the Sonderkommando. The SS quickly suppresses the revolt and kills all the Sonderkommando members. |
| October 30, 1944 |  |
The last selections take place on the Jewish ramp at Birkenau; 1,689 people from a transport from Theresienstadt concentration camp Theresienstadt concentration camp Theresienstadt concentration camp was a Nazi German ghetto during World War II. It was established by the Gestapo in the fortress and garrison city of Terezín , located in what is now the Czech Republic.-History:The fortress of Terezín was constructed between the years 1780 and 1790 by the orders... are sent to the gas chambers. After this, only individuals are gassed after selection within the camp. The last 13 people to be killed this way were women, gassed or shot in crematorium II on November 25. |
| November 25, 1944 | As Soviet forces approach, SS chief Heinrich Himmler orders the destruction of the Auschwitz-Birkenau gas chambers and crematoria. During this attempt to destroy the evidence of mass killings, prisoners are forced to dismantle and dynamite the structures. | |
| November 27, 1944 | |
Twenty Jewish children, 10 boys and 10 girls ages 5–12, are selected from Block 10, by Josef Mengele at the behest of Kurt Heissmeyer Kurt Heissmeyer Kurt Heissmeyer was a Nazi physician involved in medical experimentation on concentration camp inmates including children. He was involved in an infamous tuberculosis experiment conducted on 20 Jewish children at Neuengamme concentration camp... . The children are sent to Neuengamme concentration camp. There they are infected with tuberculosis and subjected to medical experimentation. They are ultimately murdered by being hanged in the basement of the Bullenhuser Damm Bullenhuser Damm Bullenhuser Damm School is located at 92–94 Bullenhuser Damm, a street in the Rothenburgsort section of Hamburg, Germany. During heavy air raids many portions of Hamburg were destroyed including the Rothenburgsort section which received heavy damage. The school was only partly damaged. By 1943 the... school in Hamburg Hamburg -History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808... . |
| January 12, 1945 | |
The Red Army launches the Vistula-Oder Offensive Vistula-Oder Offensive The Vistula–Oder Offensive was a successful Red Army operation on the Eastern Front in the European Theatre of World War II; it took place between 12 January and 2 February 1945... ; Soviet troops liberate Lodz Lódz Łódź is the third-largest city in Poland. Located in the central part of the country, it had a population of 742,387 in December 2009. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is approximately south-west of Warsaw... on January 17, only 877 Jews remain in the ghetto out of a high of 163,177 people in 1941; Warsaw Warsaw Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most... and Kraków Kraków Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life... are both liberated on January, 19. The advance heads toward Oświęcim. |
| January 18–27, 1945 | As Soviet units approach the camp, the SS evacuates prisoners to the west. Tens of thousands, mostly Jews, are forced to march Death marches (Holocaust) The death marches refer to the forcible movement between Autumn 1944 and late April 1945 by Nazi Germany of thousands of prisoners from German concentration camps near the war front to camps inside Germany.-General:... to the cities of Loslau and Gleiwitz Gliwice Gliwice is a city in Upper Silesia in southern Poland, near Katowice. Gliwice is the west district of the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union – a metropolis with a population of 2 million... in Upper Silesia Upper Silesia Upper Silesia is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia. Since the 9th century, Upper Silesia has been part of Greater Moravia, the Duchy of Bohemia, the Piast Kingdom of Poland, again of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown and the Holy Roman Empire, as well as of... . During the march, SS guards shoot anyone who cannot continue. In Loslau and Gleiwitz, the prisoners are placed on unheated freight trains and deported to concentration camps in Germany, particularly to Flossenburg Flossenbürg Flossenbürg is a municipality in the district of Neustadt an der Waldnaab in Bavaria in Germany. The state-approved leisure area is located in the Bavarian Forest and borders the Czech Republic in the east. During World War II, the Flossenbürg concentration camp was located here.- History :The... , Sachsenhausen Sachsenhausen concentration camp Sachsenhausen or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used primarily for political prisoners from 1936 to the end of the Third Reich in May, 1945. After World War II, when Oranienburg was in the Soviet Occupation Zone, the structure was used as an NKVD... , Gross-Rosen, Buchenwald, and Dachau, and to Mauthausen Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp Mauthausen Concentration Camp grew to become a large group of Nazi concentration camps that was built around the villages of Mauthausen and Gusen in Upper Austria, roughly east of the city of Linz.Initially a single camp at Mauthausen, it expanded over time and by the summer of 1940, the... in Austria. Nearly 60,000 prisoners are forced on death marches from the Auschwitz camp system. As many as 15,000 die. Thousands more are killed in the days before the evacuation. |
