Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest of Nazi Germany's concentration camps. Its remains are located in Poland approximately 50 kilometres west of Kraków and 286 kilometers south from Warsaw. The camp took its name from the nearby town of Oświęcim (Auschwitz in German). Birkenau, the German translation of Brzezinka, refers to the many birch trees surrounding the complex.
The camp commandant, Rudolf Höß, testified at the Nuremberg Trials that up to 3 million people had died at Auschwitz. The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum has revised this figure to 1.1 million, about 90 percent of whom were Jews from almost every country in Europe.[3] Most victims were killed in Auschwitz II's gas chambers using Zyklon B; other deaths were caused by systematic starvation, forced labour, lack of disease control, individual executions, and purported "medical experiments".
In 1947, in remembrance of the victims, Poland founded a museum at the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp. By 1994, some 22 million visitors — 700,000 annually—had passed through the Iron Gate crowned with the motto "Arbeit macht frei".
The three main camps were:
Auschwitz I, the original concentration camp which served as the administrative centre for the whole complex, and was the site of the deaths of roughly 70,000 people, mostly Poles and Soviet prisoners of war.
Auschwitz II (Birkenau), an extermination camp or Vernichtungslager, where at least 960,000 Jews, 75,000 Poles, and some 19,000 Roma (Gypsies) were killed. Birkenau was the largest of all the Nazi extermination camps.
Auschwitz III (Monowitz), which served as a labour camp for the Buna-Werke factory of the I.G. Farben concern.
There were also around 40 satellite camps, some of them tens of kilometres from the main camps, with prisoner populations ranging from several dozen to several thousand.
Like all German concentration camps, the Auschwitz camps were operated by Heinrich Himmler's SS. The commandants of the camp were the SS-Obersturmbannführers Rudolf Höß until the summer of 1943, and later Arthur Liebehenschel and Richard Baer. Höß provided a detailed description of the camp's workings during his interrogations after the war and also in his autobiography. He was hanged in 1947 in front of the entrance to the crematorium of Auschwitz I.
The camp commandant, Rudolf Höß, testified at the Nuremberg Trials that up to 3 million people had died at Auschwitz. The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum has revised this figure to 1.1 million, about 90 percent of whom were Jews from almost every country in Europe.[3] Most victims were killed in Auschwitz II's gas chambers using Zyklon B; other deaths were caused by systematic starvation, forced labour, lack of disease control, individual executions, and purported "medical experiments".
In 1947, in remembrance of the victims, Poland founded a museum at the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp. By 1994, some 22 million visitors — 700,000 annually—had passed through the Iron Gate crowned with the motto "Arbeit macht frei".
The three main camps were:
Auschwitz I, the original concentration camp which served as the administrative centre for the whole complex, and was the site of the deaths of roughly 70,000 people, mostly Poles and Soviet prisoners of war.
Auschwitz II (Birkenau), an extermination camp or Vernichtungslager, where at least 960,000 Jews, 75,000 Poles, and some 19,000 Roma (Gypsies) were killed. Birkenau was the largest of all the Nazi extermination camps.
Auschwitz III (Monowitz), which served as a labour camp for the Buna-Werke factory of the I.G. Farben concern.
There were also around 40 satellite camps, some of them tens of kilometres from the main camps, with prisoner populations ranging from several dozen to several thousand.
Like all German concentration camps, the Auschwitz camps were operated by Heinrich Himmler's SS. The commandants of the camp were the SS-Obersturmbannführers Rudolf Höß until the summer of 1943, and later Arthur Liebehenschel and Richard Baer. Höß provided a detailed description of the camp's workings during his interrogations after the war and also in his autobiography. He was hanged in 1947 in front of the entrance to the crematorium of Auschwitz I.
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