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The Nazis used a variety of camps throughout their time in power to persecute, control and, eventually, murder their opponents.

This section will explain the different types of camps used at different points by the Nazis.

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The Nazis used a variety of camps throughout their time in power to persecute, control and, eventually, murder their opponents. This section will explain the different types of camps used at different points by the Nazis.

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I. Introduction
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II. Point 1 (Background of the camp)
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III. Point 2 (Statistics of Auschwitz)
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IV. Point 3 (Unique from other camps)
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V. Conclusion
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Auschwitz was the largest and deadliest of six dedicated extermination camps where hundreds of thousands of people were tortured and murdered during World War II and the Holocaust under the orders of Nazi dictator, Adolf Hitler.

As one of the greatest tragedies of the modern age, the Holocaust has inspired countless films and books. These works have helped audience members and readers grapple with what happened to individuals during this period. The scale of these horrors, however, can be difficult to grasp. Below are some of the devastating facts and figures associated with the Auschwitz camp complex, which operated in German-occupied Poland from 1940 until its liberation on January 27, 1945.

How many were sent to Auschwitz: 1.3 million

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum estimates that 1.3 million people were sent to the camp complex in occupied Poland. Of this total, nearly 1.1 million were Jews, 960,000 of which died in the camp. The other approximately 200,000 people were predominantly made up of non-Jewish Poles, the mentally challenged, Roma people, homosexuals and Soviet prisoners of war.

How many were killed at Auschwitz: 1.1 million

Approximately 1.1 million prisoners, or about 85 percent of people sent to Auschwitz, were murdered at the complex.

How many were liberated in 1945: 7,000

Among the 7,000 people liberated at the closure of the camps, most were very ill, or close to death. Weeks earlier, with Soviet forces approaching the camp system, nearly 60,000 prisoners had been evacuated and forced to march west toward Wodzislaw, away from the complex on what are today known as the death marches. More than 15,000 people died on these marches, often succumbing to exposure, starvation, or cold weather. Those who could not keep up were shot by SS guards.

Years of operation: 5

The first of the three camps opened in 1940. All of them were eventually shut down in 1945 after the camps were liberated by the Soviet army.

Acres taken up by the camps: 500

Much of the site of the death camp was cleared by forced labor. Today, 155 buildings and 300 ruins remain on the site.

Hungarians sent to Auschwitz: 426,000

More prisoners came from Hungary than any other country, with people from Poland (300,000) and France (69,000) making up the next largest national groups.

Children sent to Auschwitz: 232,000

Among the total number of children sent to Auschwitz, the exact number who were killed remains unknown. However, on a single day- October 10, 1944 -800 children were gassed to death.

Pairs of shoes left behind by victims: 110,000

A giant pile of shoes left behind by the camps' victims are preserved by the Auschwitz-Birkenau foundation, whose inventory also comprises 3,800 suitcases; more than 88 pounds of eyeglasses; 379 striped uniforms; 246 prayer shawls, and more than 12,000 pots and pans brought to the camp by victims who believed they would eventually be resettled.

Prisoners who attempted to escape: 928

Among the number of prisoners who attempted to escape, 196 were successful and lived to see the end of the war. Many of them were helped by local Polish civilians, who hated the SS and the camp. In July 1940, in a letter to the SS commander and local Wrocław police, the Auschwitz commander observed that the local population was "ready to do anything against the hated camp SS garrison. Every prisoner who manages to escape can count on all possible help as soon as he reaches the first Polish homestead."

Prisoners held in each barrack: 1,200

The two-story barracks were originally designed to hold about 700 prisoners.

Number of staff: 8,400

Over its five-year tenure, some 8,400 worked at the camps, including 200 female guards. According to the limited available information, many were Catholic or Lutheran. Of 1,209 Auschwitz SS men, 70 percent had only an elementary education, while 5.5 percent had education beyond secondary school.

Number of staff eventually charged with crimes: 673

While some of the 673 charged with crimes were sentenced to death or spent years in prison, many were acquitted of their crimes. Other former SS workers known to have worked in the camps were called by the court as witnesses but did not face trial, themselves.

