The Auschwitz concentration camp complex was the largest of its kind established by the Nazi regime. It included three main camps. All three camps used prisoners for forced labor. One of them also functioned for an extended period as a killing center.
View of the main entrance to the Auschwitz camp. The sign above the gate says "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work makes one free). Auschwitz, Poland, date uncertain.
Auschwitz was the largest camp established by the Germans. It was a complex of camps, including a concentration, extermination, and forced-labor camp. It was located at the town of Oswiecim near the prewar German-Polish border in Eastern Upper Silesia, an area annexed to Germany in 1939. Auschwitz I was the main camp and the first camp established at Oswiecim. Auschwitz II (Birkenau) was the killing center at Auschwitz. Trains arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau almost daily with transports of Jews from virtually every German-occupied country of Europe. Auschwitz III, also called Buna or Monowitz, was established in Monowice to provide forced laborers for nearby factories, including the I.G. Farben works. At least 1.1 million Jews were killed in Auschwitz. Other victims included between 70,000 and 75,000 Poles, 21,000 Roma, and about 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war.
Nazi physician Carl Clauberg (at left), who performed medical experiments on prisoners in Block 10 of the Auschwitz camp. Poland, between 1941 and 1944.
In 1939, Slovak fascists took over Topol'cany, where Miso lived. In 1942, Miso was deported to the Slovak-run Novaky camp and then to Auschwitz. At Auschwitz, he was tattooed with the number 65,316, indicating that 65,315 prisoners preceded him in that series of numbering. He was forced to labor in the Buna works and then in the Birkenau "Kanada" detachment, unloading incoming trains. In late 1944, prisoners were transferred to camps in Germany. Miso escaped during a death march from Landsberg and was liberated by US forces.
In Frankfurt, Ruth's family faced intensifying anti-Jewish measures; her father's business was taken over and Ruth's Jewish school was closed. In April 1943, Ruth and her family were deported to Auschwitz. Ruth was selected for forced labor and assigned to work on road repairs. She also worked in the "Kanada" unit, sorting possessions brought into the camp. In November 1944, Ruth was transferred to the Ravensbrueck camp system, in Germany. She was liberated in May 1945, during a death march from the Malchow camp.
An only child, Wolfgang was born in Berlin to Jewish parents. His father was the foreign representative for a sewing notions company. The family lived in a comfortable apartment in the southwestern district of the city. Wolfgang attended secondary school there and hoped to become an electrical engineer.
1933-39: When the Nazis came to power, Wolfgang's father fled Germany because he was a socialist and was afraid he'd be arrested. Wolfgang's mother was very ill, so his grandmother took care of him until it became too difficult for her, and then she placed him in a Jewish orphanage. By then, Jews weren't allowed in public schools, so he switched to a Jewish middle school. In l937 he joined his father in Paris and entered a training institute to learn to be a mechanic.
1940-44: By 1943 Wolfgang was living in Nice with his father and his stepmother, who owned a lending library. Many Jews had sought haven in Nice because under the Italian occupation there, Jews were not persecuted. But when Italy surrendered to the Allies in September, the Germans occupied the area. In March 1944 the Nazis deported Wolfgang, his parents, and 1,500 other Jews in sealed box cars from a transit camp near Paris to Auschwitz. Upon arrival, he was separated from his parents and herded into a room where his head was shaved.
Wolfgang's parents were gassed upon arrival at Auschwitz. Wolfgang was put to work in an electrical components factory and survived the war. He immigrated to America in 1947.
Margot was born to Jewish parents, Karl and Johanna (née Falkenstein) Heumann, in Hellenthal, a German village. Her younger sister Lore was born in 1931. The Heumanns lived above their general store. Margot's paternal grandfather Samuel was a cattle dealer and lived across the street from them. When Margot was still a child, her family moved to the German city of Lippstadt.
1933-39:The family’s life changed significantly in 1933 after the Nazis came to power in Germany. The Nazis began implementing antisemitic policies. Margot was not fully aware of the discrimination, but she noticed her father struggling to find employment. In the late 1930s, Margot and her family moved again, this time to the nearby city of Bielefeld. There, she and Lore attended a public school until they were expelled for being Jewish. They began attending a Jewish school.
1940-44: After World War II began in September 1939, life became increasingly difficult for the Heumanns and other German Jews. Beginning in September 1941, German Jews had to wear a yellow Star of David badge on their clothes, marking them as Jewish. Margot used to cover up her badge to sneak into movie theaters and do other things forbidden to Jews. The following month, the Nazi regime began to carry out the systematic deportation of German Jews.
