Auschwitz-Birkenau ( ) was the largest of
Nazi Germany's concentration camps and
extermination camps, operational during
World War II.
The camp
took its German name from the hosting town of Oświęcim
. Following the
German invasion of Poland in
September 1939, Oświęcim was
annexed by Nazi Germany
and renamed
Auschwitz, the town's
German name.
Birkenau, the German translation of
Brzezinka
(birch tree), refers to a
small Polish village nearby which later was mostly destroyed by the
Germans.
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%
of whom were Jews from almost every country in
Europe. Most victims were killed in Auschwitz II's
gas chambers using
Zyklon
B; other deaths were caused by systematic starvation, forced
labor, 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 first two camps. By 1994, some 22 million visitors
- 700,000 annually - had passed through the iron gate crowned with
the motto
Arbeit macht
frei (Work brings freedom).
The anniversary of the
liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet
troops on
January 27, 1945, is celebrated on International Holocaust
Remembrance Day, Holocaust Memorial Day in the
United
Kingdom
, and other similar memorial days in various
countries.
Camps
The three main camps were Auschwitz I, II, and III.
Auschwitz I, the
original concentration camp, served as the administrative center
for the whole complex, and was the site of the deaths of roughly
70,000 people, mostly ethnic Poles and
Soviet
prisoners of war. Auschwitz II (Birkenau
) was an
extermination camp or Vernichtungslager, and was the site
of the deaths of at least 960,000 Jews, 75,000 Poles, and some
19,000 Roma (Gypsies). Birkenau
was the largest of all the Nazi extermination camps.
Auschwitz III
(Monowitz
) served as a labor camp
for the Buna-Werke factory of the IG
Farben concern.
In November 2008, blueprints were discovered in a Berlin apartment
that suggest a major expansion of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp was
planned, although the authenticity of the documents has not been
independently confirmed. There were also around 40 satellite camps,
some of them tens of kilometers from the main camps, with prisoner
populations ranging from several dozen to several thousand. See
list of subcamps of
Auschwitz for others.
Like all
German
concentration camps, the Auschwitz camps were
operated by the Nazi party's paramilitary arm, the SS
.
Camp Commanders
Auschwitz I

Interior of the gas chamber of
Auschwitz I

Interior of the crematorium of
Auschwitz I.
This facility was much smaller than those of Auschwitz
II.

Another view of the crematorium of
Auschwitz I
Auschwitz I was the original camp, and it served as the
administrative center for the whole complex. The site for the camp,
in former Austrian military barracks, was chosen on January 25,
1940, by the Nazis. On April 27, 1940, Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich
Himmler signed the order that initates establishment of Auschwitz
Concentration Camp in Germany.
On May 5, 1940, Rudolf Höss was chosen as the first commandant of
Auschwitz Concentration Camp. On June 15, 1940, the Nazis opened
Auschwitz Concentration Camp, officially to provide 100,000 labour
force for
I.G. Farben Factory.
The camp was initially used for interning German criminals, then
Polish intellectuals and resistance movement members, then also for
Soviet Prisoners of War. Common German criminals, "anti-social
elements" and 48 German
homosexuals
were also imprisoned there. Later,
Jews were
sent to the camp as well, beginning with the very first shipment
(from Tarnów). At any time, the camp held between 13,000 and 16,000
inmates; in 1942 the number reached 20,000. The entrance to
Auschwitz I was—and still is—marked with the sign "
Arbeit Macht Frei", or "
work
makes (one) free". The camp's prisoners who left the camp
during the day for construction or farm labor were made to march
through the gate to the sounds of an orchestra. Contrary to what is
depicted in several films, the majority of the Jews were imprisoned
in the Auschwitz II camp, and did not pass under this sign.
The SS selected some prisoners, often German criminals, as
specially privileged supervisors of the other inmates (so-called:
kapo). Although
involved in numerous atrocities, only two were ever prosecuted for
their individual behavior; many had "little choice about their
actions". The various classes of prisoners were distinguishable by
special marks on their clothes; Jews and Soviet Prisoners of War
were generally treated the worst. All inmates had to work in the
associated arms factories, except on Sundays, which were reserved
for cleaning and showering and upon which there were no work
assignments.
The harsh work requirements, combined with poor nutrition and
hygiene, led to high death rates among the prisoners. Block 11 of
Auschwitz (the original standing cells and such were Block 13) was
the "prison within the prison", where violators of the numerous
rules were punished. Some prisoners were made to spend the nights
in "standing-cells". These cells were about , and four men would be
placed in them; they could do nothing but stand, and were forced
during the day to work with the other prisoners. In the basement
were located the "starvation cells"; prisoners incarcerated here
were given neither food nor water until they were dead.
In the basement were the "dark cells"; these cells had only a very
tiny window, and a solid door.
Prisoners placed in these cells would
gradually suffocate as they used up all of the oxygen in the cell;
sometimes the SS
would light
a candle in the cell to use up the oxygen more quickly. Many
were subjected to hanging with their hands behind their backs, thus
dislocating their shoulder joints for hours, even days.
The execution yard was between Blocks 10 and 11. In this area,
prisoners who were thought to merit individual execution received
it. Some were shot against a reinforced wall which was
reconstructed after the war; others suffered a more lingering death
by being suspended from hooks set in two wooden posts, which also
still exist. On September 3, 1941, deputy camp commandant
SS-
Hauptsturmführer Fritzsch experimented on 600 Russian
POWs and 250 ill Polish inmates by cramming them into
the basement of Block 11 and gassing them with
Zyklon B, a highly lethal
cyanide-based
pesticide.
This paved the way for the use of Zyklon B as an instrument for
extermination at Auschwitz, and a gas chamber and crematorium were
constructed by converting a bunker. This gas chamber operated from
1941 to 1942, during which time some 60,000 people were killed
therein; it was then converted into an air-raid shelter for the use
of the SS. This gas chamber still exists, together with the
associated crematorium, which was reconstructed after the war using
the original components, which remained on-site.
Auschwitz II (Birkenau)

Roll call in front of the camp
kitchen; SS photograph, 1944
Construction on Auschwitz II (Birkenau) began in October 1941 to
ease congestion at the main camp. It was designed to hold several
categories of prisoners, and to function as an
extermination camp in the context of
Himmler's preparations for the
Final Solution of
the Jewish Question, the extermination of the Jews.
The Nazis
had committed themselves to the Final Solution no later than
January 1942, the date of the Wannsee Conference
.
The first gas chamber at Birkenau was "The Little Red House", a
brick cottage that was converted into a gassing facility by tearing
out the inside and bricking up the walls. It was operational by
March 1942. A second brick cottage, "The Little White House", was
similarly converted some weeks later.

