it was the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz, on the occasion of a new anniversary of his liberation

The Polish city annexed by the Germans was called Oswiecim. It was the Nazis who renamed the Auschwitz district. In the suburbs, 43 kilometers west of Krakow, the concentration and extermination camp has developed. At first they used the brick barracks that once belonged to the Polish army, then the regime expanded the genocide facilities – from factory complexes and farms where slave labor was forced to gas chambers and mass crematoria. To carry out its plan, Nazism expropriated and demolished a thousand houses.

Field location

The Nazi regime used the European rail line to carry out its extermination plan. Within this network, Auschwitz was one of the main points of arrival for freight and passenger cars with prisoners who would be forced to work or killed directly. In the wagons, usually sealed so that no one could escape, those captured were subjected to hunger, extreme temperatures and unsustainable hygienic conditions. Previously, there was only one bucket so that everyone could meet their physiological needs. Over a million prisoners were transferred by train: they were told they were going to work, although in general they were killed directly. The German Ministry of Transport coordinates the routes of the victims: the use of the train is particularly intensive after Nazism ordered the self-proclaimed “final solution” which triggered the mass extermination of the Jews from 1942.

The railway line to the camps

Intended for torture, slave labor and murder, Auschwitz grew up to achieve its goal of extermination. In the barracks of the Polish army which served to lock up the first prisoners, new buildings were added for these purposes and also intended for the execution of the victims. In view of this growth, Nazism divided the space into three camps. The SS – the body responsible for policing and controlling Nazism – coordinated the Auschwitz operation, which had more than forty “sub-camps” under its orbit.

According to estimates by the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, more than one million Jews, 70,000 non-Jewish Poles, 25,000 Gypsies and 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war were killed in this camp. In addition, there were other persecuted groups, such as gays, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and people with disabilities.