Auschwitz - The Beginning |
|
Auschwitz has become a symbol of the Holocaust, terror and genocide. It was established by Germans in the suburbs of the Polish city of Oswiecim in 1940, some 66km west of Krakow. Poland by this time had been annexed to the Third Reich and the name was changed to Auschwitz. Between June 1940 and January 1945 it is estimated that some 1.3 million prisoners arrived at Auschwitz of which about 1.1 million of them died during their confinement, among that number were more than 900,000 Jews.
The first time the world became aware of what was happening in Eastern Europe was when evidence that Jews were being gassed at Auschwitz by the German war machine emerged in 1942. Polish Underground Resistance fighters passed information to the Polish government in exile in The United Kingdom. Auschwitz town, originally founded in 1270 by Germans, is now known by Oswiecim, its Polish name, and the three camps are known as Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Monowitz. Birkenau is called Brzezinka, and Monowitz is called Monowice by the Polish. The initial reason for the construction of the camps was down to the number of arrests of the local Polish community, and the capacity in local prisons was exceeded. During the construction of the camps, the nearby factories were appropriated and all those living in the area were ejected by force from their homes, homes that were soon bulldozed by the Nazis. The first transport of Poles to Auschwitz was on June 14th 1940 from Tarnów. Since the early 1930's the Nazis had been setting up concentration camps and Auschwitz was to be just another camp of that type. It fulfilled this role throughout its operational lifespan growing in to the largest of the death camps under Nazi control.
The United Nations officially changed the collective name of the three Auschwitz camps in June 2007 to Auschwitz Birkenau (German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp 1940-1945). The change in name was made at the request of the Polish government so that people will know that Poland had nothing to do with setting up the camps or running them. Oswiecim is now a factory town with a population of around 50,000, but before the invasion of Poland on 1st September 1939 by the Germans, it was a market town of just 12,000 residents, including a Jewish population of 7,000. The next largest ethnic group in Oswiecim was the Roma Gypsies. In 1941, the Jews were evacuated by the Nazis from the town they called Oshpitzin to three different ghettos, but eventually ended up back at Auschwitz where most of them perished in the death camp. A few Jewish survivors returned to the town after the World War II, but soon left for the United States or Israel. There were more than 12 Synagogues in Oshpitzin at one time, but all except one were destroyed by the Nazis soldiers. Originally opened in 1930, the one surviving Synagogue has been reconstructed and has been open for tourists since the year 2000. Auschwitz Books |