Auschwitz II: Birkenau

Auschwitz concentration camp complex was the largest or its kind used by the Nazis. There were 3 main Auschwitz camps: Auschwitz I: Oswiecim, Auschwitz II: Birkenau, and Auschwitz III: Monowitz. All 3 camps incarcerated prisoners and forced them into labor. The camps were located about 37 miles from Krakow. About 1.1 million Jews were sent to 1 of these 3 camps. 200,000 other non-Jewish people were also sent so Auschwitz including non-Jewish Poles, Roman and Sinti (Gypsies), Soviet prisoners of war, and others (Soviet civilians, Lithuanians, Czechs, French, Yugoslavs, Germans, Austrians, and Italians).

Auschwitz II began being built in October 1941 in the area of Brezinka. People were imprisoned in Auschwitz II from 1941 until the end of summer in 1944 from almost every country in Europe. This camp had the largest total prisoner population of all 3 Auschwitz camps and could hold about 150,000 people at any given time.

Birkenau Concentration Camp

Auschwitz II was patrolled by SS guards and SS dog handlers. It was divided into more than a dozen sections separated by electrified barbed-wire fences. The sections of the camp included sections for women, men, a family camp for Roma (Gypsies) deported from Germany, Austria, and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and a family camp for Jewish families deported from the Theresienstadt ghetto.
 

Auschwitz II had facilities for killing massive amounts of people at a time. The SS tested gas chambers at Auschwitz I, but decided they weren’t up to par with what they wanted. Instead, Auschwitz II had 4 large crematorium buildings. In these buildings were a disrobing area, a large gas chamber, and crematorium ovens.
 

When people arrived to Auschwitz II, they were forced through a selections process. Those that were found unfit (the majority of people), were sent directly to the gas chambers, which looked like showers to trick the victims. The belongings of those killed, along with their hair, was sold and the money went to the Nazis.
 

On October. 7, 1944 hundreds of prisoners assigned to crematorium IV at Auschwitz II rebelled after learning they were about to be killed. They killed 3 guards and blew up the crematorium and gas chamber attached to it. The prisoners were able to get explosives though Jewish women who were in forced labor from a nearby armaments factory. The Germans killed almost every prisoner involved in the rebellion. The women that helped were publically hung in January 1945.

Crematorium IV

In January 1945, the SS began evacuating all 3 Auschwitz camps because Soviet forces were approaching. The SS forced about 60,000 prisoners to march west. Prisoners were forced to march to Gliwice (30 miles) or to Wodzislaw (35 miles). Prisoners were shot if they lagged behind. Many died from cold weather, starvation, and exposure. Once the prisoners arrived to 1 of the 2 camps, they were put on unheated freight trains and transported to concentration camps in Germany (Flossenburg, Sachsenhausen, Gross-Rosen, Buchenwald, Dachau) and Austria (Mauthausen). Many prisoners died because they were stuck on the trains for days without water, food, shelter, or blankets.


View Death March in a larger map
 

On January 27, 1945 the Soviet Army entered the 3 Auschwitz concentration camps and liberated 7,000 prisoners (many who were already dying and sick).
 

1.3 million people were sent to Auschwitz camps between 1940 and 1945. 1.1 of these 1.3 million were murdered.

The entrance of Birkenau today

References

 

Auschwitz Birkenau Nazi Concentration/Death Camp:1[Photograph]. (2010). Retrieved from http://www.krakow3d.com/auschwitz-birkenau.html

 

Birkenau Entrance Today [Photograph]. (2013). Retrieved from Jewish Virtual Library website: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/autoc.html

 

Crematorium IV [Photograph]. (n.d.). Retrieved from Jewish Virtual Library website: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/auconstruct.html

 

Jewish Virtual Library. (2013). Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. In The library. Retrieved from  http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/auschbirk.html

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. (2012, May 11). Auschwitz. In Holocaust encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005189