HISTORY Vault: World War II

Fact Check

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Horrors of Auschwitz: The Numbers Behind WWII's Deadliest Concentration Camp | HISTORY

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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.

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Still to this day, Auschwitz is one of the worst places in history/on Earth.

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Still to this day, Auschwitz is one of the worst places in history/on Earth.

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- "The reason for the establishment of the camp was the fact that mass arrests of Poles were increasing beyond the capacity of existing "local" prisons."

- The camp was created in the early 1930s.

- The camp was established on the grounds and the buildings of the prewar Polish barracks.

- Based off this information, it shows how awful the history/background of Auschwitz really was.

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- All of the camps were eventually shut down in 1945.

- "More than 15,000 people died on these marches, often succumbing to exposure, starvation, or cold weather."

- Eighty-five percent of people sent to Auschwitz, were later murdered at the camp.

-"More prisoners came from Hungary than any other country."

- Based off the statistics, you can see a glimpse of how miserable Auschwitz really was.

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78th ANNIVERSARY OF THE LIBERATION OF AUSCHWITZ
27 JANUARY 2023

On January 27, a group of 18 Auschwitz and Holocaust Survivors met at the former Auschwitz camp to commemorate the 78th anniversary of the liberation of this German Nazi concentration and extermination camp. The main theme of the anniversary was the process of planning, creating and expanding the system of dehumanisation and genocide at Auschwitz, which was particularly strongly defined by the words of survivor Marian Turski 'Auschwitz did not fall from the sky'.

On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the creation of the Auschwitz Memorial, the US State Department organized a ceremony that recognized the singular role the historic site has played in preserving Holocaust memory.

During the event held on 13 July in Washington D.C. the Auschwitz Museum director Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywinski has been honored with a National Leadership Award from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

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78th ANNIVERSARY OF THE LIBERATION OF AUSCHWITZ 27 JANUARY 2023 On January 27, a group of 18 Auschwitz and Holocaust Survivors met at the former Auschwitz camp to commemorate the 78th anniversary of the liberation of this German Nazi concentration and extermination camp.

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Auschwitz: Genesis of Death Camps

After the start of World War II, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), the chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, implemented a policy that came to be known as the "Final Solution." Hitler was determined not just to isolate Jews in Germany and countries annexed by the Nazis, subjecting them to dehumanizing regulations and random acts of violence. Instead, he became convinced that his "Jewish problem" would be solved only with the elimination of every Jew in his domain, along with artists, educators, Romas, communists, homosexuals, the mentally and physically handicapped and others deemed unfit for survival in Nazi Germany.

Did you know? In October 1944, 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. Unlike concentration camps, which had existed in Germany since 1933 and were detention centers for Jews, political prisoners and other perceived enemies of the Nazi state, death camps existed for the sole purpose of killing Jews and other "undesirables," in what became known as the Holocaust.

Auschwitz: The Largest of the Death Camps

Auschwitz, the largest and arguably the most notorious of all the Nazi death camps, opened in the spring of 1940. Its first commandant was Rudolf Höss (1900-47), who previously had helped run the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany. Auschwitz was located on a former military base outside Oswiecim, a town in southern Poland situated near Krakow, one of the country's largest cities. During the camp's construction, nearby factories were appropriated and all those living in the area were forcibly ejected from their homes, which were bulldozed by the Nazis.

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 1939. These detainees included anti-Nazi activists, politicians, resistance members and luminaries from the cultural and scientific communities. Once Hitler's Final Solution became official Nazi policy, however, Auschwitz was deemed an ideal death camp locale. 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. Those deemed fit to work were employed as slave labor in the production of munitions, synthetic rubber and other products considered essential to Germany's efforts in World War II.

Auschwitz and Its Subdivisions

At its peak of operation, Auschwitz consisted of several divisions. The original camp, known as Auschwitz I, housed between 15,000 and 20,000 political prisoners. Those entering its main gate were greeted with an infamous and ironic inscription: "Arbeit Macht Frei," or "Work Makes You Free."

