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Elie Wiesel Auschwitz Buchenwald Hungary

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Auschwitz

Auschwitz played a central role in the "Final Solution," the Nazi plan to murder the Jews of Europe. The Nazis deported Jews from nearly every European country to the Auschwitz II (Birkenau) killing center in occupied Poland. In all, more than 1.1 million people died at Auschwitz, including approximately one million Jews.

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Buchenwald environs, 1945 [LCID: buc42030] — Item View

Major camps in Greater Germany, Buchenwald indicated [LCID: buc72020] — Item View

Major death marches from Auschwitz, January 1945 [LCID: auc72080] — Item View

Auschwitz environs, summer 1944 [LCID: auc42030] — This map shows the Auschwitz camp complex in the summer of 1944.

The SS established Auschwitz in spring 1940 as a concentration camp for Polish political prisoners. It was located in German-occupied Poland on the outskirts of the town of Oświęcim. Over the next several years, the camp was expanded and transformed into a sprawling camp complex. In March 1942, the SS began operating a killing center at Auschwitz where they murdered Jewish people from all over Europe.

By 1944, the Auschwitz camp complex included multiple camps that served different purposes. The largest of the Auschwitz camps included the Auschwitz main camp (Auschwitz I); Auschwitz-Birkenau (Auschwitz II), which included the killing center; and Auschwitz-Monowitz (Auschwitz III). There were also numerous smaller subcamps.

At Auschwitz, the Germans killed about 1.1 million people, including approximately 1,000,000 Jews, 70,000 Poles, 21,000 Roma and Sinti, and 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war.
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Deportations from Hungarian ghettos to Auschwitz [LCID: hun78120] — Item View

Ghettos in occupied Hungary, 1944 [LCID: hun74020] — Item View

Hungarian expansion [LCID: hun71060] — Item View

Romania, 1933 [LCID: rom19010] — Item View

Buchenwald concentration camp, spring 1945 [LCID: buc22041] — Item View

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