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
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.
Item ViewForced labor at Auschwitz-Birkenau
Prisoners at forced labor building an extension to the camp. Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland, 1942–43.
Item ViewAuschwitz environs, summer 1944
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.
Item ViewNazi physician Carl Clauberg (left)
Nazi physician Carl Clauberg (at left), who performed medical experiments on prisoners in Block 10 of the Auschwitz camp. Poland, between 1941 and 1944.
Item ViewMiso (Michael) Vogel describes arrival at Auschwitz
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.
Item ViewRuth Meyerowitz describes surviving a selection for the gas chamber
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.
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Wolfgang Munzer
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.
Item ViewMargot Heumann
The older of two girls, Margot was born to Jewish parents living in a village close to the Belgian border. The Heumanns lived above their general store. Across the street lived Margot's grandfather, who kept horses and cows in his large barn. When Margot was 4, her family moved to the city of Lippstadt. As a young girl, she learned to swim in the Lippe River, which flowed behind their garden.
1933-39: When Margot was 9, her family moved to the nearby city of Bielefeld, where she was enrolled in public school. A year later, Margot and her little sister, Lore, were expelled from school. All of a sudden, they were kicked out of class, and not understanding why, they just stood outside crying. Then they walked home. After this, their parents sent them to a Jewish school where they had teachers, who, like them, had been kicked out of the schools by the Nazis.
1940-44: Margot was 14 when her family was deported, and 16 when they ended up in Auschwitz. One day, she was ordered onto a convoy and knew that she wouldn't come back. Her mother had the option to go with her or stay with her sister, who was too young to go, and since she felt that her sister needed her mother more than her, she stayed. Margot remembers hugging her mother goodbye. She used to be a heavy woman, but by then she was all skin and bones. Not knowing any better, Margot ate her mother's soup, her only food for the day, which her mother insisted that she take.
Margot never saw her parents and sister again. She was liberated at Bergen-Belsen in April, 1945. The Red Cross brought her to Sweden to recuperate, and in 1947 she moved to America.
Item ViewIlona Karfunkel Kalman
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.
Item ViewFritzie Weiss Fritzshall describes the selection process in Auschwitz
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.
Item ViewBarracks in Auschwitz-Birkenau
Barracks in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. This photograph was taken after the liberation of the camp. Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland, after January 29, 1945.
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