On April 27, , Heinrich Himmler ordered construction of the camp. In May , Poles were evicted from the vicinity of the barracks most of them were executed , and a work crew comprising concentration camp prisoners was sent from Sachsenhausen.
Another Jews from the large Jewish community of Oswiecim were also pressed into service. On May 20, , the first prisoners first transport of prisoners, almost all Polish civilians, arrived and the SS administration and staff was established. On March 1, , the camp population was 10, Quite quickly, the camp developed a reputation for torture and mass shootings.
Corpses in a block of Auschwitz. In March , Himmler visited Auschwitz and commanded its enlargement to hold 30, prisoners. The location of the camp, practically in the center of German-occupied Europe, and its convenient transportation connections and proximity to rail lines was the main thinking behind the Nazi plan to enlarge Auschwitz and begin deporting people here from all over Europe.
At this time only the main camp, later known as Auschwitz I, had been established. Himmler ordered the construction of a second camp for , inmates on the site of the village of Brzezinka, roughly two miles from the main camp.
Chemical giant I G Farben expressed an interest in utilizing this labor force, and extensive construction work began in October under terrible conditions and with massive loss of life.
About 10, Russian POWs died in this process. The greater part of the apparatus of mass extermination was eventually built in the Birkenau camp and most of the victims were murdered here.
More than 40 sub-camps, exploiting the prisoners as slave laborers, were also founded, mainly as various sorts of German industrial plants and farms, between and The largest of them was called Buna Monowitz, with ten thousand prisoners and was opened by the camp administration in on the grounds of the Buna-Werke synthetic rubber and fuel plant, six kilometers from the Auschwitz camp. The Germans isolated all the camps and sub-camps from the outside world and surrounded them with barbed wire fencing.
All contact with the outside world was forbidden. However, the area administered by the commandant and patrolled by the SS camp garrison went beyond the grounds enclosed by barbed wire. With the additions, the main camp population grew from 18, in December to more than 30, in March By January , 27, women were living in Birkenau, in section B1a, in separated quarters. The gas chambers and crematoria at Birkenau were opened in March Beginning in , Auschwitz began to function in a way different than its original intent.
The Nazis marked all the Jews living in Europe for total extermination, regardless of their age, sex, occupation, citizenship, or political views. They were killed for one reason, and one reason alone — because they were Jews.
Newly arrived persons classified by the SS physicians as unfit for labor were sent to the gas chambers: these included the ill, the elderly, pregnant women and children.
These people were not entered in the camp records; that is, they received no serial numbers and were not registered, and therefore it is possible only to estimate the total number of victims. Of approximately 2. In Autumn , the camp administration was reorganized following a corruption scandal. By the end of , the prisoner population of Auschwitz main camp, Birkenau, Monowitz and other subcamps was over 80, 18, in the main camp, 49, in Birkenau, and 13, at Monowitz where I G Farben had its synthetic rubber plant.
Up to 50, prisoners were scattered around 51 subcamps such as Rajsko, an experimental agricultural station, and Gleiwitz, a coal mine see The List of the Camps for a complete list of those subcamps. Barracks at Auschwitz designed for prisoners held 1, The situation in the subcamps was often even worse than in the main camps.
In mid, Auschwitz was designated a SS-run security area of over 40 square miles. By August , the camp population reached , The last roll-call on January 18th, , showed 64, inmates. During its history, the prison population of Auschwitz changed composition significantly. At first, its inmates were almost entirely Polish.
From April to March , on about 27, inmates, 30 percent were Poles and 57 percent were Jews. From March to March of , inmates, 60 percent were Jews. From May 15 to July 9, , , Hungarian Jews, the most deported from any country, were sent to Auschwitz.
Gas Chamber door at Birkenau Lebensgefhar danger of death. A parallel system to the main camp in Auschwitz began to operate at the Birkenau camp by The second measured about 1. Their bodies were taken out of the gas chambers and pushed to pits where they were burned in the open.
Between January and March , , Jews were gassed to death here, of whom , were killed from January to March It appears from the plans that the first two gas chambers were adapted from mortuaries which, with the huge crematoria attached to them, were initially intended to cope with mortalities amongst the slave labor force in the camp, now approaching , and subject to a horrifying death rate.
But from the autumn of , it seems clear that the SS planners and civilian contractors were intending to build a mass-murder plant. Main Gate at Birkenau circa The first opened on March 31, , the last on April 4, Irrespective of the administrative divisions, commanders of all Auschwitz camps and sub-camps always reported to the main camp commander in Auschwitz I being, at the same time, the garrison commander and having the right to solve any disputes with respect to the remaining commanders.
Initially there was one camp, Auschwitz , established in June ; In March a subsidiary of the Auschwitz camp was established — Birkenau from the German name of the village of Brzezinka where it was located ; In October Monowitz , an Auschwitz sub-camp was established named after the German name of the village of Monowice where it was located.
In total almost 50 sub-camps of Auschwitz were established between The first administrative division of Auschwitz, In November , due to growing difficulties in managing the growing complex and more and the increasingly distinct functions of each part of it, the Auschwitz camps were divided into: KL Auschwitz I Stammlager, German for the main camp , KL Auschwitz II-Birkenau included all camps, the so-called building sections in Birkenau as well as sub-camps at agricultural and livestock farms , KL Auschwitz III Aussenlager, German for a sub-camp or external camp.
It included Monowitz as well as sub-camps that did not fall under the Birkenau camp, mainly those located near the industrial centers. Initially, Auschwitz was to be one more concentration camp of the type that the Nazis had been setting up since the early s.
Let us build memory! Donate any documents and other historical items in your possession to the Auschwitz Memorial. Memory is not something that is acquired once and stays on forever. The moment that the last eyewitnesses and survivors pass away, we have to work together to build on that which remains: the testimonies of those former prisoners and the authentic artifacts connected with Auschwitz.
Each item can have its own enormous meaning and should find its place in the collection of the Auschwitz Memorial. Here, it will be preserved, studied, and displayed. Its place is here. The official podcast of the Auschwitz Memorial. The history of Auschwitz is exceptionally complex. It combined two functions: a concentration camp and an extermination center.
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