In June 1943, Margot and her family were deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto. There, they reunited with Margot’s maternal grandmother, Bertha Falkenstein. Margot learned that their grandfather Leo had died in the ghetto. Margot (then aged 15) and Lore (then aged 12) lived in a youth home in the ghetto with other girls. Margot was also forced to work on a farm outside the ghetto. She sometimes smuggled food into the ghetto for her family.
In May 1944, German authorities deported Margot and her family to Auschwitz. At first, they were put in the “Czech family camp” (section BIIb) of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Prisoners in the section had some privileges, such as wearing civilian clothes instead of camp uniforms. But, they still suffered from starvation and lacked proper shelter and sanitation. They also had their prisoner numbers tattooed on their forearms. Margot was assigned camp number A1712.
In summer 1944, during selections conducted by the SS in the family camp, Margot was chosen for forced labor. Her parents and younger sister remained behind. Margot said goodbye to her parents and watched her father cry for the first time. She never saw her parents and sister again.
Margot was sent to do forced labor at a subcamp of Neuengamme concentration camp. She was then transferred to a number of other camps, ending up at Bergen-Belsen. Margot was liberated at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in April 1945. The Red Cross brought her to Sweden to recuperate. In 1946 she immigrated to the United States, where she married and had two children. In her old age, Margot came out to her family as a lesbian, making her one of the first known Holocaust survivors to do so.
One of four children, Ilona was born to religious Jewish parents living in the village of Erdobenye in the highlands of northeastern Hungary. The Karfunkel's house, on the village outskirts, had a large garden in the back and fruit orchards. Ilona's parents had a small vineyard and a little grocery store. Ilona married Ferenc Kalman, and the couple moved to Hatvan, 36 miles northeast of Budapest.
1933-39: Ilona and Ferenc have always considered themselves Hungarians who happened to be Jewish, and they've always been well-respected in Hatvan. In the last few months, though, right-wing antisemites have grown in power, and the atmosphere here has slowly been changing. Some of their daughter Judith's schoolmates have started to taunt her, and she is learning that to many others, Judith and her family are Jewish before they are Hungarian.
1940-44: After German troops entered Hungary a few weeks ago, Ferenc was conscripted into forced labor. Now, Ilona and Judith have been ordered to relocate to the sugar factory in Hatvan, where all Jews in the area are being concentrated. The Hungarian gendarmes are letting them take only 110 pounds of baggage into the ghetto. Judith is tough: She refuses to leave any of their nice things behind for someone else, so despite Ilona's tearful pleas, she's started to smash their beautiful, never-used glass dishes from Czechoslovakia.
In June 1944, 38-year-old Ilona and her daughter were deported to Auschwitz. Judith was selected for forced labor. Ilona was gassed upon arrival.
Fritzie's father immigrated to the United States, but by the time he could bring his family over, war had begun and Fritzie's mother feared attacks on transatlantic shipping. Fritzie, her mother, and two brothers were eventually sent to Auschwitz. Her mother and brothers died. Fritzie survived by pretending to be older than her age and thus a stronger worker. On a death march from Auschwitz, Fritzie ran into a forest, where she was later liberated.
Barracks in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. This photograph was taken after the liberation of the camp. Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland, after January 29, 1945.
Auschwitz was the largest camp established by the Germans. It was a complex of camps, including a concentration, extermination, and forced-labor camp. It was located near Cracow (Krakow), Poland. Three large camps constituted the Auschwitz camp complex: Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II (Birkenau), and Auschwitz III (Monowitz). More than one million people lost their lives at Auschwitz, nine out of ten of them Jewish. The four largest gas chambers could each hold 2,000 people at one time.
A sign over the entrance to the camp read Arbeit macht frei, which means "work makes one free." In actuality, the opposite was true. Labor became another form of genocide that the Nazis called "extermination through work."
Victims who were spared immediate death by being selected for labor were systematically stripped of their individual identities. They had their hair shaved off and a registration number tattooed on their left forearm. Men were forced to wear ragged, striped pants and jackets, and women wore work dresses. Both were issued ill-fitting work shoes, sometimes clogs. They had no change of clothing and slept in the same clothes they worked in.
Each day was a struggle for survival under unbearable conditions. Prisoners were housed in primitive barracks that had no windows and were not insulated from the heat or cold. There was no bathroom, only a bucket. Each barrack held about 36 wooden bunkbeds, and inmates were squeezed in five or six across on the wooden plank. As many as 500 inmates lodged in a single barrack.
Inmates were always hungry. Food consisted of watery soup made with rotten vegetables and meat, a few ounces of bread, a bit of margarine, tea, or a bitter drink resembling coffee. Diarrhea was common. People weakened by dehydration and hunger fell easy victim to the contagious diseases that spread through the camp.