The July 1941 letter from Göring to
Heydrich concerning the "final solution" of the Jewish
question
In his Nuremberg testimony on April 15, 1946,
Rudolf Höß, the commandant of
Auschwitz, testified that Heinrich Himmler personally ordered him
to prepare Auschwitz to carry out the 'final solution':
Laurence Rees writes that Höß may have
misremembered the year this was said to him. Himmler did indeed
visit Höß in the summer of 1941, but there is no evidence that the
Final Solution had been planned at this stage. Rees writes that the
meeting predates the killings of Jewish men by the Einsatzgruppen
in the East and the expansion of the killings in July 1941.
It also
predates the Wannsee
Conference
. Rees speculates that the conversation with
Himmler was most likely in the summer of 1942. The first gassings,
using an industrial gas derived from
prussic acid and known by the brand name
Zyklon-B, were carried out at Auschwitz in
September 1941.
By July 1942, the SS were conducting the infamous "selections", in
which incoming Jews were divided into those deemed able to work,
who were then admitted to the camp, and those who weren't, who were
immediately gassed.
In early 1943, the Nazis decided to increase greatly the gassing
capacity of Birkenau. Crematorium II, originally designed as a
mortuary, with morgues in the basement and ground-level furnaces,
was converted into a killing factory by placing a gas-tight door on
the morgues and adding vents for Zyklon B and ventilation equipment
to remove the gas. It came online in March. Crematorium III was
built using the same design. Crematoria IV and V, designed from the
start as gassing centers, were also constructed that spring. By
June 1943 all four crematoria were up. Most victims were killed
during a period afterwards.
The camp was staffed partly by prisoners, some of whom were
selected to be
kapos (orderlies, most of
whom were convicts) and
sonderkommandos (workers at the
crematoria). The
kapos were responsible for keeping order
in the barrack huts; the
sonderkommandos prepared new
arrivals for gassing (ordering them to remove their clothing and
surrender their personal possessions) and transferred corpses from
the gas chambers to the furnaces, having first pulled out any gold
that the victims might have had in their teeth. Members of these
groups were killed periodically. The
kapos and
sonderkommandos were supervised by members of the SS;
altogether 6,000 SS members worked at Auschwitz.
Command of the women's camp, which was separated from the men's
area by the incoming railway line, was held in turn by
Johanna Langefeld,
Maria Mandel, and
Elisabeth Volkenrath.
Many people know the Birkenau camp simply as "Auschwitz"; it was
larger than Auschwitz I, and more people passed through its gates
than did those of Auschwitz I. It was the site of imprisonment of
hundreds of thousands, and of the killing of over one million
people, mainly Jews but also large numbers of
Poles, and
Gypsies,
mostly through gassing.
Selection process

150px-"Canada"Auschwitz.jpg" style='width:150px' alt=""
/>
The warehouse(s) in Auschwitz nicknamed "Canada," where goods
stolen from Jewish deportees were stored before being sent to
Germany or used by the SS
Prisoners were transported from all over German-occupied Europe by
rail, arriving at Auschwitz-Birkenau in daily convoys. Arrivals at
the complex were separated into two main groups - those marked for
immediate extermination, and those to be registered as prisoners.
The first group, about three-quarters of the total, went to the gas
chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau within a few hours; they included
almost all children, women with children, all the elderly, and all
those who appeared on brief and superficial inspection by an SS
doctor not to be fully fit. SS personnel told the victims that they
were to take a shower and undergo delousing. The victims would
undress in an outer chamber and walk into the gas chamber, which
was disguised as a shower facility, complete with dummy shower
heads. After the doors were shut, SS men would dump in the cyanide
pellets via (depending on which crematorium) holes in the roof or
windows on the side. In the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, more than
20,000 people could be gassed and cremated each day. At Birkenau,
the Nazis used a
cyanide gas produced from
Zyklon B pellets, which were manufactured
by two companies who had acquired licensing rights to the patent
held by
IG Farben.
The two companies
were Tesch & Stabenow, of
Hamburg
, who supplied two tons of the crystals each month,
and Degesch, of Dessau
, who
produced three-quarters of a ton. The bills of lading were
produced at Nuremberg.
Those deemed fit to work were used as slave labor at industrial
factories for such companies as IG Farben and
Krupp. At the Auschwitz complex, 405,000 prisoners
were recorded as slaves between 1940 and 1945. Of these about
340,000 perished through executions, beatings, starvation, and
sickness.
Sonderkommandos yanked gold teeth from the corpses of gas chamber
victims; the gold was melted down and sent back to the Third
Reich. The belongings of the arrivals, both those gassed
and those admitted to the camp, were seized by the SS. They were
sorted in an area of the camp called "Canada". Many of the SS at
the camp enriched themselves by pilfering the confiscated property
of the Jews. The name "Canada" was very cynically chosen. In
Poland, it was used as an expression used when viewing, for
example, a valuable and fine gift. The expression came from the
time when Polish emigrants were sending gifts home from
Canada.
Timeline of genocide

Bunk beds in the Auschwitz II.
There were as many as four inmates per bunk.
There could be as many as a thousand inmates per barrack like
the one pictured.
Auschwitz-Birkenau claimed more victims than any other German Nazi
extermination camp despite coming into use after all the others. In
1941, 1.1 million Jews were murdered, largely by mass shootings in
the occupied territories.
In 1942, 2.7 million Jews were murdered,
many in Chelmno
, Sobibor
, Belzec
, and Treblinka
, the extermination camps built in occupied Poland
specifically to destroy Poland's three million Jews. Only
200,000 were killed at Auschwitz. In 1943, some 500,000 Jews were
killed, half of whom were killed in Auschwitz. With the destruction
of Poland's Jews mostly complete, the other four camps were closed
by the end of 1943. Auschwitz alone continued to operate, both as a
giant slave labor complex and an extermination facility dedicated
to the genocide of Jews from the rest of Nazi-occupied
Europe.
The busiest time for Auschwitz as an extermination camp was from
April-June 1944, when it was the center for the
massacre
of Hungary's Jews. Hungary was an ally of Germany during the
war but had resisted turning over its Jews to the Germans until
Germany sent troops to occupy Hungary in March 1944. In 56 days
from April until the end of June 1944, 436,000 Hungarian Jews, half
of the pre-war population, were deported to Auschwitz and to their
deaths. Jews continued to arrive from other parts of Nazi Europe as
well. The incoming volume was so great that the SS at Auschwitz
resorted to burning corpses in open-air pits as well as the
crematoria. The total of over 400,000 Jews gassed during the
Hungarian Action in early 1944 represented some ⅔ of all the
600,000 Jews exterminated in that year and ⅓ of all the Jews killed
at Auschwitz in the 2½ years that it operated as an extermination
camp.
Auschwitz III
The surrounding work camps, of which there were approximately
forty, were closely connected to German industry and were
associated with arms factories, foundries and mines.
The largest work camp
was Auschwitz III Monowitz, named after the Polish village of
Monowice
. Starting operations in May 1942, it was
associated with the synthetic rubber and liquid fuel plant
Buna-Werke owned by
IG Farben.
11,000 slave laborers worked at Monowitz. Seven thousand inmates
worked at various chemical plants. 8,000 worked in mines.
Approximately 40,000 prisoners worked in slave labor camps at
Auschwitz or nearby, under appalling conditions. In regular
intervals, doctors from Auschwitz II would visit the work camps and
select the weak and sick for the gas chambers of Birkenau.
The
largest subcamps were built at Trzebinia
, Blechhammer
and Althammer.
Female
subcamps were constructed at Budy, Pławy
, Zabrze
, Gleiwitz
I, II, III, Rajsko and at
Lichtenwerden (now
Světlá).
Medical experiments at Auschwitz

