2. Auschwitz –concentration camp
► symbol of terror, genocide, and the Holocaust
► established by the Nazis in the suburbs of the city
of established by the Nazis in the suburbs of the
city of Oswiecim, Poland
► was occupied by the Germans during the WW2.
► The name of the city of Oswiecim was changed to
Auschwitz, which became the name of the camp
as well.
► June 14, 1940 the 1st transport of Polish Political
prisoners
3. three main parts:
► Auschwitz I,
► Auschwitz II-Birkenau,
► and Auschwitz III-Monowitz.
► It also had over 40 sub-camps
4.
5. ► At first, Poles were imprisoned and died in the
camp.
► Afterwards, Soviet prisoners of war, Gypsies, and
prisoners of other nationalities were also
incarcerated there.
► Beginning in 1942, the camp became the site of
the greatest mass murder in the history of
humanity, which was committed against the
European Jews as part of Hitler's plan for the
complete destruction of that people.
6. The selection by the SS of newly arrived Jews as "fit"
and "unfit" for work.
9. Camp gate
Here, thousands of prisoners went out each day to long hours of arduous
labor.
In the evening, they returned exhausted, carrying the corpses of those who
had died.
10. Camp hospital
► The camp authorities
designated Blocks 19,
20, 21 and 28 as the
"camp infirmary" for
sick prisoners.
► Prisoners often
referred to them as
"waiting rooms for the
crematoria."
11. Women's camp
► A camp for women prisoners
was located in Blocks 1-10
► It was separated from the men's
camp by a high wall.
► More than 17,000 Jewish and
non-Jewish women, deported
from Germany and the countries
occupied by the Nazis, were
housed here.
► In a period of little more than
four months, thousands of
women died in the gas
chambers or as the result of
hunger, exhausting work, &
sickness.
► The remainder were transferred
in August 1942 to Birkenau
12.
13. ► themajority of the Jewish men, women and
children deported to Auschwitz were sent
to their deaths in the Birkenau gas
chambers immediately after arrival.
14. Gas chambers gas chamber and
furnaces for burning
corpses.
Thousands of Jewish
men, women and
children were
murdered here with
poison gas, and their
bodies burned.
15. At the end of the war, in connection with the operation intended to remove the
evidence of their crimes, the camp authorities ordered the demolition of the
furnaces and crematorium building in November 1944.
On January 20, 1945, the SS blew up whatever had not been removed
16. 768 corpses could be burned in this crematorium every 24 hours.
According to the testimony of former prisoners, the figure was higher.
22. Buna
► The largest Auschwitz sub-camp,
► 1942 to 1945.
► The Nazis sent thousands of prisoners from
various countries, the majority of them Jewish, to
Buna (there were approximately 10,000 prisoners
in this camp in 1944).
► Those who were unable to go on working fell
victim to selection and were taken to their deaths
in the Birkenau concentration camp gas chambers.
26. At the end of the war
► in an effort to remove the traces of the
crimes they had committed, the SS began
dismantling the gas chambers, crematoria,
and other buildings, as well as burning
documents.
31. Dr. Mengele
► Josef Mengele held a Ph.D. and a medical doctorate.
► Mengeles first experimental subjects were Gypsy children.
► He had a laboratory in the so-called "Gypsy Family Camp."
► On Mengele's orders, children suffering from noma were put to
death in order for investigations to be carried out.
► Organs and even complete heads of children were preserved and
sent in jars to institutions including the Medical Academy in Graz,
Austria.
► Usually painful and exhausting, these examinations lasted for
hours and were a difficult experience for starved, terrified
children
► The subjects were photographed, plaster casts were made of
their teeth and jaws, and their fingerprints and toeprints were
taken.
As soon as the examinations were finished, Mengele ordered them
killed by phenol injection so that he could go on to the next
phase of his experiments, the comparative analysis of internal
organs at autopsy.
32.
33. His purpose was to discover ways by which he could
faster expand the pure German race.
