History of Auschwitz

Auschwitz I: The original concentration camp that served as the administrative center for the entire Auschwitz area. Approximately 70,000 Polish intellectuals, resistance members, "antisocial elements", homosexuals and Soviet prisoners of war were murdered here. Military economic enterprises serving the German army are located here.

Auschwitz II (Birkenau): This was an extermination camp whose main task was to carry out mass murder in gas chambers, with approximately 960,000 Jews, 75,000 Poles and 19,000 Gypsies were killed here. In addition, it also included several smaller concentration camps: the agricultural camp in Buda, the poultry camp in Gahuize, the vegetable camp in Lesko, and some medical and chemical laboratories.

Auschwitz III (Monowitz): This is a labor camp consisting of a main camp and 39 small concentration camps, also known as Renner-Monowitz, the name comes from Renner synthetic rubber factory on the original site of Monowitz. The owner of the concentration camp is I.G. Farben, Germany's largest chemical company. About 11,000 prisoners work in Monowitz, responsible for coal mining, cement and rubber production, etc. Doctors from Auschwitz II (Birkenau) would regularly visit here and send those who were unable to work to the gas chambers.

After Poland was occupied by Nazi Germany in 1939, Auschwitz fell under the sphere of influence of Nazi Germany. From then on, the word "Oswiecim" was changed to Auschwitz by the Nazis. At the end of 1939, the local Nazi leaders and The police chief planned to build a concentration camp here. Soon, some well-trained German Nazis began to select a location to build a concentration camp, and finally found a place in Auschwitz that they thought was ideal. The main reason for choosing to build the camp in the open area on the edge of the city is that it is a large railway transportation hub to facilitate the transportation of "prisoners". The main camp is the location of the management department of the entire Auschwitz area concentration camp.

On April 27, 1940, Himmler, the leader of the Nazi German SS, officially approved the construction of the Auschwitz concentration camp. The commander of the concentration camp was the notorious Rudolf Hoss, the original Occupier of Auschwitz I. The area was less than 6 hectares. On June 14, 1940, it housed the first batch of 728 Polish and German political prisoners. Auschwitz I usually held 13,000 to 16,000 people, with a maximum of 20,000 people in 1942. /p>

After inspecting Auschwitz on March 1, 1941, Himmler ordered Rudolf Hoss to expand it into a super concentration camp with three functions: detention, labor and extermination. < /p>

After Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, a large number of Soviet prisoners of war were admitted to concentration camps.

On September 3, 1941, poison gas was used for the first time in Auschwitz. The Zyklon B" test was conducted in the basement of Building No. 2 of the Young Adult Camp. The test subjects were 600 male Soviet prisoners of war and 250 male prisoners screened from the concentration camp hospital.

October 1941 In August, the Nazis drove the prisoners of Auschwitz I to build Auschwitz II (Birkenau). The expanded Auschwitz concentration camp had a total area of ??15.5 square kilometers, and a special railway ran from the southern gate to the camp. At the northern end of the concentration camp, the camp was equipped with four gas "bathrooms" for mass murder, as well as a corpse storage cellar and a crematorium. It could massacre 12,000 people at a time, and the equipped crematorium could incinerate 8,000 corpses every day. At that time, the Nazis built Auschwitz III (Monowitz) in Monowitz next to Auschwitz. From 1942 to 1944, they built Auschwitz in local smelters, mines and factory areas. 39 concentration camps were built so that Nazi Germany could make good use of this free labor. In early 1945, Nazi Germany faced defeat. In order to eliminate evidence of crime, the Nazi gangsters blew up these mass killing devices when the "Death Train" arrived in Austria. When they reached the Swithin platform, people were kicked out of the carriages, not allowed to bring property, and forced into male and female lines. SS guards, including the notorious Dr. Josef Mengele, were armed and had dogs on leashes. They can either work or go to the gas chamber. These doctors who have completely lost their professional ethics will open the mouths of the elderly and observe their teeth when necessary to determine whether they can work.

Those who were unable to work were sent to Auschwitz II (Birkenau).

Executioners knew that the efficiency of the massacre depended on the order in which the victims walked to the execution ground, so it was best to continue the deception until the last second. Victims were gently advised on the radio to take a shower and rid themselves of lice. The ground in front of the "bathroom" door is paved with green turf and planted with delightful seasonal flowers, giving people a relaxed and happy feeling before entering the house. You can also hear beautiful music when you walk into the "bathroom". A small band plays some relaxing music in the front hall of the "bathroom" to "welcome" new arrivals. The band members all wear white shirts and navy blue skirts. They are just like a group of elegant and beautiful young girls.

