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The gatehouse of Auschwitz II-Birkenau. By Pzk net,

Top 10 Facts about The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum

Auschwitz, also known as Auschwitz-Birkenau, opened in 1940 and was the largest of the Nazi concentration and death camps. Located in southern Poland, Auschwitz initially served as a detention center for political prisoners.

However, it evolved into a network of camps where Jewish people and other perceived enemies of the Nazi state were exterminated, often in gas chambers, or used as slave labor. Some prisoners were also subjected to barbaric medical experiments led by Josef Mengele (1911-79).

During World War II (1939-45), more than 1 million people, by some accounts, lost their lives at Auschwitz.

The Polish government has preserved the site as a research center in memory of the 1.1 million people who died there, including 960,000 Jews, during World War 2 and the Holocaust. It became a World Heritage Site in 1979. Piotr Cywinski is the museum’s director.

Let’s look at some of the facts about Birkenau Memorial and museum;

1. The Museum’s first commandant was Rudolf Hoss

Rudolf Hoss first commandant. By Polska Agencja Prasowa.

Auschwitz, the largest and arguably the most notorious of all the Nazi death camps, opened in the spring of 1940.

Its first commandant was Rudolf H枚ss (1900-47), who previously had helped run the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany.

Auschwitz was located on a former military base outside Oswiecim, a town in southern Poland situated near Krakow, one of the country鈥檚 largest cities.

During the camp鈥檚 construction, nearby factories were appropriated and all those living in the area were forcibly ejected from their homes, which were bulldozed by the Nazis.

2. The museum originally was conceived as a concentration camp

Auschwitz originally was conceived as a concentration camp, to be used as a detention center for the many Polish citizens arrested after Germany annexed the country in 1939.

These detainees included anti-Nazi activists, politicians, resistance members, and luminaries from the cultural and scientific communities.

Once Hitler鈥檚 Final Solution became official Nazi policy, however, Auschwitz was deemed an ideal death camp locale.

For one thing, it was situated near the center of all German-occupied countries on the European continent. 

3. The camp consisted of several divisions

Auschwitz II Birkenau – barracks, one of the Divisions

At its peak of operation, Auschwitz consisted of several divisions. The original camp, known as Auschwitz I, housed between 15,000 and 20,000 political prisoners.

Those entering its main gate were greeted with an infamous and ironic inscription: 鈥淎rbeit Macht Frei,鈥� or 鈥淲ork Makes You Free.鈥滱uschwitz II, located in the village of Birkenau, or Brzezinka, was constructed in 1941 on the order of Heinrich Himmler (1900-45), commander of the 鈥淪chutzstaffel鈥� (or Select Guard/Protection Squad, more commonly known as the SS), which operated all Nazi concentration camps and death camps.

Birkenau, the biggest of the Auschwitz facilities, could hold some 90,000 prisoners. 

4. The camp contained a group of bathhouses

Auschwitz II Birkenau – crematory. By Ingo Mehling –

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 1942 and housed some 10,000 prisoners.

5. Horse stables were converted into wooden barracks that housed prisoners

There are several reports of how living conditions in Birkenau were far worse than in Auschwitz and the biggest illustration of the same is the wooden barracks lining the camp.

These were originally horse stables that were built in order to combat the Soviet Union and as a matter of fact, the rings that were used to tie the horses are still very much visible.

They were then rebuilt to house prisoners and the many three-tiered wooden bunks were home to some six prisoners on each shelf.

While it was initially meant for two hundred and fifty, a thousand captives lived in these barracks simultaneously and it is therefore not difficult to imagine the magnitude of inconvenience and discomfort.

6. Children were used as laborers and punished like adults

Children under execution and mistreatment. By Harper

No matter how ruthless a regime might be, children are, more often than not, spared all the torture. However, the Nazis clearly weren鈥檛 as human as others.

Child prisoners in Auschwitz have meted out the same mistreatment as adults. They were starved, forced to brave the terrible cold, punished with all the brutality in the world, and used for labor and experiments.

Upon liberation, the survivors were all found to be grossly underweight with multiple nutritional deficiencies apart from bearing the obvious scars of abuse, both physical and mental.

Some were sadly diagnosed with ailments like tuberculosis. Coerced to work in the kitchens of the camps, clean prisoner barracks, assist the Nazi soldiers in the stables, and shipped off to refineries and coal mines, their childhood was clearly lost at an exceedingly early age. Ultimately, most were gassed to death if they didn鈥檛 already die of assault, illness, and/or starvation. 

7. Prisoners were treated like animals and used for medical experiments

Yet another shocking aspect of the Holocaust was how a number of prisoners, especially children, were basically human guinea pigs that were used for medical experiments conducted by the SS (Schutzstaffel) doctors.

There are reports of how living bacteria would be injected into their veins to determine their immunity against life-threatening diseases and many children died owing to the same.

These acts severely violated the ethics of medicine as some of the most eminent German physicians (notably Dr. Josef Mengele, the notorious physician who was also known as the 鈥橝ngel of Death) of the time were active participants in these experiments and most did it to help their academic careers.

8.  The absolute horror that was Block 11 and the Death Wall

Not many are aware of the fact that most of the terror associated with Auschwitz was centered around Block 11 of the camp.

This otherwise plain-looking brick building was the most intimidating of the lot as it was solely meant for torture.

All of those prisoners who tried to break the rules of the camp made contact with civilians and attempted to escape were punished in the cells of Block 11 for days and weeks on end.

With no windows and around 1 square meter of space, as many as four prisoners were either punished by confinement in standing cells or forced into the dark ones with tiny air holes.

9.  Anne Frank鈥檚 father was the sole member of her family to survive the Holocaust

Anne Frank was easily one of the most popular and loved names from the Second World War. Little did she know that her decision to confide in her imaginary friend 鈥楰itty鈥� would end up in her recounting the story of the ghastliest era mankind has ever seen.

However, as fate would have it, she did not see a happy ending. Once anti-Jewish measures were imposed by the Nazis on the Netherlands sometime in 1940, life wasn鈥檛 as rosy for Anne and her family.

Things got worse when they received their camp summons in 1942 and were forced to live in hiding in the Secret Annexe for as long as two years. Otto Frank, Anne’s father, was the sole member of the family to survive Auschwitz as he was rescued by the Soviet forces in 1945.

He later died of lung cancer but not before giving the world the most precious gift in the form of Anne Frank鈥檚 diary.

10. A Jewish chemist formulated the idea of Zyklon-B鈥攖he poison used in the gas chambers

What was initially intended to be a commercial product in the form of an insecticide and disinfectant, Zyklon-B soon turned into the deadliest gas known to mankind as it was used by the Nazis to exterminate Jews and other prisoners of war.

The substance was essentially hydrogen cyanide that would vaporize upon coming in contact with air and the one used at Auschwitz was in the form of pellets that had a distinct blue color.

Once the prisoners were forced inside the chambers, the many openings in the ceiling were used to drop these pellets inside, which would then vaporize and deprive the bodies of the victims of oxygen, resulting in a slow and painful death.