| Located in Upper Silesia, Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest Nazi camp combining the functions of concentration camp and killing center. Originally designed by the Nazis for Polish prisoners, the camp opened in May 1940. However, with implementation of the "Final Solution" in 1941, it became the largest center for the murder of millions of European Jews.
Containers of Zyklon-B pellets, a form of crystalline prussic acid, used to murder inmates at Auschwitz. CL:Archives of the State Museum in Oswiecim
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Burning corpses of murdered inmates in 1944. Clandestine photo. CL: Archives of the State Museum in Oswiecim |
| "When the Reichsfuehrer SS modified his original Extermination Order of 1941, by which all Jews without exception were to be destroyed. and ordered instead that those capable of work were to be separated from the rest and employed in the armaments industry. Auschwitz became a Jewish camp. It was a collecting place for Jews, exceeding in scale anything previously known...They knew, without exception, that they were condemned to death ,that they would live only so long as they could work." Rudolf Hoess, Autobiography Captions |
Birkenau housed Gypsies and women, while Monowitz, the third camp in the Auschwitz complex, held male prisoners used as slave labor for the I.G. Farben Buna works. |
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