Auschwitz II, located in the village of Birkenau, or Brzezinka, was constructed in 1941 on the order of Heinrich Himmler (1900-45), commander of the "Schutzstaffel" (or Select Guard/Protection Squad, more commonly known as the SS), which operated all Nazi concentration camps and death camps. Birkenau, the biggest of the Auschwitz facilities, could hold some 90,000 prisoners.

It also housed a group of bathhouses where countless people were gassed to death, and crematory ovens where bodies were burned. The majority of Auschwitz victims died at Birkenau. More than 40 smaller facilities, called subcamps, dotted the landscape and served as slave-labor camps. The largest of these subcamps, Monowitz, also known as Auschwitz III, began operating in 1942 and housed some 10,000 prisoners.

Life and Death in Auschwitz

By mid-1942, the majority of those being sent by the Nazis to Auschwitz were Jews. Upon arriving at the camp, detainees were examined by Nazi doctors. Those detainees considered unfit for work, including young children, the elderly, pregnant women and the infirm, were immediately ordered to take showers. However, the bathhouses to which they marched were disguised gas chambers. Once inside, the prisoners were exposed to Zyklon-B poison gas. Individuals marked as unfit for work were never officially registered as Auschwitz inmates. For this reason, it is impossible to calculate the number of lives lost in the camp.

For those prisoners who initially escaped the gas chambers, an undetermined number died from overwork, disease, insufficient nutrition or the daily struggle for survival in brutal living conditions. Arbitrary executions, torture and retribution happened daily in front of the other prisoners.

Some Auschwitz prisoners were subjected to inhumane medical experimentation. The chief perpetrator of this barbaric research was Josef Mengele (1911-79), a German physician who began working at Auschwitz in 1943. Mengele, who came to be known as the "Angel of Death," performed a range of experiments on detainees. For example, in an effort to study eye color, he injected serum into the eyeballs of dozens of children, causing them excruciating pain. He also injected chloroform into the hearts of twins to determine if both siblings would die at the same time and in the same manner.

Liberation of Auschwitz: 1945

As 1944 came to a close and the defeat of Nazi Germany by the Allied forces seemed certain, the Auschwitz commandants began destroying evidence of the horror that had taken place there. Buildings were torn down, blown up or set on fire, and records were destroyed.

In January 1945, as the Soviet army entered Krakow, the Germans ordered that Auschwitz be abandoned. Before the end of the month, in what came to be known as the Auschwitz death marches, an estimated 60,000 detainees, accompanied by Nazi guards, departed the camp and were forced to march to the Polish towns of Gliwice or Wodzislaw, some 30 miles away. Countless prisoners died during this process; those who made it to the sites were sent on trains to concentration camps in Germany.

When the Soviet army entered Auschwitz on January 27, they found approximately 7,600 sick or emaciated detainees who had been left behind barbed wire. The liberators also discovered mounds of corpses, hundreds of thousands of pieces of clothing and pairs of shoes and seven tons of human hair that had been shaved from detainees before their liquidation. According to some estimates, between 1.1 million to 1.5 million people, the vast majority of them Jews, died at Auschwitz during its years of operation. An estimated 70,000 to 80,000 Poles perished at the camp, along with 19,000 to 20,000 Romas and smaller numbers of Soviet prisoners of war and other individuals.

Auschwitz Today

Today, Auschwitz is open to the public as the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum. It tells the story of the largest mass murder site in history and acts as a reminder of the horrors of genocide.

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

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Auschwitz: Concentration Camp, Facts, Location

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After the start of World War II, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), the chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, implemented a policy that came to be known as the "Final Solution." Hitler was determined not just to isolate Jews in Germany and countries annexed by the Nazis, subjecting them to dehumanizing regulations and random acts of violence.

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- Auschwitz consisted of a concentration camp, an extermination camp, and a forced labor camp. Most camps did not have all of these different camps in them.

- Also, there is a lot more deaths at this camp than many others.

-¨During the camp’s construction, nearby factories were appropriated and all those living in the area were forcibly ejected from their homes, which were bulldozed by the Nazis.¨ This way due to how big the camp was.

-  There was a lot of concentration camps during this time period, but¨Auschwitz was deemed an ideal death camp.¨

- According to this information,  you can clearly see how this camp was one of the worst places on earth.