Auschwitz Concentration Camp
In the system of Nazi concentration camps, the Auschwitz Concentration Camp was the largest, both as an killing facility and slave labor camp. Estimates vary, but conservatively, 2 million people died there.
It was in service between 1940 and 1945, built on the suggestion of Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, Higher SS and Police Leader for southeastern Poland. [1] It has been designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, under the name ""Auschwitz Birkenau - German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp (1940-1945)".[2]
The location was picked for major expansion after Heinrich Himmler's visit in March 1941, partially because Poles "considered this remote corner of their country too inhospitable to live in."[3]
Establishment
Rudolf Hoess, who had commanded Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, was selected as the first Auschwitz commandant.
Organization
A member of the SS-WVHA, the Commandant was in overall charge, commander of the Totenkopf-SS garrison and the director of the SS economic enterprises.
Operations
In 1943, prisoner doctor-pathologist Miklos Nyiszli described what he saw on arriving: "...an immense square chimney built of red brigs tapering towards the summit. I was especially struch by the enormous tongues of flame rising betwen the lightning rods....I tried to realize what hellish cooking would require such a tremendous fire....A faint wind brought the smoke towards me. My nose, then my throat, were filled with the nauseating odor of burning flesh and scorched hair."[3]
Liberation
References
- ↑ Auschwitz Concentration Camp: The Historical Timeline, Holocaust Research Project
- ↑ World Heritage Committee approves Auschwitz name change, UNESCO
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Gerald Posner and John Ware (1986), Mengele: the Complete Story, McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0070505985, p. 19