Auschwitz Birkenau

Auschwitz concentration camp sometimes called Auschwitz Birkenau or simply just Auschwitz was a Nazi Concentration Camp that was in operation during World War II. It was built in Poland and thousands of Jews died there either in the gas chambers or through human experimentation often conducted by Josef Mengele. When it was liberated by the Soviets, the Nazi's tried to destroy it but they failed and as of today it still stands and is now a tourist attraction.

The gate to Auschwitz

Auschwitz is also the subject of a documentary film called Auschwitz:The Nazis and the "Final Solution"

History

After Germany sparked World War II by invading Poland in September 1939, the Schutzstaffel (SS) converted Auschwitz I, an army barracks, into a prisoner-of-war camp for Polish political prisoners. The first inmates, German criminals brought to the camp in May 1940 as functionaries, established the camp's reputation for sadism. Prisoners were beaten, tortured, and executed for the most trivial reasons.

The first gassings—of Soviet and Polish prisoners—took place in block 11 of Auschwitz I around August 1941. Construction of Auschwitz II began the following month, and from 1942 until late 1944 freight trains delivered Jews from all over German-occupied Europe to its gas chambers. Of the 1.3 million people sent to Auschwitz, 1.1 million died. The death toll includes 960,000 Jews (865,000 of whom were gassed on arrival), 74,000 ethnic Poles, 21,000 Roma, 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war, and up to 15,000 other Europeans. Those not gassed died of starvation, exhaustion, disease, individual executions, or beatings. Others were killed during medical experiments.

At least 802 prisoners tried to escape, 144 successfully, and on 7 October 1944 two Sonderkommando units, consisting of prisoners who staffed the gas chambers, launched an unsuccessful uprising. Only 789 staff (no more than 15 percent) ever stood trial; several were executed, including camp commandant Rudolf Höss. The Allies' failure to act on early reports of atrocities by bombing the camp or its railways remains controversial.

As the Soviet Red Army approached Auschwitz in January 1945, toward the end of the war, the SS sent most of the camp's population west on a death march to camps inside Germany and Austria. Soviet troops entered the camp on 27 January 1945, a day commemorated since 2005 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

In the decades after the war, survivors such as Primo Levi, Viktor Frankl, and Elie Wiesel wrote memoirs of their experiences, and the camp became a dominant symbol of the Holocaust. In 1947, Poland founded the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum on the site of Auschwitz I and II, and in 1979 it was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Notable personnel

• Rudolf Höß, commandant
• Hans Aumeier, deputy commandant
• Richard Baer, commandant of Auschwitz I
• Fritz Hartjenstein, commandant of Auschwitz II
• Arthur Liebehenschel, second commandant
• Josef Mengele, doctor
• Margot Dreschel, prison guard
• Johanna Langefeld, women's camp overseer
• Maria Mandel, second women's camp overseer
• Irma Grese, "The Hyena of Auschwitz", prison guard
• Horst Schumann, doctor
• Therese Brandl, prison guard
• Carl Clauberg, civilian physician
• Josef Kramer, senior adjutant officer
• Klaus Dylewski, head of interrogation
• Maximilian Grabner, Gestapo office chief
• Franz Hössler, work service leader
• Hans Möser, patrol guard