Auschwitz-Birkenau Extermination Camp
Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest of the Nazi extermination and concentration camp complexes, located near the town of Oswiecim in occupied Polish Silesia. Established in 1940 as a camp for Polish political prisoners, it expanded rapidly into a three-part complex: Auschwitz I (the original camp, administrative centre), Auschwitz II-Birkenau (the principal extermination site, with four gas chamber and crematorium units operational from 1942), and Auschwitz III-Monowitz (a slave-labour camp supplying IG Farben's synthetic rubber plant). By 1944 the Birkenau facilities could kill and cremate up to 4,400 people per day. Deportees arrived by train from across occupied Europe — France, Greece, the Netherlands, Hungary, Italy, and elsewhere — selected on arrival ramps by SS physicians: those deemed fit for work entered the camp system; those deemed unfit (the majority of each transport, including virtually all children under 14 and most women with young children) were directed to the gas chambers within hours of arrival. Over 1.1 million people were murdered at Auschwitz, approximately 90% of them Jews. The camp was liberated by Soviet forces on 27 January 1945, finding approximately 7,000 survivors; the SS had evacuated 60,000 prisoners westward on death marches in the preceding days.
- Year: 1942 CE
- Category: Political