The guards told people that each person would be assigned a closet before the "shower," and also "kindly" reminded people to remember their closet numbers so that they would not be unable to find their things when they came out. People were then taken to the hall of the "bathroom" where there was not only a wardrobe but also towels. Slogans welcoming people to work in Auschwitz were written on the walls in various languages, and even bathing times and regulations were written. People rushed to take off their clothes and rush into the "bathroom".

But the "bathroom" became more and more crowded, so that the fronts were pressed against the backs, and people felt a little strange. Before they realized it, the heavy iron door had been closed, and the guards A lock and seal were added to the door.

The guards on the ground began to walk towards the small "white mushrooms" on the lawn. These white mushroom sculptures hidden in the grass were the vents of the gas chamber. The guards put "Zyklon B" into the vents.

People are looking up at the sprinkler heads. Suddenly, all the lights went out, and people couldn't help but scream. Then, the person closest to the nozzle staggered and fell. People knew something was wrong and rushed to the door. The frightened people realized that their doom was coming, and the crowd screamed. Immediately afterwards, all the throats seemed to be blocked by a hand... After 15 minutes, the lights came on, and the killer observed the movement inside through the peephole. If anyone was still struggling, he turned off the lights and waited for more than ten minutes. Turning on the light, all I saw was a motionless pile of white flesh. The guards turned on the air extractors to remove the poisonous gas, and then the "special team" who could live for a few more weeks opened the door and disposed of the bodies.

The door opened, and the most horrific scene in the world appeared in front of us: the figure who had just entered was suddenly drained of all life, and the corpses stood close to each other like wood. All the corpses looked extremely hideous. Terrible, covered in bruises and bruises. The pain of suffocation and the instinctive tearing of each other made them tangled into a big lump of flesh that could not be pulled apart.

The corpses were piled up in a pyramid shape, which was formed because the crowd wanted to squeeze into the only vent to take a breath of fresh air.

The handymen, wearing gas masks, first used taps to wash away the blood on the bodies and the feces on the ground, and then tied the bodies with ropes to separate them. If they couldn't be separated, they would cut off the corpse's fingers with an axe. Then they used pliers to pull out the gold teeth from the corpse, searched out the jewelry, cut off the hair, and placed the processed corpses in a row on the ground for the guards to see. Finally, the handymen used a hoist to take the body to the crematorium for cremation. After the cremation, the unburned bones were finely ground with a grinder and then thrown away.

In order to keep up with the killing speed of the gas chamber, the crematorium adopts the newly invented three-layer giant crematorium. Later, this kind of crematorium was not enough, and the furnace often burned out, so one gas chamber was often equipped with several cremators. Incineration equipment dealers in Nazi Germany rushed to provide the most advanced crematoria to each extermination camp with the finest materials and the latest technology.

The handymen loaded all the items on the platform and in the closet into trucks and pulled them into a huge "workshop". There are two or three "assembly lines" in the workshop that are tens of meters long, consisting of several long tables, with hundreds of "skilled" prisoners sitting next to them, as if they are sorting mail. The first prisoner used a crowbar to open the box. After opening the box, he pushed it along the long table to the second prisoner. He was responsible for picking the clothes and neatly placing them on the shelves behind him according to type, size, and newness. The third person specializes in picking shoes, then specializes in picking glasses, specializes in picking ties, specializes in using magnifying glasses and scales to identify the quality of jewelry, and so on.

Ukrainian guards patrolled the workshop, empowered to execute on the spot anyone who tried to hide something. No one spoke in the entire workshop. People lowered their heads and picked quickly with both hands.

Various items obtained from the victims were classified as national strategic materials. In 1943, an alchemy workshop was established in the concentration camp to melt gold jewelry and gold teeth into gold ingots. The maximum output per day reached 22 pounds. Ambulance transports gold ingots to Berlin.

The Nazis painted red cross symbols on ambulances to protect them from bombing by Allied planes.

Boxes of gold watches, necklaces, rings and brooches were sent to pawn shops to be pawned and converted into funds for the SS. Finally, there were so many stolen goods that the pawnshops refused to accept them, so Himmler deposited them in the Reichsbank under the name "Max Heilig", filling three large vaults.

The remaining clothing was stored in a special giant warehouse in the concentration camp, code-named "Canada Zone". The watches and pens among them are used to reward key members of the SS and the wounded. Clothes were used to provide relief to the victims.