|
| January 27, 1945 |  |
Soviet troops enter the Auschwitz camp complex and liberate 7,000 prisoners, including children. |
| March 11, 1946 | British troops capture the camp's first commandant, Rudolf Höss, who is living as a farmer called Franz Lang. | |
| April 16, 1947 |  |
Poland sentences Rudolf Höss to death on April 2, 1947 and he is hanged on April 16. |
After the war
After the war, parts of Auschwitz 1 and/or its guards' quarters served first as a hospital for sick liberated prisoners. Until 1947 some of the facilities were used as an NKVDNKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
and MBP
Ministry of Public Security of Poland
The Ministry of Public Security of Poland was a Polish communist secret police, intelligence and counter-espionage service operating from 1945 to 1954 under Jakub Berman of the Politburo...
prison camp. The Buna–Werke were taken over by the Polish government and became the foundation for the region's chemical industry. At Auschwitz 1 the Gestapo building was demolished and on its site was built a gallows
Gallows
A gallows is a frame, typically wooden, used for execution by hanging, or by means to torture before execution, as was used when being hanged, drawn and quartered...
on which Standartenführer
Standartenführer
Standartenführer was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that was used in the so-called Nazi combat-organisations: SA, SS, NSKK and the NSFK...
SS Rudolf Höss was hanged on April 17, 1947 for numerous war crimes. On November 24, 1947, the Auschwitz trial
Auschwitz trial
The Auschwitz trial began on November 24, 1947, in Kraków, when Polish authorities tried 41 former staff of the Auschwitz concentration camps. The trials ended on December 22, 1947....
began in Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
, when the Poland's Supreme National Tribunal
Supreme National Tribunal
The Supreme National Tribunal was a war crime tribunal active in Poland from 1946 to 1948, with jurisdiction over fascist-hitlerite criminals and traitors to the Polish nation.The tribunal presided over seven high-profile cases ....
tried 41 former staff of the Auschwitz concentration camps complex. The trials ended on December 22, 1947, with 23 death sentences issued, as well as 16 imprisonments ranging from life sentence to 3 years.
After liberation, local Polish farming population returning to the area searched the ruins of Birkenau thoroughly for re-usable fallen bricks, so they could rebuild farm buildings for shelter needed for the next winter. That explains the "missing rubble" argument brought up by Holocaust deniers
Holocaust denial
Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...
.
Today, at Birkenau the entrance building and some of the southern brick-built barracks survive; but of the almost 300 wooden barracks, only 19 have been reconstructed from authentic materials: 18 near the entrance building and one, on its own, farther away. All that survives of the others are chimneys, remnants of a largely ineffective means of heating. Many of these wooden buildings were constructed from prefabricated sections made by a company that intended them to be used as stables; inside, numerous metal rings for the tethering of horses can still be seen.
Creation of the museum
The Polish government decided to restore Auschwitz I and turn it into a museum honouring the victims of NazismNazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
; Auschwitz II, where buildings (many of which were prefabricated wood structures) were prone to decay, was preserved but not restored. Today, the Auschwitz I museum site combines elements from several periods into a single complex: for example the gas chamber at Auschwitz I (which had been converted into an air-raid shelter for the SS
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
) was restored and the fence was moved (because of building work being done after the war but before the museum was established). However, in most cases the departure from the historical truth is minor, and is clearly labelled. The museum contains many men's, women's and children's shoes taken from their victims; also suitcases, which the deportees were encouraged to bring with them, and many household utensils. One display case, some 30 metres (98.4 ft) long, is wholly filled with human hair which the Nazis gathered from people before they were sent to labor or before and after they were killed.