Block 10 - Medical experimentation
block in Auschwitz
Nazi doctors at Auschwitz performed a wide variety of "experiments"
on helpless prisoners. SS doctors tested the efficacy of X-rays as
a sterilization device by administering large doses to female
prisoners. Prof. Dr.
Carl Clauberg
injected chemicals into women's uteruses in an effort to glue them
shut.
Bayer, then a subsidiary of IG Farben,
bought prisoners to use as guinea pigs for testing new drugs.
The most infamous doctor at Auschwitz was
Josef Mengele, who was also known as the
"Angel of Death". Particularly interested in "research" on
identical twins, Mengele performed cruel experiments on them, such
as inducing diseases in one twin of a pair and killing the other
when the first died to perform comparative autopsies. He also took
a special interest in dwarves, injecting twins, dwarves and other
prisoners with gangrene to "study" the effects.
Allies' knowledge of the camp

Picture of Birkenau taken by an
American surveillance plane, Aug 25.
Information regarding Auschwitz was available to the Allies during
years 1940–1943 by accurate and frequent reports of Polish Army
Captain
Witold Pilecki. Pilecki was
the only known person to volunteer to be imprisoned at Auschwitz
concentration camp, spending 945 days at Auschwitz not only
actively gathering evidence of genocide and supplying it to the
British in London by
Polish resistance
movement but also organizing resistance structures at the camp
known as ZOW -
Związek Organizacji
Wojskowej.
His first report was smuggled outside in November 1940. He
eventually escaped on April 27, 1943, but even his personal report
of mass killings was dismissed as exaggeration by the Allies, as
were his previous ones. This changed with receipt of the very
detailed
report of two
prisoners,
Rudolf Vrba and
Alfred Wetzler who escaped on April 7, 1944,
which finally convinced most Allied leaders of the truth about
Auschwitz in the middle of 1944.Detailed air reconnaissance
photographs of the camp were taken accidentally during 1944 by
aircraft seeking to photograph nearby military-industrial targets,
but no effort was made to analyze them. In fact, it was not until
the 1970s that these photographs of Auschwitz were looked at
carefully.
Starting with a plea from the Slovakian rabbi
Weissmandl in May 1944, there
was a growing campaign to persuade the Allies to bomb Auschwitz or
the railway lines leading to it. At one point
Winston Churchill ordered that such a plan
be prepared, but he was told that bombing the camp would most
likely kill prisoners without disrupting the killing operation, and
that bombing the railway lines was not technically feasible. Later
several nearby military targets were bombed. One bomb accidentally
fell into the camp and killed some prisoners. The debate over what
could have been done, or what should have been attempted even if
success was unlikely, has continued heatedly ever since.
Resistance
Birkenau revolt

Nazi extermination camps in occupied
Poland (marked with black and white skulls)
By 1943, resistance organizations had developed in the camp. These
organizations helped a few prisoners escape; these escapees took
with them news of exterminations, such as the killing of hundreds
of thousands of Jews transported from Hungary between May and July
1944. On October 7, 1944, the Jewish
Sonderkommandos (those inmates kept
separate from the main
camp and put to
work in the gas chambers and crematoria) of Birkenau Kommando III
staged an uprising.
They attacked the SS
with
makeshift weapons: stones, axes, hammers, other work tools and
homemade grenades. They caught the SS
guards by surprise, overpowered them and blew up the Crematorium
IV, using
explosives smuggled in from a
weapons factory by female inmates. At this stage they were joined
by the Birkenau Kommando I of the Crematorium II, which also
overpowered their guards and broke out of the
compound. Hundreds of prisoners
escaped, but were all soon captured and, along with an additional
group who participated in the
revolt,
executed.
There
were also plans for a general uprising in Auschwitz
, coordinated with an Allied air
raid and a Polish resistance (Armia
Krajowa, Home Army) attack from the outside. That plan
was authored by Polish resistance fighter,
Witold Pilecki, who organized in Auschwitz an
underground Union of Military Organization - (
Związek Organizacji
Wojskowej, ZOW). Pilecki and ZOW hoped that the Allies would
drop arms or troops into the camp (most likely the
Polish 1st Independent
Parachute Brigade, based in Britain), and that the Home Army
would organize an assault on the camp from outside. By 1943,
however, he realized that the Allies had no such plans. Meanwhile,
the Gestapo redoubled its efforts to ferret out ZOW members,
succeeding in killing many of them. Pilecki decided to break out of
the camp, with the hope of personally convincing Home Army leaders
that a rescue attempt was a valid option. He escaped on the night
of April 26–April 27, 1943, but his plan was not accepted by the
Home Army as the Allies considered his reports about the Holocaust
exaggerated.
Individual escape attempts
About 700 prisoners attempted to escape from the Auschwitz camps
during the years of their operation, of which about 300 were
successful. A common punishment for escape attempts was death by
starvation; the families of successful escapees were sometimes
arrested and interned in Auschwitz and prominently displayed to
deter others. If someone did manage to escape, the SS would pick 10
random people from the prisoner's block and starve them to
death.
Since the concentration camps were designed to degrade prisoners
beneath human dignity, maintaining the will to survive was seen in
itself as an act of rebellion.
Primo Levi
was taught this lesson by his fellow prisoner and friend Steinlauf:
"[that] precisely because the camp was a great machine to reduce us
to beasts, we must not become beasts; that even in this place one
can survive, and therefore one must want to survive, to tell the
story, to bear witness; and that, if we want to survive, then it's
important that we strive to preserve at least the skeleton, the
scaffolding, the external shape of civilization."
In 1943, the "
Kampfgruppe Auschwitz" was organised with
the aim to send out as much information about what was happening in
Auschwitz as possible. They buried notes in the ground in the hope
a liberator would find them and smuggled out photos of the
crematoria and gas chambers.
In June 1944,
Mala Zimetbaum tried to
escape together with her Polish lover,
Edek Galinski. They also wanted to smuggle out
deportation lists Zimetbaum had been able to copy due to her
translator job in the office of the "
Lagerleitung". They
both were arrested on July 6 near the Slovakian frontier and
sentenced to death; Galinski managed to kill himself before being
executed, while Zimetbaum, having failed to commit suicide, died
finally after being tortured by the SS.
Evacuation and liberation
The last selection took place on October 30, 1944. The next month,
Heinrich Himmler ordered the crematoria destroyed before the
Red Army reached the camp. The gas chambers
of Birkenau were blown up by the SS in January 1945 in an attempt
to hide the German crimes from the advancing Soviet troops. On
January 20, the SS command sent orders to murder all the prisoners
remaining in the camp, but in the chaos of the Nazi retreat the
order was never carried out.
On January 17, 1945, Nazi personnel started
to evacuate the facility; nearly 60,000 prisoners, most of those
remaining, were forced on a death march to the camp toward
Wodzisław
Śląski
(German: Loslau
). Some 20,000 Auschwitz prisoners made it to
Bergen-Belsen concentration
camp
in Germany, where they were liberated by the
British in April 1945. Those too weak or sick to walk were
left behind; about 7,500 prisoners were liberated by the
322nd Rifle Division of
the
Red Army on January 27, 1945. Among the
artifacts of automated murder found by the Russians were 348,820
men's suits and 836,255 women's garments.
Death toll