Some inmates worked as forced laborers inside the camp, in the kitchen or as barbers, for example. Women often sorted the piles of shoes, clothes, and other prisoner belongings, which would be shipped back to Germany for use there. The storage warehouses at Auschwitz-Birkenau, located near two of the crematoria, were called "Canada," because the Poles regarded that country as a place of great riches. At Auschwitz, as at hundreds of other camps in the Reich and occupied Europe where the Germans used forced laborers, prisoners were also employed outside the camps, in coal mines and rock quarries, and on construction projects, digging tunnels and canals. Under armed guard, they shoveled snow off roads and cleared rubble from roads and towns hit during air raids. A large number of forced laborers eventually were used in factories that produced weapons and other goods that supported the German war effort. Many private companies, such as I. G. Farben and Bavarian Motor Works (BMW), which produced automobile and airplane engines, eagerly sought the use of prisoners as a source of cheap labor.
Escape from Auschwitz was almost impossible. Electrically charged barbed-wire fences surrounded both the concentration camp and the killing center. Guards, equipped with machine guns and automatic rifles, stood in the many watchtowers. The lives of the prisoners were completely controlled by their guards, who on a whim could inflict cruel punishment on them. Prisoners were also mistreated by fellow inmates who were chosen to supervise the others in return for special favors by the guards.
Cruel "medical experiments" were conducted at Auschwitz. Men, women, and children were used as subjects. SS physician Dr. Josef Mengele carried out painful and traumatic experiments on dwarfs and twins, including young children. The aim of some experiments was to find better medical treatments for German soldiers and airmen. Other experiments were aimed at improving methods of sterilizing people the Nazis considered inferior. Many people died during the experiments. Others were killed after the "research" was completed and their organs removed for further study.
Most prisoners at Auschwitz survived only a few weeks or months. Those who were too ill or too weak to work were condemned to death in the gas chambers. Some committed suicide by throwing themselves against the electric wires. Others resembled walking corpses, broken in body and spirit. Yet other inmates were determined to stay alive.
Key Dates
May 20, 1940 Auschwitz I camp opens Auschwitz I, the main camp in the Auschwitz camp complex, is the first camp established near Oswiecim. Construction began in May 1940 in the Zasole suburb of Oswiecim, in artillery barracks formerly used by the Polish army. The camp is continuously expanded through the use of forced labor. Although Auschwitz I is primarily a concentration camp, serving a penal function, it also has a gas chamber and crematorium. An improvised gas chamber is located in the basement of the prison (Block 11). Later, a gas chamber is constructed in the crematorium.
October 8, 1941 Construction of Auschwitz II (Birkenau) begins Construction of Auschwitz II, or Auschwitz-Birkenau, begins in Brzezinka. Of the three camps established near Oswiecim as part of the Auschwitz camp complex, Auschwitz-Birkenau has the largest prisoner population. It is divided into nine sections separated by electrified barbed-wire fences and patrolled by SS guards and dogs. The camp includes sections for women, men, Roma (Gypsies), and families deported from the Theresienstadt ghetto. Auschwitz-Birkenau plays a central role in the German plan to exterminate the Jews of Europe. Four large crematoria buildings are constructed between March and June 1943. Each has three components: a disrobing area, a large gas chamber, and crematorium ovens. Gassing operations continue until November 1944.
October 1942 Auschwitz III camp opens The Germans establish Auschwitz III, also called Buna or Monowitz, in Monowice to provide forced laborers for the Buna synthetic rubber works (part of the German conglomerate I.G. Farben). I.G. Farben invested more than 700 million Reichsmarks (about 1.4 million US dollars in 1942) in Auschwitz III. Prisoners selected for forced labor are registered and tattooed with identification numbers on their left arms in Auschwitz I. They are then assigned to forced labor in Auschwitz or in one of the many subcamps attached to Auschwitz III.
January 27, 1945 Soviet army liberates Auschwitz camp complex The Soviet army enters Auschwitz and liberates the remaining prisoners. Only a few thousand prisoners remain in the camp. Almost 60,000 prisoners, mostly Jews, were forced on a death march from the camp shortly before its liberation. During the forced evacuation of Auschwitz, prisoners were brutally mistreated and many were killed. SS guards shot anyone who fell behind. During its brief existence, nearly 1 million Jews were killed in Auschwitz. Other victims included between 70,000 and 74,000 Poles, 21,000 Roma (Gypsies), and about 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war.
Author(s):
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC
Critical Thinking Questions
Where were the camps located? How might the German population and the local community in Poland have been aware of this camp, its purpose, and the conditions within?
Did the outside world have any knowledge about these camps? If so, what actions were taken by other countries and their officials? What choices do other countries have in the face of mistreatment of civilians?
How does the example of this camp demonstrate the complexity and the systematic nature of the German efforts to abuse and kill the Jews?
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