When was auschwitz established

As the concentration camp system expanded, the camps fell within the exclusive authority of the SS. The German judicial administration had no jurisdiction with the growing camp system. Nazi Germany expanded by bloodless conquest into Austria and Czechoslovakia between and From as early as , concentration camp commandants used prisoners as forced laborers for SS construction projects such as the construction or expansion of the camps themselves.

By , SS leaders envisioned using the supply of forced laborers incarcerated in the camps for a variety of SS-commissioned construction projects. To mobilize and finance such projects, Himmler revamped and expanded the administrative offices of the SS and created a new SS office for business operations. Beginning a pattern that became typical after the war began, economic considerations had an increasing impact on the selection of sites for concentration camps after Likewise, concentration camp authorities increasingly diverted prisoners from meaningless, backbreaking labor to still backbreaking and dangerous labor in extractive industries, such as stone quarries and coal mines, and construction labor.

After Nazi Germany unleashed World War II in September , vast new territorial conquests and larger groups of potential prisoners led to the rapid expansion of the concentration camp system to the east. The war did not change the original function of the concentration camps as detention sites for the incarceration of political enemies. The climate of national emergency that the conflict granted to the Nazi leaders, however, permitted the SS to expand the functions of the camps.

The concentration camps increasingly became sites where the SS authorities could kill targeted groups of real or perceived enemies of Nazi Germany. They also came to serve as holding centers for a rapidly growing pool of forced laborers used for SS construction projects, SS-commissioned extractive industrial sites, and, by , the production of armaments, weapons, and related goods for the German war effort. Despite the need for forced labor, the SS authorities continued to deliberately undernourish and mistreat prisoners incarcerated in the concentration camps.

Prisoners were used ruthlessly and without regard to safety at forced labor, resulting in high mortality rates. We would like to thank Crown Family Philanthropies and the Abe and Ida Cooper Foundation for supporting the ongoing work to create content and resources for the Holocaust Encyclopedia.

View the list of all donors. Trending keywords:. Featured Content. Tags Find topics of interest and explore encyclopedia content related to those topics. It included three main camps, all of which deployed incarcerated prisoners at forced labor.

One of them also functioned for an extended period as a killing center. The camps were located approximately 37 miles west of Krakow, near the prewar German-Polish border in Upper Silesia, an area that Nazi Germany annexed in after invading and conquering Poland. These detainees included anti-Nazi activists, politicians, resistance members and luminaries from the cultural and scientific communities.

For one thing, it was situated near the center of all German-occupied countries on the European continent. For another, it was in close proximity to the string of rail lines used to transport detainees to the network of Nazi camps. However, not all those arriving at Auschwitz were immediately exterminated. At its peak of operation, Auschwitz consisted of several divisions.

The original camp, known as Auschwitz I, housed between 15, and 20, political prisoners. Birkenau, the biggest of the Auschwitz facilities, could hold some 90, prisoners. It also housed a group of bathhouses where countless people were gassed to death, and crematory ovens where bodies were burned. The majority of Auschwitz victims died at Birkenau. More than 40 smaller facilities, called subcamps, dotted the landscape and served as slave-labor camps.

The largest of these subcamps, Monowitz, also known as Auschwitz III, began operating in and housed some 10, prisoners. By mid, the majority of those being sent by the Nazis to Auschwitz were Jews. Upon arriving at the camp, detainees were examined by Nazi doctors. Those detainees considered unfit for work, including young children, the elderly, pregnant women and the infirm, were immediately ordered to take showers. However, the bathhouses to which they marched were disguised gas chambers.

Once inside, the prisoners were exposed to Zyklon-B poison gas. Individuals marked as unfit for work were never officially registered as Auschwitz inmates. The rail journey lasted for days.

Without food, water, shelter, or blankets, many prisoners did not survive the transport. In late January , SS and police officials forced 4, prisoners to evacuate Blechhammer on foot. Blechhammer was a subcamp of Auschwitz-Monowitz.

The SS murdered about prisoners during the march to the Gross-Rosen concentration camp. SS officials also killed as many as prisoners left behind in Blechhammer as a result of illness or unsuccessful attempts to hide. After a brief delay, the SS transported around 3, Blechhammer prisoners from Gross-Rosen to the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany.

On January 27, , the Soviet army entered Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Monowitz and liberated more than six thousand prisoners, most of whom were ill and dying. Berenbaum, Michael, and Yisrael Gutman, editors. Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, Auschwitz from A to Z. An Illustrated History of the Camp. Oswiecim: Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Dlugoborski, Waclaw et al. Auschwitz, — Central Issues in the History of the Camp.

Langbein, Hermann. People in Auschwitz. Levi, Primo. New York: Collier Books, Swiebocka, Teresa, editor. Auschwitz: A History in Photographs. We would like to thank Crown Family Philanthropies and the Abe and Ida Cooper Foundation for supporting the ongoing work to create content and resources for the Holocaust Encyclopedia. View the list of all donors.

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Auschwitz The largest of its kind, the Auschwitz camp complex was essential to carrying out the Nazi plan for the "Final Solution. Key Facts. More information about this image. Cite Share Print Tags Auschwitz killing centers concentration camps medical experiments forced labor.