Children and an old woman on the way
to the death barracks of Auschwitz-Birkenau
The exact number of victims at Auschwitz is impossible to fix with
certainty.
Since the Nazis destroyed a number of
records, immediate efforts to count the dead depended on the
testimony of witnesses and the defendants on trial at Nuremberg
. While under interrogation
Rudolf Hoess, commandant of Auschwitz
concentration camp from 1940 to 1943, said that
Adolf Eichmann told him that two and a half
million Jews had been killed in gas chambers and about half a
million died "naturally". Later he wrote "I regard two and a half
million far too high. Even Auschwitz had limits to its destructive
possibilities".
Communist Polish and Soviet authorities maintained a figure
"between 2.5 and 4 million". The figure "4,000,000" was used on the
original Auschwitz memorial plaques. The plaques did not specify
the ethnicities of victims.
In 1983, French scholar George Wellers was one of the first to use
German data on deportations to estimate the number killed at
Auschwitz, arriving at 1.613 million dead, including 1.44 million
Jews and 146,000 Catholic Poles. A larger study started later by
Franciszek Piper used timetables of
train arrivals combined with deportation records to calculate
960,000 Jewish deaths and 140,000-150,000 ethnic Polish victims,
along with 23,000 Roma and Sinti (Gypsies). This number has met
with "significant, though not complete" agreement among
scholars.
According to Harmon and Drobnicki, estimates range from 800,000 to
five million people. More recent and better researched estimates
are on the lower end.
For many years, a memorial plaque placed at the camp by the Soviet
authorities stated that 4 million people had been murdered at
Auschwitz. The government of the
People's Republic of Poland also
supported this figure. In the west, this figure was accepted, but
some historians had their doubts. After the collapse of the
Communist government in 1989, the plaque was removed and the
official death toll given as 1.1 million.
Holocaust deniers have attempted to use
this change as
propaganda, in the words
of the
Nizkor Project:
After the war

Ruins at Birkenau, with brick chimneys
belonging to wooden barracks being prominent, 2002
After the war the camp served until 1947 as an
NKVD and
MBP prison camp. The
Buna Werke were taken over by the Polish government and
became the foundation for the region's chemical industry.
The Polish government then decided to restore Auschwitz I and turn
it into a museum honouring the victims of
Nazism; Auschwitz II, where buildings (many of which
were prefabricated wood structures) were prone to decay, was
preserved but not restored. Today, the Auschwitz I museum site
combines elements from several periods into a single complex: for
example the gas chamber at Auschwitz I (which had been converted
into an air-raid shelter for the SS) was restored and the fence was
moved (because of building being done after the war but before the
establishment of the museum). However, in most cases the departure
from the historical truth is minor, and is clearly labelled. The
museum contains very large numbers of men's, women's and children's
shoes taken from their victims; also suitcases, which the deportees
were encouraged to bring with them, and many household utensils.
One display case, some long, is wholly filled with human hair which
the Nazis gathered from the people before and after they were
killed.

The Birkenau camp in 2006
The Birkenau camp in 2006
Auschwitz II and the remains of the gas chambers there are also
open to the public.
The Auschwitz concentration camp is part of
the UNESCO
list of
World Heritage Sites.
The ashes of the victims of the SS were scattered between the huts,
and the entire area is seen as a grave site.
Most of the buildings of Auschwitz I are still standing. Many of
them are now used as museums. The public entrance area (with
bookshop, etc.) is outside the
perimeter
fence in what was the camp admission building, where new
prisoners were registered and given their uniforms, etc.
Most of the buildings of Birkenau were burnt down by the Germans as
the Russians came near, and much of the resulting brick rubble was
removed in 1945 by the area's returning Polish population to
restore damaged farm buildings. By the site of its
gas chambers and
incinerators are piles of broken bricks which
were thrown aside in the search for re-usable intact ones. Today,
the entrance building and some of the southern brick-built barracks
survive; but of the almost 300 wooden barracks, only 19 remain: 18
near the entrance building and one, on its own, further away. All
that survives of the others are chimneys, remnants of a largely
ineffective means of heating. Many of these wooden buildings were
constructed from prefabricated sections made by a company that
intended them to be used as stables; inside, numerous metal rings
for the tethering of horses can still be seen.
At the far end of Birkenau are
memorial
plaque in many languages
including
Romani.
In 1979, the newly elected Polish
Pope
John Paul II celebrated
Mass on
the grounds of Auschwitz II to some 500,000 people. After the pope
had announced that
Edith Stein would be
beatified, some Catholics erected a
cross near Bunker 2 of Auschwitz II where she had been gassed. A
short while later, a
Star of David
appeared at the site, leading to a proliferation of religious
symbols there; eventually they were removed.
Carmelite nuns opened a convent near
Auschwitz I in 1984. After some Jewish groups called for the
removal of the convent, representatives of the Catholic Church
agreed in 1987. One year later the Carmelites erected the 8 m
(26 ft) tall cross from the 1979 mass near their site, just
outside Block 11 and barely visible from within the camp. This led
to protests by Jewish groups, who said that mostly Jews were killed
at Auschwitz and demanded that religious symbols be kept away from
the site. Some Catholics have argued that the people killed in
Auschwitz I (as opposed to Auschwitz II) were mainly Polish
Catholics (including at least one Catholic saint,
Maximilian Kolbe) . The Catholic Church
told the Carmelites to move by 1989, but they stayed on until 1993,
leaving the large cross behind. In 1998, after further calls to
remove the cross, some 300 smaller crosses were erected by local
activists near the large one, leading to further protests and
heated exchanges. Following an agreement between the Polish
Catholic Church and the Polish government, the smaller crosses were
removed in 1999 but the large papal one remains.
See Auschwitz
cross
for more details.

