"They expected the worst but not the inconceivable” - Charlotte Delbo (French writer, former prisoner of Auschwitz and Ravensbrück camps) [NIK’s translation]
Lesson
Auschwitz-Birkenau, the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp, is the most recognisable symbol of Holocaust and the place of genocide all around the globe. Of about 50 million people who died during the Second World War, a dozen or so million were civil victims of the extermination policy of the German Third Reich. Over a million of that number lost their lives in the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. It was for the first time in history that a crime was planned and committed and industrial killing methods were used on such a large scale. The Nazi policy of expansion and extermination was underpinned not only by their striving for political domination over Europe and the whole world but also plans to make far-reaching democratic changes in the spirit of the Nazi race doctrine. It provided for biological inequality and the right of ”better” German nations to dominate and determine the physical fate of ”worse” nations, such as Jews, Slavs or Roma.
The German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz was established in 1940. The German Nazis deported to Auschwitz at least 1.3 million people of over 20 nationalities. The camp became above all the place of extermination of Jews from all around Europe. From among 1.3 million people of various nationalities deported to Auschwitz at least 1.1 million were killed. Among them were:
- 900 thousand Jews murdered in gas chambers right after their arrived at the camp;
- half of 400 thousand prisoners registered in the camp, including: nearly 100 thousand Jews, 64 thousand Poles, 21 thousand Roma, 14 thousand Soviet prisoners of war and over 10 thousand prisoners of other nationalities.
About 7 thousand Auschwitz prisoners survived until the camp liberation.
Source: Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, http://youtu.be/TVRMIid9Xiw
Camp liquidation
The initial evacuation of the camp started as early as August 1944. At that time the Germans started to cover the tracks and destroy the evidence of crime - for instance, they burnt the registers of prisoners and the lists of Jews murdered in gas chambers. They took the camp movables and prisoners’ belongings away from Auschwitz.
In the middle of January 1945, when the Red Army crossed the borders of Poland and approached Cracow, the final evacuation of prisoners started. From 17 to 21 January 1945, about 56 thousand prisoners were taken out of Auschwitz and its sub-camps in marching columns. Having reached the relevant railway stations they were transported to the west in freight wagons. The evacuation routes, both for passers-by and for trains, were covered with bodies of the prisoners who were shot or died of exhaustion or cold. According to estimates, at least 9 thousand Auschwitz prisoners died in that operation.
At the same time, the SS members burnt the camp documentation and on 20 January they blew up the crematoria and gas chambers in Birkenau. After the end of the evacuation, on 23 January they burnt storehouses with the Jews’ belongings, and 3 days later they blasted the gas chamber and another crematorium. When the soldiers of the 1st Ukrainian Front entered the camp on 27 January, they found there about 7 thousand prisoners, mainly ill and physically exhausted people.
„… I wanted to live. I had no husband, no family, nobody, but still - I wanted to live. I had lost one eye, I was hungry, I was cold, but still - I wanted to live. Why? I will tell you: to be able to tell people about it all just like I’m telling you now. Let the world know what they had been doing. I thought I would be the only one to survive. I thought there would not be a single Jew anymore.” Zofia Nałkowska "Medallions" [1] [NIK’s translation]
[1] A book on Nazi terror and its victims, considered "a masterpiece of antifascist world literature." [Northwestern University Press]