Even the corpses themselves are not spared. The hair is woven into socks and carpets, tattooed skin is made into lampshades, the fat is made into soap, and the ashes are sold to farmers as fertilizer.

Those who were not sent to the gas chamber were taken to the "quarantine area", where their hair was cut, strips of prison uniforms were given, and they were photographed and registered. The prisoner's individual registration number is tattooed on his left arm. Most of the prisoners were then sent to Auschwitz I, Auschwitz III (Monowitz) or other concentration camps for hard labor.

Prisoners have many daily tasks in the camp. The daily schedule includes: waking up at dawn, making the bed; taking roll call in the morning, leaving the camp to work, working hard for a long time, queuing for a measly meal; returning to camp, checking the cells; doing roll call in the evening. During the roll call, prisoners with extremely thin clothing must stand motionless for several hours, no matter what the weather. No matter who it was, as long as they fell or even lost their footing, they would be killed. The prisoner had to pull himself together just to survive the day's torture.

There was a daunting Death Wall in the concentration camp, which was a wall in the courtyard between Buildings 11 and 12. There were countless prisoners shot by the Nazis who fell under the wall. Now there is a small sign in the courtyard. It read: "Please remain silent and do not disturb the peace of the victims." Before executing a prisoner, the Nazis would read the verdict to the prisoner in the first room on the left of the entrance to Building 11, and execute him immediately after reading the verdict. The room opposite the courtroom was the Nazi guard's room, the only Nazi guard's room on the same floor as the prisoners. Each building also had single rooms for "prisoners", who assisted the Nazis in managing prisoners. The living conditions of the "prisoners" were much better than those of the prisoners, and these people also received due justice after the war.

The living conditions of ordinary prisoners are quite harsh: the barracks are thin wooden structures with large gaps between the wooden boards, making it difficult to withstand rain and snow. The so-called mattresses are just cloth bags filled with sand, and the so-called beds are just wooden frames covered with straw. Disease was endemic in the concentration camps. The prisoners lived in fear every day, because everyone knew in their hearts that death would come at any time.

Judging from the records kept by the Nazis, many prisoners died within a few months after arriving here, and some even died within a few days. Not only adults were imprisoned here, but children also did not escape the fate of death. The discipline in the camp is very strict and it can be said that the prisoners have no power.

Approximately 700 prisoners tried to escape from the concentration camp before and after, and only 300 of them successfully escaped. The usual punishment for escapees was starvation, shooting or beating to death, and family members of escapees were also arrested and paraded in the camps to intimidate other prisoners.

The German fascists also set up "wards" and laboratories in the concentration camps to conduct "medical experiments" on living people. The Nazis selected many detainees for medical experiments, such as testing convenient sterilization methods and performing live or autopsy on twin children.

On January 27, 1945, the Soviet Red Army liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp. There were only 7,650 prisoners alive in the concentration camp, including more than 130 children. The largest riot in Auschwitz occurred on October 7, 1944. At that time, there was a rumor in the camp that the Nazis would kill all the prisoners once the Soviet Red Army approached the concentration camp. The special team members of No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4 furnaces responsible for cremating corpses formulated a riot plan.

At 12:12 on October 7, 1944, the special captain of the No. 4 crematorium received a notice from his superiors, ordering him to take people to burn 300 corpses in the afternoon. The highly nervous rioters believed this was a plot to kill them and refused the order. The SS angrily ordered them to assemble. The people who could no longer remain calm roared and took out hidden hammers and axes to kill some sergeants. But the heavily armed Nazis soon arrived and shot the rioters one by one through the barbed wire fence.

The desperate people retreated into the shed, and the SS men lit straw mats, igniting the entire shed. The fire spread to the crematorium, igniting the wooden roof of the crematorium, and then the entire furnace burned.

When the special team members of No. 2 Furnace saw the crematorium on fire, they thought it was a signal for the entire riot. They pounced on the guards who happened to arrive and stuffed the leading Nazi guard into the burning furnace. . The people picked up various objects and killed three SS guards, cut the electric fence and ran outside the camp. However, the Nazis quickly caught up with them in trucks and police dogs, and the escapees were executed on the spot one after another. Some of the escapees took refuge in a barn, which the Nazis set on fire and waited outside to shoot those who emerged from the blaze. 250 of the rioters who broke out of the grid were shot dead, and only 12 escaped.

The Nazis shot 200 rioters in the camp. The next day, all 12 escapees were caught. The Nazis shot them and brought their bodies back to the camp for public display.