Latrines for prisoners of
Birkenau
In 1999, Canadian Prime Minister
Jean
Chrétien caused controversy in relation to his arrangements to
visit Auschwitz. He visited the camp with representatives of
Canada's Jewish community, of Polish background and otherwise, but
excluded non-Jewish members of a Polish-Canadian group that
accompanied him on his visit to Poland. These persons were
identified as "leaders of Canada's Polish community". Chrétien
justified the exclusion by saying that the non-Jewish
Polish-Canadians were invited to join his business mission to
Poland "because he normally includes ethnic groups on trade
missions". The business mission commenced one day after Chrétien's
visit to Auschwitz. The
Canadian Polish Congress, which
apparently has no Jewish members, said that it was offended and
insulted by the refusal of Prime Minister Chrétien to include it in
the visit to Auschwitz. Approximately two weeks prior to the
Auschwitz visit by the Prime Minister, The Canadian Polish Congress
had requested to be included in the visit, after having learned
that Chrétien was inviting publicly identified "Canadian Jewish
leaders", of Polish background and otherwise.
In 1996, Germany made January 27, the day of the liberation of
Auschwitz, the official day for the commemoration of the victims of
'National Socialism'.
Countries who have also adopted similar
memorial days include Denmark
(Auschwitz Day), Italy
(Memorial
Day) and Poland
(Memorial
Day for the Victims of Nazism).
Gallows in Auschwitz I where camp commandant Rudolf Höß was
executed on April 16, 1947
The
European
Parliament
marked the anniversary of the camp's liberation in
2005 with a minute of silence and the passage of this
resolution:
The site
of Auschwitz-Birkenau has undergone a major change since the fall
of the Berlin
Wall
. During the Communist era, "foreign visitors
were often shocked by the presentations", which glorified the role
of the Soviet Army, according to the
European Jewish Congress.
Recently the Polish media, and the foreign ministry of Poland, have
voiced objections to the use of the expression "
Polish death camp" in relation to
Auschwitz, as they feel that phrase might misleadingly suggest that
Poles (rather than Germans) perpetrated the Holocaust. Most media
outlets now show awareness of the offence this may cause, and try
to avoid using such expressions (or issue an apology after using
them).
On
April 1, 2006, a Polish Culture Ministry spokesman said that the
government requested that UNESCO
change the
name from "Auschwitz Concentration Camp" to "Former Nazi German
Concentration Camp Auschwitz-Birkenau" to emphasize that the camp
was run by German Nazis and not by Poles.On June 28, 2007,
the United Nations World Heritage Committee officially announced
that the new name is
Auschwitz Birkenau.
German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp
(1940-1945).
The Polish film directors
Andrzej Munk
and
Andrzej Wajda were both given
permission to film in Auschwitz for the films
Pasażerka and
Landscape After the Battle,
respectively. The television miniseries
War and Remembrance also shot the
Holocaust scenes in Auschwitz. However, permission was denied to
Steven Spielberg for
Schindler's
List. Subsequently, a "mirror" camp was constructed
outside the infamous archway for the scene where the train arrives
carrying the women
Schindler was
trying to save.
In
February 2006, Poland refused to grant visas to Iranian
researchers who were planning to visit
Auschwitz. Polish Foreign Minister
Stefan Meller said his country should stop
Iran from investigating the scale of the Holocaust, which
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has dismissed as
false. In Poland, denying the Holocaust by propagating "public and
contradicting facts" is a crime
punished by a sentence of up to three years in prison (article 55
of Act of December 18, 1998, on the Institute of National
Remembrance - Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the
Polish Nation).
Its
remnants are located in Poland
approximately west of Kraków
and south
of Warsaw
.
Auschwitz timeline

