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AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU. News / Museum / Auschwitz- Birkenau. Web. 31

March 2016
Auschwitz was one of the most deadly and horrific camps during the Holocaust and is
remembered as such. It was created in the Polish town of Oswiecim in 1940. This death
camp was originally created to house Polish people because of the overflow in Polish
prisons. In 1942 Auschwitz became one of the largest death camps created. The first part
of the camp, that later became known as Auschwitz I, could hold 15,000 to 20,000 people
at a time. Auschwitz II or Birkenau held around 90,000 prisoners in 1944, and murdered
the majority of people at this sight. Approximately forty sub-camps were created around
the sight of Auschwitz, one of them being Buna. Buna was one of the largest work camps
created. The Nazis isolated the camps from the outside word. Auschwitz was barricaded
by barb wire and there was no communication with the outside world.
History.com Staff. Auschwitz. History.com A&E Television Networks, 01 Jan. 2009. Web. 31
Mar. 2016.
Auschwitz was created in 1940 on the southern end of Poland. It was the largest recorded
death camp created by the Nazis. In the beginning, Auschwitz was used to house
political prisoners, but later became a factory for extermination of the Jews and other
ethnicities. The killing methods used at this camp were gas chambers, and working
people to death. Dr. Josef Mengele performed horrific operations to the prisoners being
held there. More than one million people lost their lives at Auschwitz. On January 1945,
the Soviets forced the 60,000 prisoners and the Nazis to march away from the camp.
When the Soviet Union entered Auschwitz they came upon hundreds of dead corpses and
emaciated prisoners.

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United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial council. Wed.
31 March 31, 2016
There were three main camps that made up Auschwitz. All three used brutal slave labor
and one functioned as a killing factory. Auschwitz was positioned near the PolishGerman border. The number of deaths can be recorded this way: Jew- 960,000 Poles74,000 Roma- 21,000 Soviet prisoners- 15,000 other nationalities- 12,000. With a total
of around 1.1 million people. The Nazis used forced labors to build the next phases of
Auschwitz. The first prisoners of Auschwitz were German and Polish captives.
Wiesel, Elie, and Marion Wiesel. Night. New York, NY: Hill and Wang, a Division of Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, 2006. Print.
Elie, a young Jewish boy from Europe is shaken when the Nazis change the course of his
life forever. Elie and his family are taken from their home and together undergo a
harrowing trip to the death camp Auschwitz. When they arrived at the camp selection
began. Elies mother and sister were sent to the gas chambers. Elie and his father were
sent to the work camp of Buna, where they were worked till (almost) death. Later Elie
lost his father to an illness. Luckily Elie survived and is still able to tell his heroic story
today.