Auschwitz

I'll probably leave out a few of the intended groups, but the targets of the Nazi regime were (in no particular order): Gypsies, Jews, homosexuals, political dissidents, Jehova's Witnesses, Catholics, Slavs of any nationality, and the very old, mentally disabled or physically disabled.

The saying on the front gate is "Work will set you free."

The number of people in the Auschwitz complex at any one time was relatively small by comparison with the total number killed there. According to Wikipedia, there were between 13,000 and 16,000 prisoners in Auschwitz at one time. At least 1.1 million people were killed at Auschwitz during the holocaust, most of them shortly after arrival.

From 1772-1918 the town was in the Austrian Empire Oswiecim, and Auschwitz was its German name.

It was discovered by Nazi Germany after the Invasion of Poland in September 1939 and were converted to Labor/POW Camp but converted into Concentration Camp.

Auschwitz was Discovered by accident by the Allies April 4th 1944 but the Allies didn't do anything because at the time they still thought it was only used as a Labor Camp and didn't known it was Auschwitz but it wasn't until After the War where between April 1944 and December 26th 1944 where there were Photos taken of Auschwitz including Birkenau. In the photos, you could see the Gas Chambers, cattle wagons and people were selected for Working or be sent to the Gas Chambers.

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The Allies had of course heard about Auschwitz from escapees and local resistance groups, not to mention the detailed report of Vrba and Wexler.

Auschwitz hasn't actually been destroyed. It's still there and is a museum visted by thousands of people a year.

There are two parts to Auschwitz. There's the original camp (the one that has the famous Arbeit Macht Frei sign over the gate) and there's a newer one (Birkenau) which has the famous railway line leading into and under the main gate tower.

Birkenau was where the most killings were done and it's there that the main gas chanbers and crematoria were blown up by the Germans at the end of the war to destroy evidence. So to that extent you are right in asking why Auschwitz was destroyed, but be aware that only a small part of it was.

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The main site at Auschwitz (that is Auschwitz I, II and III) was liberated on 27 January 1945.

Please also see the related question.

The main ones were purpose- built. They looked like shower rooms, they had shower heads, though they were not connected to any water supply.

There were hollow pillars into which the gas pellets were dropped, there they were protected by gauze until they sublimated. In winter there would be additional heating as to allow the pellets to sublimate sooner.

The door was metal, with a glass peep-hole.

Eventually extractor fans were installed so that residual gas could be extracted before the Sonderkommando entered, wearing gas masks, to clear the corpses.

No, Auschwitz is actually 40 Miles west of Krakow and 214 Miles South, South West of Warsaw.

Auschwitz is the German name for the Polish town of Oswiecim, which is about 42 miles west of Krakow. The notorious concentration and extermination camps (actually a vast complex of camps) was well outside the town and surrounded by an exclusion zone while the camp was in operation.

The few remaining prisoners were nursed back to health, if possible, and sent home.

In 1947 the Polish government decided to preserve parts of Auschwitz I and II as a museum, and you can visit it ...

Large sections of Auschwitz I and II have been preserved as a museum.

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It is at the end of the railway line at Auschwitz II (Birkenau) between where Krematoria II and Krematoria III stood.

About 190,000 People died at Auschwitz I during the Holocaust.

The phrase was used by the Nazis purposefully so that the people coming there would think that it was a work camp and that there was a possibility that they would someday be released if they were cooperative and worked. There were thousands and thousands of Jews arriving each and every day. There were not enough German guards to contain them if they decided to riot and overthrow the Germans. So the phrase was used as a purposeful deception - and, unfortunately, it worked. The phrase is tragically ironic in that Nazi scientists planned out the diets of the prisoners at camps like Auschwitz. The prisoners were given just below the amount required to survive. As they worked, they were using these calories. As long as the prisoners worked, they were dying a death of slow starvation. The only liberty planned for the prisoners was death, and the work done at Auschwitz was the easiest way for the Nazis to reach that goal.

The distance between Warsaw and Auschwitz is 312km(192miles) by car.

The butchery stopped when Allied troops (Soviets in most cases, since the camps were primarily in Eastern Europe) overran the camps. However, true freedom did not stop until the Jews were able to leave the Displaced Persons Camps and immigrate to the US, UK, or Mandatory Palestine.

No, the only camps to use ZyklonB were Auschwitz and Majdanek. The other camps, including Trelinka, used carbon monoxide.

There was no weekly quota. Though Auschwitz was open for four and a half years; more people were killed in 1944 than in the other three and a half years combined.

Sorry I had to delete someones answer that said only 1 body was loaded in each oven, so heres some first hand testimony - WARNING - GRAPHIC - There were 5 Crematoriums at Auschwitz, but 52 Muffles, which are the openings allowing bodies to be fed into. They got very good at being able to fit the maximum amount of bodies in each muffle. They could burn 4-5 at a time continuously and sometimes 8 or more depending on the size of bodies. There are some sickening eye witness accounts coming first hand from the germans loading the ovens. This coming from a SonderKommando talks about how they would put the first 2 stacked, head to toe, face up but since the bodies arms and legs raise as they burn they would have to work fast to load the next bodies. They would burn the children with adults, loading a couple adults first so the children wouldnt slip through the grid bars into the ash bin, and then stack as many children as they could on top, sometimes as many as 8. This I quote "Women's bodies burned much better and more quickly than those of men. For this reason, when a charge was burning badly, we would introduce a woman's body to accelerate the combustion.".

Essentially, once the first bodies started to burn they would continue adding more to keep the fires hot. They learned to combine fat/skinny people and children to achieve maximum efficiency. (Sorry I want to say large people, but fat is fuel basically).

Just under a hundred thousand died in the Warsaw ghetto, but mainly from ilness or disease complicated by starvation, rather than just starvation.

Most were gassed as soon as practical after arrival and had no choice.

Auschwitz was not "stationed" in Poland. Auschwitz is a German name for town of Oswiecim. When in 1939 Germans invaded Poland they changed all the Polish names to German names, Polish language was forbidden. Part of the camp was acctually an old army barracks, in 1940 the Germans built the concentration camp around it. In years 1940-42 the inmates were mainly Poles and Russian soldiers. Then in 1942 first Jewish transports came. A total of at least 1.1 million people were killed there, mostly Jews from all over Europe, then Poles, Gypsies, Russians. Auschwitz was located at the crossroads of rail system, easy way to transport people. Germans were practical. And since that most European Jews lived in Poland it was logical to place camp as such there. Instead in, let's say, Denmark where only 6-8 thousands Jews lived. Imagine problems caused by transporting 3 million Polish Jews to Denmark or other country, such as France. There were other camps, like and Majdanek were majority of prisoners were non-Jews.

no, even if one never went out or talked to other people, there was still the smell, the clouds and the ash.