Auschwitz I in winter, showing
electrified perimeter fence

Eyeglasses of victims

Exhibit of shoes from the victims of
Auschwitz
- January 25, 1940 The
Germans decide to construct a concentration camp near Oświęcim
(Auschwitz).
- May 20, 1940 The first
concentration camp prisoners – 30 recidivist criminals from Sachsenhausen
– arrive at Auschwitz concentration
camp.
- June 14, 1940. First mass
transport, consisting of 728 Polish
political
prisoners from Tarnow
.
- March 1, 1941 Reichsführer SS and Chief of
German Police Heinrich Himmler
inspects Oświęcim (Auschwitz). Because nearby factories use
prisoners for forced labor, Himmler is concerned about the prisoner
capacity of the camp. On this visit, he orders both the expansion
of Auschwitz I camp facilities to hold 30,000 prisoners and the
building of a camp near Birkenau for an expected influx of 100,000
Soviet prisoners of war. Himmler also orders that the camp supply
10,000 prisoners for forced labor to construct an IG Farben factory complex at Dwory, about a mile away. Himmler will make additional
visits to Auschwitz in 1942, when he will witness the killing of
prisoners in the gas chambers.
- September 3, 1941 The first gassings of
prisoners occur in Auschwitz I. The SS tests Zyklon B gas by killing 600 Soviet prisoners of war
and 250 other ill or weak prisoners. Testing takes place in a
makeshift gas chamber in the cellar of Block 11 in Auschwitz I. The
success of these experiments will lead to the adoption of Zyklon B
as the killing agent for the yet-to-be-constructed
Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center.
- January 25, 1942 SS chief Heinrich Himmler
informs Richard Gluecks, the
Inspector of Concentration Camps, that 100,000 Jewish men and
50,000 Jewish women would be deported from Germany to Auschwitz as
forced laborers.
- February 15, 1942 The first
transport of Jews from Bytom
(Beuthen)
in German-annexed Upper Silesia
arrives in Auschwitz I. The SS camp authorities kill all
those on the transport immediately upon arrival with Zyklon B
gas.
- December 31, 1942 German SS and police
authorities deported approximately 175,000 Jews to Auschwitz in
1942.
- January 1, 1943 – March 31, 1943 German SS and
police authorities deport approximately 105,000 Jews to
Auschwitz.
- January 29, 1943 The Reich Central Office for
Security orders all designated Roma (Gypsies) residing in Germany,
Austria, and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to be deported
to Auschwitz.
- February 26, 1943 The first transport of Roma
(Gypsies) from Germany arrives at Auschwitz. The SS authorities
house them in Section B-IIe of Auschwitz-Birkenau, which becomes
known as the "Gypsy family camp." By the end of 1943 more than
18,000 Roma (Gypsies) will have been incarcerated in the so-called
family camp and as many as 23,000 Gypsies deported to the Auschwitz
camp complex.
- March 13, 1943 Out of a
transport of 2,000 Jews from the Kraków Ghetto
, 1,492 are gassed in the basement gas chamber of
Crematorium II at Birkenau in the evening. This operation
tests the gas chamber's ventilation and air extraction equipment
installed by J.A. Topf engineer Heinrich Messing, who declared it
operational earlier that day.
- March 22, 1943 Crematorium IV is handed over
to the Auschwitz authorities.
- March 31, 1943 Crematorium II is handed over
to the Auschwitz authorities.
- April 1, 1943 - March 1944 German SS and
police authorities deport approximately 160,000 Jews to
Auschwitz.
- April 4, 1943 Crematorium V is handed over to
the Auschwitz authorities.
- June 24, 1943 Crematorium III is handed over
to the Auschwitz authorities.
- May 2, 1944 The first two transports of
Hungarian Jews arrive in Auschwitz.
- July 7, 1944 The deportation of Hungarian Jews
is halted by order of Regent Miklos Horthy.
- August 2, 1944 SS camp authorities murder the
last residents – just under 3,000 - of the so-called Gypsy family
camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau. The SS murders an estimated total of
20,000 Roma (Gypsies) in the Auschwitz concentration camp
complex.
- September 3, 1944 Anne
Frank is transported to Auschwitz.
- April 1944 - November 1944 SS and Police
authorities deport more than 585,000 Jews to Auschwitz.
- October 7, 1944 Members of the Jewish prisoner
"special detachment" (Sonderkommando) that was forced to
remove bodies from the gas chambers and operate the crematoria
stage an uprising. They successfully blow up Crematorium IV and
kill several guards. Women prisoners had smuggled gunpowder out of
nearby factories to members of the Sonderkommando. The SS
quickly suppresses the revolt and kills all the
Sonderkommando members. On January 6, 1945, just weeks
before Soviet forces liberate the camp, the SS will also hang four
women who smuggled gunpowder into the camp.
- October 30, 1944 The last selections take
place on the arrival ramp at Birkenau. 1,689 people from a
transport from Terezin are sent to the gas chambers.
- November 25, 1944 As Soviet forces continue to
approach, SS chief Heinrich Himmler orders the destruction of the
Auschwitz-Birkenau gas chambers and crematoria. During this SS
attempt to destroy the evidence of mass killings, prisoners will be
forced to dismantle and dynamite the structures.
- January 12, 1945 A Soviet
offensive breaches the German defenses on the Vistula; Soviet
troops take Warsaw and advance rapidly on Kraków
and
Oświęcim.
- January 18 - 27, 1945 As Soviet units
approach, the SS evacuates to the west the prisoners of the
Auschwitz concentration camp complex. Tens of thousands of
prisoners, mostly Jews, are forced to march to the cities of
Wodzisław and Gliwice in the western part of Upper Silesia. During
the march, SS guards shoot anyone who cannot continue. In Wodzisław
and Gliwice, the prisoners will be put on unheated freight trains
and deported to concentration camps in Germany, particularly to
Flossenburg, Sachsenhausen, Gross-Rosen, Buchenwald, and Dachau,
and to Mauthausen in Austria. In all, nearly 60,000 prisoners are
forced on death marches from the Auschwitz camp system. As many as
15,000 die during the forced marches. Thousands more were killed in
the days before the evacuation.
- January 27, 1945 Soviet troops enter the
Auschwitz camp complex and liberate approximately 7,000 prisoners
remaining in the camp. During the existence of Auschwitz, the SS
camp authorities killed nearly one million Jews from across Europe.
Other victims included approximately 74,000 Poles, approximately
21,000 Roma (Gypsies), and approximately 15,000 Soviet prisoners of
war.
- April 17, 1946 The Polish government decides
to close down and dismantle the prison camp and build a mausoleum
for the German camp.
- April 16, 1947 Execution of Rudolf Höß. The
next day a group of last 206 prisoners of Oświęcim transferred to
Central Labour Camp
