Auschwitz was the largest concentration camp set up by the Nazi regime.The camps were located about 37 miles west of Krakow, near the prewar German-Polish border in Poland. There were three main camps set up in Auschwitz's history and every one deployed prisoners to forced labor and one camp was used as a killing center. The three main camps included Auschwitz I which was established in May 1940, Auschwitz II (or Auschwitz-Birkenau) established in early 1942, and Auschwitz III (or Auschwitz-Monowitz) established in October 1942. In 1943, the SS decreed that Auschwitz II and III were to become independent concentration camps, but in November 1944, Auschwitz II was reunified with Auschwitz I. Auschwitz remained to be the powerhouse and SS headquarters through its time open.
The Three Camps
Auschwitz I
Auschwitz I was the first camp the Nazis established in 1940. The site was originally an abandoned Polish army artillery barracks near Oswiecim, Poland.
The first inmates that occupied the camp were German prisoners, Polish political prisoners, and were later joined by homosexuals, Gypsies, Jews, Soviet war prisoners, and others.
There were three main purposes for the camp: 1) to incarcerate real and perceived enemies of the Nazi regime, 2) have availability of a supply of forced laborers for SS-owned, construction-related enterprises, and 3) a site to eliminate large groups of the population.
There was a gas chamber used for killing the inmates and a crematorium to burn the remains, Between these was the "Black Wall" which is where the SS randomly picked out inmates and shot them. There were physicians in the hospital that did pseudo-scientific research on infants, twins, and dwarfs, and also did forced sterilizations, castrations, and hypothermia experiments.
Auschwitz II
Auschwitz II was built in Brzezinka in October 1941 and had the largest total prisoner population. This camp played an essential role in the German plan to exterminate the Jews.
The camp was divided into more than a dozen sections complete with barbed electric fences, SS officers, and dog handlers.
Zyklon B gas was first introduced here and tested on Soviet prisoners of war. It was used as a mean for mass murder of the inmates.
They built a better gas chamber at the camp to fit more people in. It had three components: a disrobing area, a large gas chamber, and crematorium ovens.
Trains came in from every country allied or occupied by Germany filled with new inmates.
About 1.1 million Jews were deported to Auschwitz, including 140,000-15,000 non-Jewish Poles, 23,000 gypsies, 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war, and 25,000 others (soviet citizens, Lithuanians, Czechs, French, Yugoslavs, Germans, Austrians, and Italians). New arrivals underwent selection, where the SS determined the majority unfit for labor and sent to gas chambers (disguised as showers). At least 960,000 Jews were killed with about 74,000 Poles, 21,000 gypsies, and 15,000 soviets in the gas chambers.
In October 7, 1944, several hundred prisoners assigned to Crematorium IV rebelled after learning they were to be executed
Inside the Walls
In the camps, inmates were forced to work on huge huge farms, coal mines, stone quarries, fisheries, and in the armaments industry (Website 1). They periodically underwent selection, where SS soldiers judged the weak and the sick to be sent to Auschwitz II to be killed. All of the forced laborers were registered and tattooed with identification numbers on their left arms.
Liberation
In mid-January 1945, when the Soviets approached Auschwitz, SS troops began evacuating inmates. They forced nearly 60,000 inmates to march west from the camp system. Thousands had been killed inside the camps right before these marches and SS guards shot anyone that fell behind or couldn't continue the march. Inmates were subjected to cold weather, starvation, and exposure and nearly 15,000 during theses marches. After they arrived to the trains, the prisoners were put into the freight cars and shipped off to other camps in Germany. Many did not survive this trip either.
On January 1945, the Soviet army entered Auschwitz and liberated 7,000 prisoners. Most of whom where ill or dying that were just left behind at the camp and no one bothered to execute them. The Auschwitz camp held 1.3 million inmates between 1940-1945, where out of these, 1.1 million did not survive.