Like most German concentration camps, Auschwitz I was constructed for three purposes:. Like some concentration camps, Auschwitz I had a gas chamber and crematorium. Initially, SS engineers constructed an improvised gas chamber in the basement of the prison block, Block Later a larger, permanent gas chamber was constructed as part of the original crematorium in a separate building outside the prisoner compound.
They conducted pseudoscientific research on infants, twins, and dwarfs, and performed forced sterilizations and castrations of adults. The best-known of these physicians was SS Captain Dr. Josef Mengele. Rather, it was his participation in the killing process—indeed his supervision of Auschwitz mass murder from beginning to end. Between the medical-experiments barrack and the prison block Block 11 stood the "Black Wall," where SS guards executed thousands of prisoners.
Of the three camps established near Oswiecim, the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp had the largest total prisoner population. It was divided into ten sections separated by electrified barbed-wire fences.
The camp included sections for women; men; a family camp for Roma Gypsies deported from Germany, Austria, and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia; and a family camp for Jewish families deported from the Theresienstadt ghetto.
Auschwitz-Birkenau was also a killing center and played a central role in the German effort to kill the Jews of Europe. Bunker I began operating in spring , the larger Bunker II in mid-summer These gassing facilities soon proved inadequate for the task of murdering the large numbers of Jewish deportees being sent to Auschwitz. Between March and June , four large crematoria were built within Auschwitz-Birkenau, each with a gas chamber, a disrobing area, and crematory ovens.
Gassing of newly arrived transports ceased at Auschwitz by early November Jewish deportees arriving at Auschwitz-Birkenau immediately underwent selection.
The SS staff chose some of the able-bodied for forced labor and sent the rest directly to the gas chambers, which were disguised as shower installations to mislead the victims. The belongings of all deportees were confiscated and sorted in the "Kanada" Canada warehouse for shipment back to Germany. Canada symbolized wealth to the prisoners. Trains arrived at Auschwitz frequently with transports of Jews from virtually every country in Europe occupied by or allied to Germany.
These transports arrived from early to early November The approximate breakdown of deportations from individual countries:. With the deportations from Hungary , the role of Auschwitz-Birkenau in the German plan to murder the Jews of Europe achieved its highest effectiveness.
Between late April and early July , approximately , Jews were deported from Hungary. Of the nearly , Hungarian Jews deported to Auschwitz, approximately , of them were sent directly to the gas chambers in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
They deployed approximately , at forced labor in the Auschwitz camp complex. The SS authorities transferred many of these Hungarian Jewish forced laborers within weeks of their arrival in Auschwitz to other concentration camps in Germany and Austria.
On October 7, , several hundred prisoners assigned to Crematorium IV at Auschwitz-Birkenau rebelled after learning that they were going to be killed. During the uprising, the prisoners killed three guards and blew up the crematorium and adjacent gas chamber. The prisoners used explosives smuggled into the camp by Jewish women who had been assigned to forced labor in a nearby armaments factory. The Germans crushed the revolt and killed almost all of the prisoners involved in the rebellion.
The Jewish women who had smuggled the explosives into the camp were publicly hanged in early January The Auschwitz SS stopped gassing newly arrived prisoners by early November On orders from Himmler, camp officials began dismantling the crematoria. The SS destroyed the remaining gassing installations as Soviet forces approached in January It housed prisoners assigned to work at the Buna synthetic rubber works, located on the outskirts of the small village of Monowice.
In the spring of , German conglomerate I. Farben established a factory in which its executives intended to exploit concentration camp labor to manufacture synthetic rubber and fuels. Farben invested more than million Reichsmarks about 2. Between July and October there was a pause in transports, due to a typhus epidemic and quarantine. Between and , the SS authorities at Auschwitz established 44 subcamps. Some subcamps, such as Freudenthal and Bruenn Brno , were located in Moravia.
In general, subcamps that produced or processed agricultural goods were administratively subordinate to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Subcamps whose prisoners were deployed at industrial and armaments production or in extractive industries e. This division of administrative responsibility was formalized after November Auschwitz inmates were employed on huge farms, including the experimental agricultural station at Rajsko.
They were also forced to work in coal mines, in stone quarries, in fisheries, and especially in armaments industries such as the SS-owned German Equipment Works established in A visit to the authentic Memorial Site is a unique educational experience. However, people who do not have the ability to visit the former concentration camp of Auschwitz now have the opportunity to become acquainted with its history through education conducted via the Internet. See our online lessons here: lesson.
After the liquidation of the Polish state and its institutions, the fundamental goal of German policy in occupied Poland was the exploitation of material and labor resources, and the removal of the local Polish population and ethnic minorities.
This was done through expulsion and systematic extermination. The Polish lands were to be completely germanized, through German settlement in the depopulated area.
Read more Until early , the Nazis deported to Auschwitz only a relatively small number of Jews, who were sent there along with the non-Jewish prisoners, mostly Poles, who accounted for the majority of the camp population until mid Images from www. Their use must not tarnish the good reputation of the victims of KL Auschwitz. Any interference in the integrity of the images — including cropping or graphic processing — is prohibited. Chosen as the central location for the annihilation of the Jewish people, it was equipped with several extermination facilities and crematoria.
Extermination was carried out by means of Zyklon B gas, a substance that had previously been tested on Russian prisoners of war. Exterminations in Birkenau began in March There were four gas chambers in the camp that used Zyklon B gas. Until November the camp functioned as a factory for mass murder, receiving transports from all over Europe.
Most of those brought to the camp were Jews and nearly all were immediately sent to the gas chambers. Josef Mengele and his staff. In the spring and summer of , the rate of extermination was increased as the Jews of Hungary and the Lodz ghetto were brought to the camp. The process of selection and murder was carefully planned and organized. The criterion was the appearance of the prisoners, whose fate, for labor or for death, was determined at will.
Before they entered the chamber, they were told that they were about to be disinfected and ordered to undress. The doors of the chamber were locked and the gas was introduced. The bodies were hauled to the crematorium furnaces for incineration, the bones were pulverized and the ashes were scattered in the fields. Repeat selections took place several times during the day in roll calls. Inmates who had become weak or ill were separated from the ranks and sent to the gas chambers.
A brutal regimen based on a set of punishments and torture was invoked in the camp. Few managed to survive.
0コメント