Jaworzno, a former subcamp of Auschwitz.
See also
Notes
- Up to then, there had been no special significance attached to
the name; for example, "Duke of Auschwitz" was for centuries one of
the minor titles held by the Habsburg Emperors (see Francis II),
which at the time was completly innocuous and unimportant.
- Brian Harmon, John Drobnicki, Historical sources and the Auschwitz death toll
estimates, The
Nizkor Project
- Piper, Franciszek & Meyer, Fritjof. "Die Zahl der Opfer von Auschwitz. Neue Erkentnisse
durch neue Archivfunde", Osteuropa, 52, Jg., 5/2002,
pp. 631-641, (review article).
- Piper, Franciszek Piper. "The Number of Victims" in Gutman,
Yisrael & Berenbaum, Michael. Anatomy of the Auschwitz
Death Camp, Indiana University Press, 1994; this edition 1998,
p. 62.
- Gutman, Yisrael. "Auschwitz—An Overview" in Gutman, Yisrael
& Berenbaum, Michael. Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death
Camp, Indiana University Press, 1994; this edition 1998, p.
17.
- "worldwar-2.net timeline/holocaust/1940"
- Maximilian Kolbe
- Rees, Laurence. Auschwitz: A New History. 2005, Public
Affairs, ISBN 158648303X, p. 26
- http://www.johndclare.net/Nazi_Germany3_Auschwitz.htm
- :: Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau w Oświęcimiu
EN::
- Gutman, Yisrael. "Auschwitz—An Overview in Gutman, Yisrael
and Berenbaum, Michael. Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death
Camp. Indiana University Press 1998, p. 16.
- Rees, Laurence. Auschwitz: A New History. 2005, Public
Affairs, ISBN 158648303X, p. 96-97, 101
- Gustave
Gilbert witness statement cited in Dwork, Deborah & Van
Pelt, Robert Jan. Auschwitz, Norton, paperback edition
2002, p. 278, cited in Rees, Laurence. Auschwitz: A New
History, Public Affairs, first published 2006, paperback
edition 2005, p. 53.
- Rees, Laurence. Auschwitz: A New History. 2005, Public
Affairs, ISBN 158648303X, p. 100
- Rees, Laurence. Auschwitz: A New History. 2005, Public
Affairs, ISBN 158648303X, p. 168-169
- The Auschwitz Album, Yad Vashem
- Nuremberg Trial Documentation
- Rees, Laurence. Auschwitz: A New History. 2005, Public
Affairs, ISBN 158648303X, p. 172-175
- Dwork, Deborah, and Robert Jan van Pelt. Auschwitz: 1270 to
the Present. 1997, Norton Paperback edition, ISBN 039331684x,
p. 336-337
- Dwork, Deborah, and Robert Jan van Pelt. Auschwitz: 1270 to
the Present. 1997, Norton Paperback edition, ISBN 039331684x,
p. 337-343
- Dwork, Deborah, and Robert Jan van Pelt. Auschwitz: 1270 to
the Present. 1997, Norton Paperback edition, ISBN 039331684x,
p. 10
- Rees, Laurence. Auschwitz: A New History. 2005, Public
Affairs, ISBN 158648303X, p. 178-179
- Rees, Laurence. Auschwitz: A New History. 2005, Public
Affairs, ISBN 158648303X, p. 180-182
-
http://www.pilecki.ipn.gov.pl/portal/rp/867/7081/Rotmistrz_Witold_Pilecki.html
- # Jozef Garlinski, Fighting Auschwitz: the Resistance Movement
in the Concentration Camp, Fawcett, 1975, ISBN 0-449-22599-2,
reprinted by Time Life Education, 1993. ISBN 0-8094-8925-2
- See Vrba-Wetzler report
- Auschwitz - some more, @ hubpages.com
- Rees, Laurence. Auschwitz: A New History. 2005, Public
Affairs, ISBN 158648303X, p. 256-257
- Adam Cyra, Ochotnik do Auschwitz - Witold Pilecki 1901-1948,
Oświęcim 2000. ISBN 83-912000-3-5
- Rees, Laurence. Auschwitz: A New History. 2005, Public
Affairs, ISBN 158648303X, p. 141
- Primo Levi, If This Is a Man, 1947
- Rees, Laurence. Auschwitz: A New History. 2005, Public
Affairs, ISBN 158648303X, p. 260
- Rees, Laurence. Auschwitz: A New History. 2005, Public
Affairs, ISBN 158648303X, p. 265
- Wikipedia:Rudolf Hoess
- Commandant of Auschwitz: Rudolf Höß. ISBN 1 84212 024 7,
Appendix One, page 193
- Commandant of Auschwitz: Rudolf Höß. ISBN 1 84212 024 7,
Appendix One, page 194
- Wellers, Georges. Essai de determination du nombre de morts au
camp d'Auschwitz (attempt to determine the number of dead at the
Auschwitz camp), Le Monde Juif, Oct-Dec 1983, pp.
127-159.
- Piper, Franciszek. "The Number of Victims", in Anatomy of
the Auschwitz Death Camp. Washington D.C and Bloomington:
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Indiana University
Press, 1994, pp. 68-72.
- Cesarani, David and Kavanaugh, Sarah. Holocaust: Critical
Concepts in Historical Studies, Routledge, 2004, p. 357. ISBN
0415275121, 9780415275125
- Reitlinger, Gerald. The Final Solution:
The Attempt to Exterminate the Jews of Europe, 1939-1945. South
Brunswick: T. Yoseloff, 1968, p. 500.
- Hilberg, Raul. The Destruction of the European Jews. Chicago:
Quadrangle Books, 1961, p. 572.
- Dawidowicz, Lucy. The War Against the Jews. New York: Bantam
Books, 1979, p. 191.
- Piper, Franciszek. "The Number of Victims" in Anatomy of the
Auschwitz Death Camp. Washington D.C. and Bloomington: United
States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Indiana University Press,
1994, pp. 68-72.
- Sofsky, Wolfgang. The Order of Terror: The Concentration Camp.
Trans. William Templer. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1997, p. 43 in Galleys.
- Sweibocka, Teresa. Auschwitz: A History in Photographs.
Bloomington and Warsaw: Indiana University Press and Ksiazka I
Wiedza, 1993, pp. 287-288.
- Höss, Rudolf. Death Dealer: The Memoirs of the SS Kommandant of
Auschwitz. ed. by Steven J. Palusky, trans. by Andrew Pollinger.
Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1992, p. 391.
- Weiss, A. "Categories of Camps, Their character and Role in the
Execution of the Final Solution of the Jewish Question," in The
Nazi Concentration Camps, Jerusalem: Yad Veshem, 1984, pp.
132.
- Bauer, Yehuda. A History of the Holocaust. New York: F. Watts.
1982. p. 215.
- Bauer, Yehuda. "Danger of Distortion, Poles and Jews alike are
supplying those who deny the Holocaust with the best possible
arguments," Jerusalem Post, September 30, 1989.
- Wellers, Georges. "Essai de determination du nombre de morts au
camp d'Auschwitz" Le Monde Juif, October-December 1983, pp.
127-159.
- Billig, Joseph. Les camps de concentration dans l'economie du
Reich hitlerien. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1973. pp.
101-102.
- Polaikov, Leon. Harvest of Hate Syracuse: Syracuse University
Press, 1956, p. 202.
- "Auschwitz." The World Book Encyclopedia. Chicago: World Book,
1980.
- Kamenetksy, Ihor. Secret Nazi Plans for Eastern Europe. New
Haven: College and University Press, 1961, p. 174.
- Dunin-Wasowicz, Krzysztof. Resistance in the Nazi concentration
camps, 1933-1945. Warsaw: PWN-Polish Scientific Publishers, 1982,
p. 44.
- "Brestrafung der Verbrecher von Auschwitz," in Auschwitz:
Geschichte und Wirklichkeit des Vernichtungslagers. Reinbek bei
Hamburg: Rowolt, 1980, p. 211.
- Czech, D. "Konzentrationslager Auschwitz: Abriss der
Geschichte," in Auschwitz: Geschichte und Wirklichkeit des
Konzentrationslagers. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowolt, 1980, p.
