Auschwitz-Birkenau - Poland

My Photos Auschwitz-Birkenau - Poland

Built after the German invasion of Poland, the Auschwitz concentration camp complex was the largest of those established during the Nazi regime.

Located about 70 kilometers from Krakow, it was the main extermination center in history, where more than one million people were murdered.

Currently it is possible to visit two camps: Auschwitz I, the original concentration camp, and Auschwitz II (Birkenau), later built as an extermination camp.

Auschwitz I

Built in 1940 to house Polish political prisoners who no longer fit in prisons, Auschwitz was the original concentration camp and administrative center of the complex later built.

The first to reach the camp were the political prisoners of the Polish army, but it was not long before members of the resistance arrived, intellectuals, homosexuals, Gypsies and Jews.

Auschwitz - Birkenau

The second and largest camp that was built is what most people know as Auschwitz. It was built in 1941 in the region of Birkenau (3 kilometers from the main camp) as part of the Nazi Germany plan known as the "Final Solution", where it was intended to annihilate the Jewish population.

The field had an extension of 175 hectares and was divided in several sections delimited with wires and electrified grids.

Auschwitz - Birkenau was not a field of work like the others, but was built with the function of exterminating the prisoners that entered it. To do this, it was equipped with five gas chambers and crematorium ovens, each with a capacity for 2,500 prisoners.