Auschwitz-Birkenau

  • The existence of concentration and extermination camps were well known before they were liberated. The reason why it was not acted upon is not clear to me. I have heard the theory that it was more important to win the war then to liberate the camps, because defeat of Nazi Germany would ultimately safe the…

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  • I am Kira Zylberszac

    I am Kira Zylberszac or perhaps I should say I was Kira Zylberszac. My age is 7 years old I died on August 19 1942 together with my younger brother Serge, We did not die because we were sick or someway a threat to the world. We died because of  an ideology. You see we were Jewish…

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  • Holocaust Remembered

    On 27 January 1945, Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration and death camp, was liberated by the Red Army. UN Resolution 60/7 establishing 27 January as International Holocaust Remembrance Day urges every member nation of the U.N. to honor the memory of Holocaust victims, and encourages the development of educational programs about Holocaust history to help prevent future acts…

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  • This Is…

    This is Margot Jany, eight-years-old when she was murdered in Auschwitz-Birenk. This is Ernest Frydman, age nine from Paris, France deported and murdered in Auschwitz on August 1942. This is Mina and Joseph Kiszelewski, murdered in the gas chamber on August 26, 1942, at ages nine and six. This is Bernard Gutman, age eight, from…

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  • The possessions and precious belongings of the Jews transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau were left in the train carriages and on the ramp as their owners were quickly put through the selection process. When the selection process was complete, a work group of prisoners called the ‘Kanada Kommando’ collected the belongings of victims and took them to…

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  • In October 1941 Auschwitz construction chief Karl Bischoff and SS architect Fritz Ertl were developing plans for a camp to be built about a mile and a half away from Auschwitz, on a site the Germans called Birkenau. The original occupancy figure of 550 was crossed out and replaced with 744. The new camp was…

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  • The one thing that always puzzled me is why did the Nazi’s insist in having such a thorough administration? If you are planning to eradicate millions, why document it? I just don’t understand the psyche of it. Of course the Nazi’s didn’t see “the final solution” as a crime but only a method of getting…

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  • The Auschwitz Numbers

    During the Holocaust, concentration camp prisoners received tattoos only at one location, the Auschwitz concentration camp complex. The Auschwitz camp complex consisted of Auschwitz I (Main Camp), Auschwitz II (Auschwitz-Birkenau), and Auschwitz III (Monowitz and the subcamps). Incoming prisoners were assigned a camp serial number which was sewn to their prison uniforms. Only those prisoners…

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  • On April 10, 1944 (some reports say April 7), two men escaped from Auschwitz: Rudolph Vrba (Vrba was born Walter Rosenberg in Topoľčany, Czechoslovakia. He took the name Rudolf Vrba in April 1944 after his escape, and changed his name legally after the war.) and Alfred Wetzler. They made contact with Slovak resistance forces and produced a substantive…

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