42.
- Obozy hitlerowskie na ziemiach polskich 1939-1945: informator
encyklopedyczny. Warsaw: Panst. Wydaw. Naukowe DSP, 1979, p.
369.
- Madajczyk, Czeslaw. Polityka III Rzeszy w okupowanej Polsce;
okupacja Polski, 1939-1945. Warsaw: Panstwowe Wydawn Naukowe, 1970,
pp. 293-94.
- Gilbert, Martin. Atlas of the Holocaust. New York: Pergamon
Press, 1988.
- Lane, Arthur Bliss. Saw Poland Betrayed: An American Ambassador
Reports to the American People. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill
Company, 1948, p. 39
- Bauer, Yehuda. "Foreword," in Müller, Filip. Eyewitness
Auschwitz. New York: Stein and Day, 1979, p. xi.
- Kogon, Eugen. Der SS Staat. Berlin, 1974, p. 157.
- Friedman, Filip. This Was Oswiecim: The Story of a Murder Camp.
Translated from the Yiddish original by Joseph Leftwich. London:
The United Jewish Relief Appeal, 1946, p. 14.
- Geoffrey York, "Auschwitz fallout". The Globe and Mail
(Toronto), January 26, 1999: A8.
- European Jewish Congress - Poland Wants to Change the Name
of Auschwitz to Better Reflect German Role
- See, for example, this 2005 note in The Guardian
- UNESCO World Heritage Committee. (2007-06-28). World Heritage
Committee approves Auschwitz name change". Press release.
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization.
- Lilley, Ray. (2007-06-28). "UNESCO committee renames Auschwitz."
Associated Press. Guardian Unlimited.
- Poland to Bar Iranian Team from Auschwitz,
Payvand, February 18, 2006
- Iranian leader: Holocaust a 'myth' CNN, December
14, 2005
- text of the Act (English)).
- Pressac, Jean-Claude and Van Pelt, Robert-Jan "The Machinery of
Mass Murder at Auschwitz" in Gutman, Yisrael & Berenbaum,
Michael. Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, Indiana
University Press, 1994; this edition 1998, p. 232.
- Pressac, Jean-Claude and Van Pelt, Robert-Jan "The Machinery of
Mass Murder at Auschwitz" in Gutman, Yisrael & Berenbaum,
Michael. Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, Indiana
University Press, 1994; this edition 1998, p. 234.
- Pressac, Jean-Claude and Van Pelt, Robert-Jan "The Machinery of
Mass Murder at Auschwitz" in Gutman, Yisrael & Berenbaum,
Michael. Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, Indiana
University Press, 1994; this edition 1998, p. 236.
- Karny, Miroslav. "The Vrba and Wetzler Report" in Gutman,
Yisrael & Berenbaum, Michael. Anatomy of the Auschwitz
Death Camp, Indiana University Press, 1994; this edition 1998,
p. 563.
Further reading
- Dlugoborski, Waclaw, and Franciszek Piper, eds. Auschwitz,
1940-1945: Central Issues in the History of the Camp Five
Vols. Oświęcim: Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, 2000. ISBN
8-385047875
- Yisrael Gutman and Michael Berenbaum, eds. Anatomy of the
Auschwitz Death Camp Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1994 ISBN 0253326842
- Rees, Laurence Auschwitz: A New History New York:
Public Affairs, 2005 ISBN 1-58648-303-X
- Gilbert, Martin Auschwitz
and the Allies New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981
Photographs, maps. ISBN 0-03-057058-1
- Boyne, John The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas Great
Britain: David Fickling Books, 2006 ISBN 0-385-75106-0
- Muller, Filip Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas
Chambers Ivan R Dee Inc, 1999 ISBN 1-56663-271-4
- Nyisli, Miklos Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eye-witness
Account Mayflower, 1977 ASIN B000QIZILC
- Levi, Primo Survival in
Auschwitz: The Nazi Assault on Humanity (1986) 1993 (current
edition includes "A conversation with Primo Levi by Philip Roth" New York: Collier Books ISBN
0-020-2919222
- van Pelt, Robert Jan. The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from
the Irving Trial. Indiana University Press, 2002. ISBN
0253340160
- Adam Cyra, Ochotnik do Auschwitz - Witold Pilecki 1901-1948,
Oświęcim 2000. ISBN 83-912000-3-5
External links
- www.druhasvetovavalka.cz - Pages show pictures and videos
of the day taken at places connected with the World War II
- Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum (in English,
Polish, and German) – Official website
- Auschwitz: The Final Stop Categorized
material on the camp from Yad VaShem (accessed 02/03/08)
- A
Virtual Tour of Auschwitz/Birkenau Annotated images of the camp
(accessed 02/14/08)
- Interactive image map of Birkenau
- Auschwitz Jewish
Center situated in the town of Oświęcim
- Auschwitz-Birkenau and city Oswiecim (in Polish)
- Data and summary facts
- Video footage from a 2003 visit to
Auschwitz-Birkenau
- Selected Photos from the Auschwitz Album with
commentary by Oliver Lustig
- Liberation of Auschwitz - 60th Anniversary
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Holocaust Encyclopedia - Auschwitz United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Cybrary of
the Holocaust Holocaust education site
- Anna Heilman Anna Heilman is the last living survivor
of the plot to blow up Crematorium IV at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Her
Holocaust experiences are discussed in her novel Never Far
Away: The Auschwitz Chronicle of Anna Heilman
- Auschwitz-Birkenau 2005 Photographs and commentary
marking the 60th anniversary of the camp's liberation
- Photos
From Auschwitz and Birkenau Detailed Photos From Auschwitz and
Birkenau by Alan Jacobs
- Virtual Reality panoramas of Auschwitz and Birkenau
Interactive Virtual Reality panoramas of Auschwitz and
Birkenau
- Auschwitz, Then and Now Photo/Art Exhibit Paintings by
survivor Jan Komski – click and see an actual photo taken in the
same place depicted in the painting
- Auschwitz: A Visitor's Introduction
- Auschwitz: The Nazis and the 'Final Solution' A
comprehensive BBC documentary about the
creation, evolution and aftermath of the Auschwitz camp
- The Simon
Wiesenthal Center An international Jewish human rights
organization dedicated to preserving the memory of the
Holocaust
- Photos of Auschwitz 2003 Photos taken by Laura Carboni while participating in the annual
multi-faith Bearing Witness retreat.
- Auschwitz and Birkenau at Google Maps
- CBC Digital Archives - Life after
Auschwitz
- Panoramic photo gallery of
Auschwitz-Birkenau
- C.A.N.D.L.E.S museum (Children of Auschwitz Nazi
Deadly Lab Experiments Survivors) Terre Haute, IN. Founded by
Mengele Twin, Eva Korr
- D. A. Brugiono and R. G. Poirier, The Holocaust Revisited: A
Retrospective Analysis of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Extermination
Complex. CIA report on WWII aerial photographs (1978, declassified
in 2000), [112]
- The
Holocaust: Crimes, Heros, and Villains
- Photos of Auschwitz - Birkenau
- JewishKrakow.net A guide to Kazimierz, Krakow's Jewish
Quarter. Also includes a section on Auschwitz complete with picture gallery and travel
information.
- Life at
Auschwitz