Auschwitz

General Facts Auschwitz-Birkenau was the killing center at Auschwitz. Almost all of the deportees who arrived at the camps were sent immediately to death in the gas chambers.  It is estimated that the SS and police deported at a minimum 1.3 million people to Auschwitz complex between 1940 and 1945. Of these, the camp authorities murdered 1.1 million.

May 20, 1940 SS authorities establish the Auschwitz camp. Included three main camps, all of which deployed incarcerated prisoners at forced labor. Located approximately 37 miles west of Krakow, an area that Nazi Germany annexed in 1939 after invading and conquering Poland.

Auschwitz Report June 18, 1944 Between June 18 and 22, 1944, the Auschwitz Report, written by two Slovak Jewish prisoners who escaped from Auschwitz on April 7, 1944, and composed a report in Slovak by the end of April, goes public worldwide through media channels in Switzerland.

The report detailed the reliable eyewitness accounts of the camp. A Romanian diplomat assisted the former prisoners with the report and helped distribute it to Swiss Protestant clergy. Launched a worldwide press campaign condemning Nazi atrocities.

Czech Family Camp Liquidated July 11, 1944 "On July 11 I did not sleep. The night was bright, the sky red. Of that—somewhere—I can’t talk about it. On July 11 they killed my father. I balled my fists; I cried and promised to avenge him.“ Comes from an entry in Peter Kraus's postwar diary of events in Terezin, Auschwitz, and Mauthausen. After losing both his parents in camps, Kraus began writing a series of diaries to document his and his parents’ experiences.

Auschwitz Revolt October 7, 1944 4 women prisoners assigned to Crematorium IV at the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center rebel after learning that they were going to be killed. They smuggled gunpowder in through clothing while working in the factory. Prewar portrait of Ella Gärtner, participant in the Auschwitz-Birkenau revolt of October 1944. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Anna and Joshua Heilman

Soviets Liberate Auschwitz January 27, 1945 The striped skirt of a prison uniform worn at the Auschwitz concentration camp. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Panstwowe Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau w Oswiecimiu The Soviet army enters Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Monowitz and liberates around 7,000 prisoners, most of whom are ill and dying. SS units forced nearly 60,000 prisoners to march west from the Auschwitz camp system. Thousands had been killed in the camps in the days before these death marches began.