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.
Lodz had the second largest Jewish population in prewar Poland, after Warsaw. German troops occupied Lodz in September 1939. In early February 1940, the Germans established a ghetto in Lodz and crowded more than 150,000 Jews into an area of about one and a half square miles. In 1941 and 1942 almost 40,000 Central European Jews and 5,000 Roma (Gypsies) were also forced into the ghetto. Between January and September 1942, over 75,000 ghetto residents were deported from Lodz to the Chelmno killing center. By the spring of 1944, the Lodz ghetto was the last remaining in German-occupied Poland. During that summer, the Germans deported the remaining Jews, most of them to Auschwitz.
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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.
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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 II (Birkenau) killing center in occupied Poland. In all, at least 1.1 million Jews and tens of thousands of other people perished in Auschwitz.
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