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| In 1922 Adolf Hitler said "My most and foremost task
will be the annihilation of the Jews". That is why people think
Auschwitz was built to kill off most or all of the Jewish population.
through out the world Auschwitz became a symbol of terror and the
Holocaust. German forces took over Poland during world war two. Heinrich
Himmler ordered a concentration camp out side the town of Owiecim.
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| Germans called the town Auschwitz that gave the name to a
near by death camp. Later on it was expanded into three main camps;
Auschwitz, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, Auschwitz III those are the main
concentration camps. The first prisoners taken to Auschwitz were Polish
Political prisoners they were followed by Soviet Prisoners of war. Gypsies
and deportees of various other nationalities. In June 1942, the greatest
murder campaign in history started in Auschwitz when the Nazi's plan to
systematically destroy the entire Jewish population of Europe was put into
operation. |
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Rudolf Hess was given an assignment
to expand the camp to hold the 30,000 prisoners . So he built an annex
that would hold the SS started the first selection process. About 25% were
then and there determined to be fit for work. The estimated deaths at the
camp complex ranged from 1.5 million to as many as 4 million deaths. Camp
Commandant Rudolf Hess admitted to a minimum figure of 2.5 million deaths
at Auschwitz. Reflecting back years later on the basement of block 11 and
later in Gas chambers. The camp at Auschwitz originally housed political
prisoners from occupied Poland and concentration of near by Birkenau, also
known as Auschwitz II, started in October 1941 and included a women's
section after August 1942. Birkenau had four Gas Chambers, designed to
resemble showers, and four Crematoria, used to incinerate
bodies. |
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| At Auschwitz complex 405,000
prisoners were recorded as laborers between 1940 through 1945. Of these
about 340,000 perished through executions, beatings, starvation, and
sickness. Some prisoners starved through the help of industrialist Oscar Schindler, who saved about 1,000 Polish Jews by diverted them from Auschwitz. the
majority of the Jews who were sent to Auschwitz, were immediately sent to
their death in the gas chambers of Birkenau. |
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| Jews comprised the largest number of victims, and Auschwitz
became known as the Holocaust of European Jewry At least one-third of
their the estimated 5 to 6 million Jewish people killed by the Nazis
during World War II died there |
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| Largest numbers of Poles, Soviet Prisoners
of War, gypsies, and homosexuals also died at Auschwitz.
Prisoners capable of marching were evacuated in the depths of the Reich.
Those Who Remained behind in the camp were librated by the Red army
soldiers on January 27, 1945. A July 2, 1947 act of the Polish parliament
established the Auschwitz-Birkenau state museum on the grounds of the two
extent part of the camp. |
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| The first in his factory near Krakow and later at a
factory in what is now Czech Republic. A third group, mostly twins and
dwarfs, went under medical experiments at the hand of doctors such as Josef
Mengele, who was also known as the "Angel of
Death." |
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| The camp was Staffed by prisoners some of whom were
selected to be Kapos (orderlies) . After all the pain, suffering, and
killing at Auschwitz it all came to an end. That end was on January 20,
1945 when the SS destroyed it with high explosives also on January 26,
1945 the SS blew up the crematory V, as the soviet were approaching. |