POLAND: Auschwitz Birkenau German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp (1940-1945)

    Auschwitz Concentration Camp is the symbol of humanity's cruelty to its fellows in the 20th century. This monument to the martyrdom and resistance of millions of men, women and children is not a historical museum in the usual sense of the word: it bears irrefutable witness to one of the greatest crimes ever perpetrated against humanity.

    Preserved in the condition in which they existed in 1947 at the time of the founding of the museum, the walls, barbed wire, platforms, barracks, gallows, gas chambers and cremation ovens all recreate the conditions under which the Nazi genocide took place in the former concentration and extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest in the Third Reich.

   This is the largest cemetery in the world: 4 million people of many nationalities from 24 different countries, among them many Jews, were systematically starved, tortured and murdered. Archives, photographs and exhibits illustrate the methods used by the SS, as well as their efficiency.

It was established by the Nazis in 1940, in the suburbs of the town of Oświęcim which, like other parts of Poland, was occupied by the Germans during the Second World War. The name of the town was changed to Auschwitz, which became the name of the camp as well. Over the following years, the camp was expanded and eventually consisted of three main parts: the first and oldest was the so-called 'main camp', later also known as Auschwitz I (the number of prisoners fluctuated around 15,000, sometimes rising above 20,000), which was established on the grounds and in the buildings of pre-war Polish barracks.

    The second part was the Birkenau camp (which held over 90,000 prisoners in 1944 - Jews, Poles, Roma (Gypsies), and others), also known as Auschwitz II; this was the largest part of the Auschwitz complex, with crude barracks, most of them wooden. The Nazis began building it in 1941 on the site of the village of Brzezinka, 3 km from Oświęcim. The Polish civilian population was evicted and their houses confiscated and demolished. The greater part of the apparatus of mass extermination was built in Birkenau and the majority of the victims were murdered here.
    Those who remained behind in the camp were liberated by Red Army soldiers on 27 January 1945. The 2 July 1947 Act of the Polish Parliament established the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum on the grounds of the two extant parts of the camp, Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau.