Auschwitz, << OWSH vihts, >> was the largest concentration camp run by Nazi Germany during World War II (1939-1945). A concentration camp is a place where people are kept against their will, usually by a government or other powerful group. The camp was in the town of Oświęcim in German-occupied Poland. The Nazis used Auschwitz as a killing center, where prisoners were murdered, and as a center for forced labor. About 1 1/4 million people, mostly Jews, were killed at Auschwitz. Other victims included Poles, Roma (sometimes called Gypsies), and Soviet prisoners of war.
Auschwitz was a group of three main camps and more than 40 smaller camps. The first camp, Auschwitz I, began in 1940 as a camp for Polish political prisoners. Many of the prisoners died from starvation, disease, or harsh treatment. In March 1942, Auschwitz II, or Birkenau, opened. It was primarily an extermination (mass killing) facility, and eventually had four large gas chambers—rooms where people were killed with poisonous hydrogen cyanide gas. In October 1942, Auschwitz III, or Monowitz, opened primarily as a slave labor camp. The camp produced synthetic rubber (rubber manufactured from chemicals).
In November 1944, as German forces retreated from advancing Soviet troops, the Nazis closed the gas chambers at Birkenau. In January 1945, the Nazis forced about 60,000 prisoners to march westward toward Germany. Many people died on these “death marches.” In an effort to remove evidence of their crimes, the Nazis destroyed the gas chambers and crematoriums (buildings with furnaces for burning dead bodies) at Auschwitz before abandoning the camps. Soviet troops eventually found about 7,000 surviving prisoners at Auschwitz.
Today, the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum pays tribute to the camp’s many victims. Auschwitz has been designated a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