Auschwitz II and the remains of the gas chambers there are open to the public. The camp is on the list of UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
World Heritage Sites. The ashes of the victims were scattered between the huts, and the entire area is regarded as a grave site. Most of the buildings of Auschwitz I are still standing. The public entrance area is outside the perimeter fence
Perimeter fence
A perimeter fence is a structure that circles the perimeter of an area to prevent access. These fences are frequently made out of single vertical metal bars connected at the top and bottom with a horizontal bar. They often have spikes on the top to prevent climbing. Residential perimeter fences are...
in what was the camp admission building, where new prisoners were registered and given their uniforms. At the far end of Birkenau are memorial plaques
Commemorative plaque
A commemorative plaque, or simply plaque, is a plate of metal, ceramic, stone, wood, or other material, typically attached to a wall, stone, or other vertical surface, and bearing text in memory of an important figure or event...
in many languages, including Romani
Romani language
Romani or Romany, Gypsy or Gipsy is any of several languages of the Romani people. They are Indic, sometimes classified in the "Central" or "Northwestern" zone, and sometimes treated as a branch of their own....
.
The museum has allowed scenes for three films to be filmed on the site: Pasażerka (1963) by Polish director Andrzej Munk, Landscape After the Battle
Landscape After the Battle
Landscape After the Battle is a 1970 drama film directed by Andrzej Wajda and starring Daniel Olbrychski; telling a story of a Nazi German concentration camp survivor soon after liberation, residing in a DP camp somewhere in Germany. It is based on the writings of Holocaust survivor and Polish...
(1970) by Polish director Andrzej Wajda
Andrzej Wajda
Andrzej Wajda is a Polish film director. Recipient of an honorary Oscar, he is possibly the most prominent member of the unofficial "Polish Film School"...
, and a television miniseries War and Remembrance
War and Remembrance
War and Remembrance is a novel by Herman Wouk, published in 1978, which is the sequel to The Winds of War. It continues the story of the extended Henry family and the Jastrow family starting on 15 December 1941 and ending on 6 August 1945. This novel was adapted into a mini-series presented on...
(1978). Permission was denied to Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
to film scenes for Schindler's List
Schindler's List
Schindler's List is a 1993 American film about Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who saved the lives of more than a thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories. The film was directed by Steven Spielberg, and based on the novel Schindler's Ark...
(1993). A "mirror" camp was constructed outside the infamous archway for the scene where the train arrives carrying the women who were saved by Oskar Schindler
Oskar Schindler
Oskar Schindler was an ethnic German industrialist born in Moravia. He is credited with saving over 1,100 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and ammunitions factories, which were located in what is now Poland and the Czech Republic respectively.He is the subject of the...
.
"Arbeit macht frei" sign theft
Arbeit macht frei
"'" is a German phrase, literally "work makes free," meaning "work sets you free" or "work liberates". The slogan is known for having been placed over the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust, including most infamously Auschwitz I, where it was made by prisoners...
" sign over the entrance to Auschwitz I was stolen in the early morning of December 18, 2009. The thieves unscrewed the sign at one end and broke it off its mountings at the other end, then carried the sign 300 metres to a hole in the concrete wall, where they cut four metal bars blocking the opening. After the theft, authorities replaced the stolen sign with a replica, which was originally made to replace the original sign while it was being restored some years earlier. Such was the concern about its theft that Poland declared a state of emergency.
