Eugeniusz Rozenblum was born to Jewish parents in Lodz, Poland. The Germans invaded Poland in September 1939 and in 1940 they forced the Jews of Lodz into a ghetto. In 1944, Eugeniusz was taken to Auschwitz and then to the Dachau camp. Out of the 70 people in his family, Eugeniusz was the only survivor.
These maps add geographic context to Eugeniusz's experience.
![Poland 1933, Lodz indicated [LCID: lod79060]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/large/087ef9a3-0dd7-42fb-82a9-fd4ce4345579.gif "Poland 1933, Lodz indicated [LCID: lod79060]")
![Europe 1933, Poland and Lodz indicated [LCID: lod64030]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/large/c4ce9ddc-2984-49c9-a3a1-81bc8ab526af.gif "Europe 1933, Poland and Lodz indicated [LCID: lod64030]")
![Major ghettos in Europe, Lodz indicated [LCID: lod74030]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/large/11df6619-ef3b-4acc-82a4-2a23d5b6463b.gif "Major ghettos in Europe, Lodz indicated [LCID: lod74030]")
![Lodz ghetto environs, 1940 [LCID: lod44020]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/large/1ecca53e-6923-4300-9e70-1b7923f42d76.gif "Lodz ghetto environs, 1940 [LCID: lod44020]")
![Lodz ghetto, 1940-1944 [LCID: lod54013]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/large/88e6cbd3-8d53-435e-acaf-890c7c2f58e0.gif "Lodz ghetto, 1940-1944 [LCID: lod54013]")
The city of Łódź had the second largest Jewish population in prewar Poland, after Warsaw. German troops occupied Łódź in September 1939. In early February 1940, the Germans established a ghetto in Łódź and crowded about 160,000 Jews into an area of about one and a half square miles. In late 1941-1942, tens of thousands of Jews and about 5,000 Roma (derogatorily called "Gypsies") were transferred to the Łódź ghetto. Tens of thousands of people died in the ghetto, mostly due to disease and starvation.
Between January and September 1942, over 75,000 ghetto residents were deported from Łódź to the Chełmno killing center. By the spring of 1944, the Łódź ghetto was the last remaining ghetto in German-occupied Poland. During that summer, the Germans deported the remaining Jews, most of them to Auschwitz.
Item View![Killing centers in occupied Poland, 1942 [LCID: pol72090]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/large/467bd15d-d804-4915-bf66-acca71f40778.gif "Killing centers in occupied Poland, 1942 [LCID: pol72090]")
Killing centers (also referred to as "extermination camps" or "death camps") were designed to carry out genocide. Between 1941 and 1945, the Nazis established five killing centers in German-occupied Poland—Chełmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Auschwitz-Birkenau (part of the Auschwitz camp complex). Chełmno and Auschwitz were established in areas annexed to Germany in 1939. The other camps (Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka) were established in the General Government (an administrative unit of occupied Poland). Auschwitz functioned as concentration and forced-labor camps, as well as a killing center. The overwhelming majority of the victims of the killing centers were Jews. An estimated 2.7 million Jews were killed in these five killing centers as part of the "Final Solution." Other victims murdered in the killing centers included Roma (Gypsies) and Soviet prisoners of war.
On this map, the Majdanek camp is labeled as a killing center. In the past, many scholars counted the Majdanek camp (located just outside the city of Lublin) as a sixth killing center. However, based on newer research, Lublin-Majdanek is usually classified as a concentration camp. According to this research, German authorities used Majdanek primarily as a place to concentrate Jews who were being temporarily spared for use as forced laborers. Occasionally, especially after Belzec ceased operating in late 1942, Jews were sent to Majdanek as part of Operation Reinhard to undergo selection. Jews selected as unfit for labor were murdered at Lublin-Majdanek either by shooting or in the camp's gas chambers.
Item View![Auschwitz environs, summer 1944 [LCID: auc42030]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/large/341a5fd2-ed4d-4067-b988-f7b0fe940fdb.gif "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.
Item View![Auschwitz I camp, 1944 [LCID: auc22013]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/large/b1e260a8-3289-49de-8cd6-dbfdd79df0b7.gif "Auschwitz I camp, 1944 [LCID: auc22013]")
Selected Features
1. Camp Commandant's House
2. Main Guard House
3. Camp Administrative Office
4. Gestapo
5. Reception Building/Prisoner Registration
6. Kitchen
7. Gas Chamber and Crematorium
8. Storage Buildings and Workshops
9. Storage of Confiscated Belongings
10. Gravel Pit: Execution Site
11. Camp Orchestra Site
12. "Black Wall" Execution Site
13. Block 11: Punishment Bunker
14. Block 10: Medical Experiments
15. Gallows
16. Block Commander's Barracks
17. SS Hospital
Item ViewAuschwitz 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-Birkenau killing center in German-occupied Poland. In all, more than 1.1 million people died at Auschwitz, including approximately one million Jews.
Item View![Dachau concentration camp, 1944 [LCID: dac22030]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/large/c7cc3097-3b5c-4fdf-9a46-f931b66dcc77.gif "Dachau concentration camp, 1944 [LCID: dac22030]")
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