Auschwitz was a complex with more than 40 concentration and extermination camps, created and operated by Nazi Germany in the Polish region during World War II. Concentration camps were places used by the Nazis to imprison, enslave and murder millions of people, mostly Jews. His release took place on January 27, 1945, when Soviet Red Army troops invaded the camps and freed the prisoners who were still there.
Read too:Holocaust — the genocide of Jews committed by the Nazis in World War II
Topics of this article
- 1 - Summary about Auschwitz
- 2 - What is Auschwitz?
- 3 - Concentration camps
- 4 - Auschwitz I
- 5 - Auschwitz II
- 6 - Auschwitz III
- 7 - Arrival and execution at Auschwitz concentration camp
- 8 - What was life like in the camps?
- 9 - Liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp
- 10 - Auschwitz concentration camp today
- 11 - International Holocaust Remembrance Day
Summary about Auschwitz
- Auschwitz was a complex with more than 40 concentration and extermination camps, created and operated by Nazi Germany in the region of Poland during World War II.
- Concentration camps were used by the Nazis during World War II to imprison, enslave and murder millions of people, mostly Jews.
- Auschwitz I, called Stammlager, was the main camp within the complex. Initially organized as a forced labor camp, it was soon converted into an extermination facility, primarily against Polish prisoners.
- Auschwitz II, called Birkenau, was built under Himmler's orders in 1940. Planned to hold 97 thousand prisoners, it was the place of imprisonment and extermination of more than 125 thousand people, mainly Jews.
- Auschwitz III, called Monowitz, was a camp created in 1942 to solve the overcrowding of Auschwitz II and use prisoners as slave labor in factories for the pharmaceutical and chemical industry IG Farben.
- Prisoners were transported to the camp by rail, and upon arrival all prisoners were stripped naked. of their belongings, had their hair and beards cut, were tattooed with a serial number and dressed in uniforms prisoners.
- Life in the camps was devoted to the extermination of its prisoners: exhausting forced labor, lack of food and medical care, mass extermination in gas chambers, violence and oppression.
- On January 27, 1945, the Red Army invaded the camps and freed the 7500 prisoners left behind, the last of over a million who were imprisoned and murdered there.
- January 27 is the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust, referring to the date of liberation of the Auschwitz camp by the Soviet troops of the Red Army.
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What is Auschwitz?
Auschwitz was a complex with more than 40 concentration and extermination camps, created and operated by Nazi Germany in the region of Poland, annexed to German territory in 1939, at the beginning of World War II (1939-1945).
concentration camps
Concentration camps, also known as death camps, were sites used by the Nazis during World War II to imprison, enslave and murder millions of people, mostly Jews. Camp victims were mostly killed in the gas chambers, but in many camps deaths were caused by exhaustion from hard work and shooting.
Read too: Adolf Hitler — the biography of the leader of Nazism
Auschwitz I
Auschwitz I, called a Stammlager,was the main field within the complex. Its origin dates back to the First World War, in which housing for workers was built, later converted into facilities for the Polish army. Located 50 kilometers from the capital Cracow, the site was suggested to SS chief Heinrich Himmler as ideal for the construction of a prisoner quarantine camp, an idea approved in 1940.
You first prisoners arrived on 20 May 1940 and were classified as German career criminals, identified with a green triangle on their prison uniforms. Initially organized as a forced labor camp, it was soon converted into an extermination facility, primarily against Polish prisoners.
O field entrance gate bore the words “Arbeit macht frei”, which mean “work sets you free”, in German, a phrase interpreted as a gloomy foreshadowing of what would take place within these facilities.
![The emblematic gate of Auschwitz I, with the words “work sets you free” in German.[2]](/f/d290ddbacd9deb89ef7d3690a438e4e4.jpg)
Auschwitz II
The Auschwitz II camp, called Birkenau, was built under orders from Himmler in 1940. Planned to hold 97 thousand prisoners, it was the place of imprisonment and extermination of more than 125 thousand people, mainly Jews. There were 174 prison buildings, subdivided into small rooms, resulting in less than a square meter of space per prisoner.
There were gas chambers in this camp., built from 1942 onwards, with the aim of mass murdering prisoners. Essentially they were used for the murder of Jewish prisoners. One of the first gas chambers was located in a small red house known as bunker 1 of the SS, whose entrance door read “for disinfection”, in reference to racist genocidal thinking Nazi running.
