Lidia Lebowitz was 10 years old when Germany occupied Hungary in 1944. Lidia and her parents were among the some 15,000 Jews forced into a ghetto in the town of Sátoraljaújhely. In May and June of 1944, all the Jews there were deported to Auschwitz. Lidia and her parents were never heard from again.
These maps add geographic context to Lidia's experiences.
![Europe, 1933 [LCID: eur11080]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/large/a96f52e9-a51c-458d-a452-391ac8f690d0.gif "Europe, 1933 [LCID: eur11080]")
![Europe 1933, Hungary indicated [LCID: eur69380]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/large/667ea190-a93e-4179-b5f7-358014996aa0.gif "Europe 1933, Hungary indicated [LCID: eur69380]")
![Hungary, 1933 [LCID: hun19010]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/large/3c6752cc-f96d-405b-88e4-64a5549a38e8.gif "Hungary, 1933 [LCID: hun19010]")
![German administration of Europe, 1944 [LCID: eur66010]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/large/fb746038-63f4-4fdf-836b-c7af9c8a5898.gif "German administration of Europe, 1944 [LCID: eur66010]")
![Deportations from Hungarian ghettos to Auschwitz [LCID: hun78120]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/large/958f0ea1-9e02-4f13-a598-2f8137398d8a.gif "Deportations from Hungarian ghettos to Auschwitz [LCID: hun78120]")
![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.
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