The special team members of No. 3 Furnace saw the SS troops surrounding their barracks and quickly poured the explosives used in preparation for the riot into the toilet. The SS found nothing, so they rushed them to furnace No. 2 to burn the bodies. They burned the bodies of 600 recently murdered rioters.

Before the riots, the three Jewish girls who risked their lives to take out explosives from the "United Factory" that manufactured ammunition were Ella Goint, Tuzka and Jinna (the latter two girls only left their last names) ), as well as the transmitter of the explosives, the Jewish girl Rosa Robouta, a member of the Auschwitz underground organization, were captured by the SS. Rosa and the three girls were taken to the political office of the concentration camp. The Nazis asked them to reveal information about the concentration camp. Underground organizations, they never spoke. On January 6, 1945, the four girls were hanged together in the square in the center of the camp. All the prisoners were ordered to watch. They showed no fear before they died. On July 2, 1947, the Polish government converted the Auschwitz concentration camp into the Martyrs Memorial Hall, displaying physical evidence and pictures of various crimes committed by the Nazis in the concentration camp. It includes property plundered from prisoners, as well as various physical objects and materials from the prisoners’ underground struggles in the concentration camps. Only parts of Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II (Birkenau) have been preserved for tourists to visit for free. Many of the murderous evidences were destroyed by the Nazis and rebuilt according to their original appearance.

In 1979, UNESCO included the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in the World Cultural Heritage List to warn the world to "want peace, not war." In order to witness this period of history, hundreds of thousands of people from all walks of life from all over the world visit the Auschwitz concentration camp site every year to pay homage to the innocent people who were persecuted to death by the German Nazis.

On January 24, 2005, the 59th United Nations General Assembly held a special session to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz in Poland. This is the first time the UN General Assembly has held a special session on this incident. Norbert Barlicki (1880-September 27, 1941), Polish lawyer and politician. Killed in a concentration camp.

W?adys?aw Bartoszewski (February 19, 1922-), Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland (1995; 2000-2001), He was imprisoned in a concentration camp from 1940 to 1941. He was later rescued by the Polish Red Cross.

Józef Cyrankiewicz (April 23, 1911 - January 20, 1989), Prime Minister of Poland (1947-1952, 1954-1970), Poland Chairman of the State Council (Head of State, 1970-1972), was imprisoned in Auschwitz concentration camp in 1942.

Bronis?aw Czech (1908-1944) was a Polish skier and artist who participated in four Winter Olympics. Killed in concentration camp in 1944.

Anne Frank (June 12, 1929 - March 1945) was imprisoned in Auschwitz for 7 weeks and died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945 .

Józef Garliński (October 14, 1913 - November 29, 2005), Polish historian and writer. He was imprisoned in a concentration camp in 1943.

After the liberation of the concentration camp, he wrote many best-selling books about life in the concentration camp. After the war, he settled in London, England.

Kurt Gerron (May 11, 1897 - November 15, 1944), German actor and director. Jews. Killed in concentration camp in 1944.

Dora Gerson (March 23, 1899 - February 14, 1943), German actor, singer, Jew. Killed in concentration camp in 1943.

Pavel Haas (June 21, 1899 - October 17, 1944), Czechoslovak composer, Jew. He once composed music for the poems of Cui Hao and Du Fu, poets of the Tang Dynasty in China. Killed in concentration camp in 1944.

Imre Kertész (November 9, 1929 -), Hungarian writer, was imprisoned in a concentration camp in 1944 and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2002.

Primo Michele Levi (July 31, 1919 - April 11, 1987), Italian writer, chemist, Jew, was imprisoned in a concentration camp in 1944 Inside.

Józef Noji (August 9, 1909 - February 15, 1943) was a Polish track and field athlete who participated in the Berlin Olympics. He was killed in a concentration camp in 1943.

Rudolf Rudi Vrba (September 11, 1924 - March 27, 2006), a Slovak-Canadian pharmacologist, was released from the concentration camp in 1944 He successfully escaped and was the first survivor to report the atrocities of the concentration camp to the Allies.

Elie Wiesel (Elie Wiesel, September 30, 1928 -), Romanian writer and political activist. 1986 Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Witold Pilecki (May 13, 1901 - May 25, 1948), Polish soldier, member of the Polish resistance, the only one to voluntarily enter a concentration camp He organized a resistance movement in the concentration camp and informed the Allies of the Nazi atrocities in Auschwitz. He escaped from the concentration camp on April 26-27, 1943. He was executed by the Polish People's Republic in 1948 for his loyalty to the Polish government-in-exile.

Andriy AndriyovychYushchenko, the father of Ukrainian President Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko.