Auschwitz-Birkenau

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The Auschwitz concentration camp was the largest and was established by Nazis regime. This camp was located about 37 miles west of Krakow, an area that Nazi Germany annexed in 1939 after invading and conquering Poland. The SS authorities established three main camps near the Polish city of Oswiecim: Auschwitz 1 in may 1940, Auschwitz 2 in 1942 (also called Auschwitz- Birkenau), and Auschwitz 3 in October 1942 (also called Auschwitz- Monowitz). The inspectorate was in charge of the camp.In November 1943, the SS made a law that Auschwitz-Birkenau and Auschwitz-Monowitz would become independent concentration camps.In November 1944, Auschwitz II was reunified with Auschwitz I. Auschwitz III was renamed Monowitz concentration camp. Auschwitz 1 was the main camp. It was the first camp established close to Oswiecim. Construction began in May 1940. The SS authorities continuously deployed prisoners at forced labor to expand the physical aspects of the camp. During the first year of existance the SS officers cleared about 40 square kilometers that was reserved for the exclusive use of the camp. The first prisioners at Auschwitz were repeat criminal offenders that were transfered from sachsenhausen (another concentration camp in Germany). Similar to most German concentration camps, Auschwitz I was constructed to serve three purposes: 1) to incarcerate enemies of the Nazi regime and the German occupation authorities in Poland for an indefinite period of time; 2) to have available a supply of forced laborers for deployment in SS-owned, construction-related enterprises 3) to serve as a site to physically eliminate small, targeted groups of the population whose death was determined by the SS and police authorities to be essential to the security of Nazi Germany. Like most other concentration camps, Auschwitz I had a gas chamber and crematorium. Initially, SS engineers constructed an improvised gas chamber in the basement of the prison block, Block 11. Later a larger, permanent gas chamber was constructed as part of the original crematorium in a separate building outside the prisoner compound. At Auschwitz 1 the SS phisicians carried out medical experiments and the best-known phisician is Dr. Josef Mengele. The construction of Auschwitz 2 began in October 1941. Out of the three camps this camp had the largest total prisioner population. It was divided into more than a dozen sections that were separated by electricified barbed wire fences just like Auschwitz 1, and was partroled by SS officers with vicious trained dogs. The sections were split up into men, women, a family camp for gypsies that were deported from Germany, and a fmaily camp for jewish families deported from the Theresienstadt ghetto. Auschwitz-Birkenau also contained facilities for a killing center. During the summer of 1941 Zyklon B gas was introduced into the German concentration camps used for murder. Auschwitz 3 was established in October 1942 to house prisioners assigned to work at the synthetic rubber factories. In the spring of 1941 some German officers made a factory to have the prisioners work in. Auschwitz III also had a so-called Labor Education Camp for non-Jewish prisoners who were perceived to have violated German-imposed labor discipline. In mid-January 1945, as Soviet forces approached the Auschwitz concentration camp complex, the SS began evacuating Auschwitz and its subcamps. SS units forced nearly 60,000 prisoners to march west from the Auschwitz camp. Thousands had been killed in the camp days before these death marches began. Tens of thousands of prisoners, mostly Jews, were forced to march either northwest for 30 miles to Gliwice due west for 35 miles to Wodzislaw (Loslau) in the western part of Upper Silesia, SS guards shot anyone who fell behind or could not continue. Prisoners also suffered from the cold weather, starvation, and exposure on these marches. At least 3,000 prisoners died on route to Gliwice alone; possibly as many as 15,000 prisoners died during the evacuation marches from Auschwitz and the subcamps.