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Auschwitz-Birkenau
1940–1945· Event· Europe
Well documentedSolid records, physical evidence or scientific consensus.
Nazi Germany's largest concentration and extermination camp complex, in occupied Poland, where about 1.1 million people were murdered.
See it on the Battles & Wars map →What happened
Opened in 1940 near the town of Oświęcim for Polish political prisoners, it grew into three main camps and dozens of subcamps. From 1942 trains brought Jews from across Europe to Birkenau, where SS doctors 'selected' most arrivals, especially children, the elderly and mothers with young children, for immediate death in gas chambers. Others were used as slave labor. About 1 million of the dead were Jews; Poles, Roma and Soviet prisoners were also killed. Soviet troops liberated it on January 27, 1945.
Why it matters
It became the world's best-known symbol of the Holocaust; January 27 is now International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
How we know
Surviving buildings and ruins (now a museum and UNESCO site), SS records and transport lists, the 1944 report by escapees Vrba and Wetzler, commandant Rudolf Höss's testimony, and thousands of survivor accounts.
Connections (3)
▸Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest killing center of The HolocaustWell documented
The connection
Auschwitz combined a concentration camp, a slave-labor complex and, at Birkenau, an extermination center. About 1 million Jews were murdered there, roughly one in six Holocaust victims, deported from Hungary, Poland, France, the Netherlands, Greece and elsewhere. In mid-1944 alone over 400,000 Hungarian Jews were sent there, most killed on arrival.
When and how
Oświęcim, in German-annexed southern Poland; mass gassings at Birkenau ran from 1942 until late 1944.
How we know
Camp records, deportation lists, the 'Auschwitz Album' photographs, perpetrators' testimony and historian Franciszek Piper's research on the death toll.
Debates and open questions
Because most victims were killed on arrival without registration, totals are estimates; about 1.1 million is the accepted scholarly figure, replacing a mistaken Soviet claim of 4 million.
▸Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated by Soviet troops late in World War IIWell documented
The connection
As the Red Army advanced in January 1945, the SS forced about 58,000 prisoners on death marches west and tried to destroy evidence. Soviet troops reached the camp on January 27 and found about 7,000 surviving prisoners, most of them sick and starving.
When and how
Oświęcim, Poland, January 27, 1945: troops of the Soviet 60th Army, part of the 1st Ukrainian Front.
How we know
Soviet film footage, a Soviet investigating commission's report, and accounts by liberators and survivors.
Debates and open questions
With records partly destroyed, details of the final months remain uncertain, including the death-march toll, estimated at 9,000–15,000.
▸IG Farben ran a slave-labor plant in the complex of Auschwitz-BirkenauWell documented
The connection
In 1941 IG Farben chose a site next to Auschwitz for a giant synthetic rubber and fuel plant, drawn by coal, water, railways and SS prisoner labor, for which it paid the SS a daily fee. From 1942 it held prisoners in its own camp, Monowitz. Prisoners judged too weak to work were sent to the Birkenau gas chambers.
When and how
Monowitz (Monowice), near Oświęcim, Poland, 1941–45; IG executives Otto Ambros and Heinrich Bütefisch, plant manager Walter Dürrfeld; prisoners included Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel.
How we know
IG Farben trial records, company letters, SS files, and survivor testimony, including Primo Levi's If This Is a Man.
Debates and open questions
Deaths are estimated at about 10,000 to 30,000, depending on whether subcamps are counted; estimates vary. The plant never produced synthetic rubber in quantity.