![Photograph of “crematorium I”, space destined to cremate the murdered bodies in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.[3]](/f/0aff03fffe88a461bf33912b352b6524.jpg)
Auschwitz III
The Auschwitz III camp, also called Monowitz, was about seven kilometers from Auschwitz I and was larger than its neighbor. Its construction was carried out by prisoners, mainly Jews, forced to work, and lasted from 1942 to 1944. Data indicate that around 35,000 prisoners worked on the construction of the camp, with 23,000 of these having died as a result of treatments, such as lack of food, illness and overwork without rest, which resulted in a rate of 32 deaths per day.
A distinguishing feature of Auschwitz III Monowitz is that it was a camp created in 1942 to solve overcrowding at Auschwitz II and using prisoners as slave labor in the factories of the pharmaceutical and chemical industry IG Farben.
![Photograph of an IG Farben Industries factory at Auschwitz III – Monowitz.[4]](/f/36d38767cb233eb329a2346fd60ca7f6.jpg)
Arrival and execution at Auschwitz concentration camp
The first prisoners arrived at Auschwitz in June 1940 and were a group of 728 male political prisoners, among whom were Catholic and Jewish priests. The transport was done through railroads specially developed for this purpose., without which a genocide of this magnitude would not have been possible.
Upon arrival, all prisoners were stripped of their belongings, had their hair and beards cut (which for Jews especially meant a great humiliation), were tattooed with a serial number and dressed in prison uniforms, which contained symbols representing the group to which the prisoner belonged (such as the Star of David, for Jews).
Placed in small houses with no conditions of comfort and hygiene, the prisoners forced to work until the moment they were taken to the gas chambers to be murdered.
Read too: Anti-Semitism—Where Does Prejudice Against Jews Come From?
What was life like in the fields?
A life in the camps was devoted to the extermination of its prisoners: exhausting forced labor, lack of food and medical care, mass extermination in gas chambers, violence and oppression. While Nazi officials enjoyed comfort, the mostly Jewish prisoners were exterminated in what became known as Adolf Hitler's Final Solution to the Jewish Question.
![Photograph of one of the prisoner dormitory sections at Auschwitz I.[5]](/f/757cde8041018b1ec27abbdf78cda456.jpg)
Liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp
You Allies learned of the existence of Auschwitz thanks to the work of Polish army captain Witold Pilecki, who allowed himself to be imprisoned under the false Jewish name of Tomasz Serafinski on September 22, 1940. He escaped the camp on April 27, 1943 and left a legacy of resistance, organization and hope of escape in the camp. From that contact, revolts and escapes became constant in the Auschwitz complex.
In 1944, Allied Red Army troops (belonging to the Soviet Union) planned to invade and liberate the camps. Aware of this, based on information diverted by espionage, Heinrich Himmler ordered the destruction of the crematoriums, used to cremate the victims of the gas chambers.
Then Himmler ordered the summary execution of most of the prisoners who worked in the extermination complexes, with the aim of having no witnesses. As Nazi Germany was cornered in the war and realized its imminent defeat, the high command Nazis ordered the execution of all prisoners in the camps and their movement out of Auschwitz.
On January 27, 1945, the Red Army invaded the camps and freed the 7500 prisoners. left behind, the last of more than a million who were imprisoned and murdered there.
Auschwitz concentration camp today
In 1947, the Auschwitz camp has been turned into a museum, and so it remains to this day. The museum area houses elements from the complex's various camps, such as the gas chamber of Auschwtiz I and the administrative buildings. The entire complex was listed by Unesco as a World Heritage Site and has the function of educating future generations about the genocide practiced by the Nazis.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day
O January 27th is the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust, referring to the liberation date of the Auschwitz camp by Soviet Red Army troops. This date was set by the United Nations General Assembly and is especially remembered annually by the Jewish people.
image credits
[1] Wikimedia Commons
[2] Wikimedia Commons
[3] Wikimedia Commons
[4] Wikimedia Commons
[5] Wikimedia Commons
Sources
GILBERT, Martin. The Holocaust: History of Jews in Europe in World War II. So Paulo: Hucitec, 2010.
REES, Laurence. The Holocaust: A New History. São Paulo: Vestigio, 2020.
REISS, Carlos; EHLLICH, Michel. Holocaust: everything you need to know. Curitiba: Museum of the Holocaust of Curitiba, 2023.
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