Auschwitz-Birkenau (Oswiecim)

A concentration and death camp; the largest of the approximately 2,000 Nazi concentration and forced labour camps, and the largest camp designed for the purpose of exterminating the Jewish people by gas poisoning. The number of Jews murdered in the gas chambers at Birkenau stands at about one and a half million men, women and children.
On 27th April 1940, Heinrich Himmler ordered the construction of a large new concentration camp near the town of Oswiecim in the eastern part of eastern Upper Silesia, which had been annexed to the German Reich after the collapse of Poland in September 1939. In the first stage, most of those held in the camp were Polish political prisoners. They numbered 10,090 on 1st March 1941. Auschwitz rapidly became notorious as the worst Nazi concentration camp.

In March 1941, Himmler ordered the construction of a second, much larger wing at the camp, about 3 km away from the original camp. The new wing was called Auschwitz II-Birkenau. A third camp was opened at Monowitz (Monowice), known as Auschwitz III-Buna-Monowitz. The name Buna came from the Buna artificial rubber factories at Monowitz. Another 45 sub-camps were built in the course of time. Auschwitz II-Birkenau, which was the most crowded of the network of camps at Auschwitz, was also the most barbaric and inhuman in its living conditions. The inmates of the Birkenau camps were mostly Jews, Poles and Germans. At one point there was a Gypsy family camp and a Czech Jewish family camp there. The gas chambers and crematoria of the Auschwitz extermination centre were located at Birkenau.

THE PROCESS
When the trains halted at the station platform (the "ramp") in Birkenau, the guards would quickly and brutally push the passengers out. The victims were ordered to leave all their personal belongings and to stand in two lines, men and women separately. These lines had to move quickly to points where SS officers carried out the "selection", directing the victims to two sides, though usually just to one side -- in the direction of the gas chambers. Those sent to the second side were destined for the labour camp. Those sent to the gas chambers were murdered the same day, and their corpses were burnt in the crematoria; however, if the number of corpses was greater than the crematoria could handle, they were burnt in the open.
One of the worst jobs was assigned to prisoners in the special unit called the Zonderkommando. These prisoners were forced to work in the crematoria, burning the bodies of the victims murdered that day in the gas chambers.

Besides those chosen at the "selection" for forced labour, there were also victims who were chosen for medical experiments.

RESISTANCE
In spite of the terrible and degrading conditions, the prisoners displayed resistance to their conquerors in different ways. The most common was mutual assistance. A very common form of resistance was escape: 667 prisoners, mostly Poles, Russians and Jews, escaped under the most difficult conditions, although 270 of them were caught near the camp and were executed.

On 7th October 1944 the Zonderkommando prisoners revolted and destroyed at least one gas chamber. All those who took part fell in battle. Before the revolt, the Zonderkommando prisoners carried out a very important resistance action: some of them managed to keep diaries, in which they gave detailed descriptions of the horrors of Auschwitz. These diaries were buried in the ground. The most important of these diaries are those of Zalman Gradovsky and Zalman Levental.
On 27th January 1945 the soldiers of the Red Army entered Auschwitz.

WAR CRIMINAL TRIALS
On 27th March 1947, the commander of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hess, was tried and sentenced to death. Another 40 Nazis from Auschwitz were tried; 23 of them were sentenced to death, and 16 were given prison sentences.

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