Police found the sign, cut into three parts, in northern Poland two days later in the home of one of five men who were arrested. An unnamed overseas buyer is believed to have been involved. Polish police said that the five were common thieves, not neo-Nazis. The original sign was welded back together on site and will probably form part of a new exhibition. An improved security system will be put in place.
The sign was made by Polish workers on Nazi orders after the Auschwitz barracks were converted into a labor camp
Labor camp
A labor camp is a simplified detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons...
to house captured Polish resistance fighters in 1940.
The Aftonbladet
Aftonbladet
Aftonbladet is a Swedish tabloid founded by Lars Johan Hierta in 1830 during the modernization of Sweden. It is one of the larger daily newspapers in the Nordic countries. Aftonbladet is owned by the Swedish Trade Union Confederation and Norwegian media group Schibsted, and its editorial page...
newspaper reported that the sign had been stolen by Polish thieves paid by and working on behalf of a Swedish right-wing extremist group hoping to use proceeds from the proposed sale of the sign to a collector of Nazi memorabilia, to finance a series of terror attacks aimed at influencing voters in upcoming Swedish parliamentary elections. The theft was organised by the Swedish former Nazi, Anders Högström.
On March 18, 2010, a Polish court sentenced three men to prison for stealing the sign. They pleaded guilty. The sentences were from 18 months to 30 months. They were fined £2,300 each. Two of them were granted compassionate leave, but in April the three did not report to the prison to serve their sentences, and police were trying to find them.
It has been announced that the sign will not be returned to its old location, but rather will only be shown in an enclosed room of the museum.
See also
- Auschwitz AlbumAuschwitz Albumthumb|right|440px|[[Hungarian Jew]]s on the Judenrampe after disembarking from the [[Holocaust train|transport trains]], to be sent rechts! - to the right - meant labor; links! - to the left - the [[gas chamber]]s. Photo from the [[Auschwitz Album]] The Auschwitz Album is a unique photographic...
– a collection of pictures taken at Auschwitz during its operation. - Auschwitz TrialAuschwitz trialThe Auschwitz trial began on November 24, 1947, in Kraków, when Polish authorities tried 41 former staff of the Auschwitz concentration camps. The trials ended on December 22, 1947....
- Central Labour Camp JaworznoCentral Labour Camp JaworznoCentral Labour Camp Jaworzno was a concentration camp in Jaworzno, Poland. It operated from 1943 until 1956, first run by Nazi Germany and then by the Soviet Union with the People's Republic of Poland...
Arbeitslager Neu-Dachs (Jaworzno) - Frankfurt Auschwitz TrialsFrankfurt Auschwitz trialsThe Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials, known in German as der Auschwitz-Prozess or der zweite Auschwitz-Prozess, was a series of trials running from December 20, 1963 to August 10, 1965, charging 22 defendants under German penal law for their roles in the Holocaust as mid- to lower-level officials in the...
- Höcker AlbumHöcker AlbumThe Höcker Album is a collection of photographs believed to have been collected by Karl-Friedrich Höcker, an officer of the SS during the Nazi regime in Germany. It contains over one hundred images of the lives and living conditions of the officers and administrators who ran the...
- International Auschwitz CommitteeInternational Auschwitz CommitteeThe International Auschwitz Committee was formed by survivors of the Auschwitz death camp in 1952 for the support of the survivors and to fight racism and anti-Semitism...
- Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and EugenicsKaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and EugenicsThe Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics was founded in 1927. The Rockefeller Foundation supported both the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Psychiatry and the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics...
- List of Nazi concentration camps
- List of victims and survivors of Auschwitz
- Oświęcim synagogue
- Przyszowice massacrePrzyszowice massacreThe Przyszowice massacre was a massacre perpetrated by the Red Army against civilian inhabitants of the Polish village of Przyszowice in Upper Silesia during the period January 26 to January 28, 1945. Sources vary on the number of victims, which range from 54 to over 60 – and possibly as many as 69...
