Auschwitz, also known as Auschwitz-Birkenau, opened in and was the largest of the Nazi concentration and death camps. Located in southern Poland, Auschwitz initially served as a detention center for political prisoners. However, it evolved into a network of camps where Jewish people and other perceived enemies of the Nazi state were exterminated, often in gas chambers, or used as slave labor. Some prisoners were also subjected to barbaric medical experiments led by Josef Mengele During World War II , more than 1 million people, by some accounts, lost their lives at Auschwitz.
In January , with the Soviet army approaching, Nazi officials ordered the camp abandoned and sent an estimated 60, prisoners on a forced march to other locations. When the Soviets entered Auschwitz, they found thousands of emaciated detainees and piles of corpses left behind. Did you know? In October , a group of Auschwitz "Sonderkommando," young Jewish males responsible for removing corpses from crematoriums and gas chambers, staged a revolt. They assaulted their guards, using tools and makeshift explosives, and demolished a crematorium.
All were apprehended and killed. To complete this mission, Hitler ordered the construction of death camps. Auschwitz, the largest and arguably the most notorious of all the Nazi death camps, opened in the spring of Auschwitz originally was conceived as a concentration camp, to be used as a detention center for the many Polish citizens arrested after Germany annexed the country in These detainees included anti-Nazi activists, politicians, resistance members and luminaries from the cultural and scientific communities.
For one thing, it was situated near the center of all German-occupied countries on the European continent. For another, it was in close proximity to the string of rail lines used to transport detainees to the network of Nazi camps. However, not all those arriving at Auschwitz were immediately exterminated. Estimates suggest that Nazis murdered 85 percent of the people at Auschwitz. Here are the stories of three who survived.
How many were killed, how many children were sent to the site and the numbers of people who attempted to escape are among the facts that reveal the scale of crimes committed at Auschwitz. The Sonderkommando participated in the Nazi killing machine—and made sure the world knew what happened at Auschwitz.