- Research Materials: Max Planck Society ArchiveResearch Materials: Max Planck Society ArchiveAt the end of World War II, the Kaiser Wilhelm Society was renamed the Max Planck Society, and the institutes associated with the Kaiser Wilhelm Society were renamed "Max Planck" institutes. The records that were archived under the former Kaiser Wilhelm Society and its institutes were placed in the...
- Shark Island, German South West Africa
- SS command of Auschwitz concentration campSS command of Auschwitz concentration campThe SS command of Auschwitz concentration camp refers to those units, commands, and agencies of the German SS which operated and administered the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II; it is not a list of all personnel who served at Auschwitz, but does include those in command positions...
- Survivor syndrome
Further reading
- Memorial and museum website
- Boyne, John (2006). The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas Great Britain: David Fickling Books, 2006 ISBN 0-385-75106-0
- Borowski, Tadeusz (1976). This Way for the Gas, Ladies and GentlemenThis Way for the Gas, Ladies and GentlemenThis Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, also known as Ladies and Gentlemen, to the Gas Chamber, is a collection of short stories by Tadeusz Borowski, which were inspired by the author's concentration camp experience. The original title in the Polish language was Pożegnanie z Marią...
(Penguin Classics) trans. from the Polish by Barbara Vedder. Penguin Books, 1976 ISBN 0-14-018624-7 - Cyra, Adam (2000). Ochotnik do Auschwitz – Witold Pilecki 1901–1948, Oświęcim 2000. ISBN 83-912000-3-5
- Dlugoborski, Waclaw, and Franciszek Piper (eds.) (2000). Auschwitz, 1940–1945: Central Issues in the History of the Camp Five Vols. Oświęcim: Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. ISBN 83-85047-87-5
- Gilbert, Martin (1981). Auschwitz and the Allies New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981 Photographs, maps. ISBN 0-03-057058-1
- Muller, Filip Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers Ivan R Dee Inc, 1999 ISBN 1-56663-271-4
- Nyisli, Miklos Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eye-witness Account Mayflower, 1977 ASIN B000QIZILC
- van Pelt, Robert Jan. The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from the Irving Trial. Indiana University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-253-34016-0
- Druhasvetovavalka.cz, – Pages show pictures and videos of the day taken at places connected with World War II
- Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum , , – Official website
- A Virtual Tour of Auschwitz/Birkenau Annotated images of the camp (accessed February 14, 2008)
- Interactive image map of Birkenau
- Auschwitz Jewish Center situated in the town of Oświęcim Auschwitz-Birkenau and city Oswiecim
- Data and summary facts
- Video footage from a 2003 visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau
- Selected Photos from the Auschwitz Album with commentary by Oliver Lustig
- Liberation of Auschwitz – 60th Anniversary United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Holocaust Encyclopedia – Auschwitz United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Cybrary of the Holocaust Holocaust education site
- Anna Heilman Anna Heilman is the last living survivor of the plot to blow up Crematorium IV at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Her Holocaust experiences are discussed in her novel Never Far Away: The Auschwitz Chronicle of Anna Heilman
- Auschwitz-Birkenau 2005 Photographs and commentary marking the 60th anniversary of the camp's liberation
- Photos From Auschwitz and Birkenau Detailed Photos From Auschwitz and Birkenau by Alan Jacobs
- Virtual Reality panoramas of Auschwitz and Birkenau Interactive Virtual Reality panoramas of Auschwitz and Birkenau
- Auschwitz, Then and Now Photo/Art Exhibit Paintings by survivor Jan Komski – click and see an actual photo taken in the same place depicted in the painting
- Auschwitz: The Nazis and the 'Final Solution', BBC.
- The Simon Wiesenthal Center
- Auschwitz and Birkenau at Google Maps
- CBC Digital Archives – Life after Auschwitz
External links
- Escape From Auschwitz
- Auschwitz Memorial
- The Auschwitz Album – Online exhibition from Yad Vashem
- The Auschwitz-Birkenau Blueprints- Architecture of Murder – Online exhibition from Yad Vashem