The construction of Auschwitz started in 1940. After about five years Auschwitz and its prisoners had been liberated, which occurred on the 27 of January 1945. This camp could house over 30,000 Jews at one time and could have held 2,000 people in each gas chamber, and 500 inmates housed in each barrack. In that time of five years, over one million people died in Auschwitz. Even today, many people are still finding out about Auschwitz and its terrors.
Auschwitz had the largest mass murder in history. Many prisoners were shot, gassed, starved, frozen, and were used to perform experiments. Nine out of ten prisoners were Jewish, the others where either homosexual, gypsies, prisoners of war (POW) and other people that just tried to help Jewish people out of the country. All of the babies that where born in Auschwitz were either shot immediately, or had experimental tests on them by Dr.Mengele. Only a few survived his testing. He also performed tests on twins to try to separate them.
Approximately 4,000 Jewish children were sent to Auschwitz, none survived. And from May 14 to July 8, 487,403 prisoners where sent in 148 railway cars. This was the largest transportation in Auschwitz. Every prisoner in Auschwitz had seen the sign “arbiet macht frei” this meant “work makes you free”, although the guards called it extermination through work. The sign was the only entrance in Auschwitz, the exit was the crematorium.
When prisoners arrived all the prisoners had to be sorted, many of the prisoners had to go to the left, which meant they would live a while and have to work, and the
Others that went to the right went straight to a gas chamber. The right was for the sick, or people that couldn't work.
The prisoners of Auschwitz had to wake up at four in the morning, were handed a piece of bread with a little margarine, then they where forced go to work for the whole day. At the end of the day they where given soup that consisted of rotten vegetables and a little meat, for a drink they would either get tea, or a bitter drink that resembled coffee. Sometimes they wouldn't even get any food. Then they would go home to their barrack to sleep with over 500 people in their wooden bunk bed.
Work at Auschwitz was usually in a factory but sometimes prisoners had to work outside the camp. Many of the workers were taken by trucks into nearby towns to dig tunnels, mine coal, shovel snow and cleared rubble out of roads. But a large percentage had to work at the factory making items for the war that had been going on. They mainly had to make pots and pans, and items for the war.
There were three Auschwitz facilities. Each was a branch of the first Auschwitz. Auschwitz I had been built in May 1940. Auschwitz II also known as Birkenau was built in early April 1941 because the original Auschwitz had been so overcrowded that they needed to expand from 10,000 to 20,000. After Birkenau had been built, they decided to build a new one called Auschwitz III, also known as Monowitz. Monowitz was built in October 1942. By this time they built three camps with a total of a 30,000 person capability.
Dr. Mengele was a doctor at Auschwitz. Mengele conducted experiments on twins, and he would try to separate them, or maybe try to switch arms or other limbs. For other people Dr.Mengele would chop off both arms and switch them and see if they work. Also, he would put one malnourished person in cold water and see how long that person would last, along with a nourished person in cold water to see how long he would last. Dr. Mengele would try to take out women's organs and men's organs and see how long they lived. Many of his subjects would be put in a pressure chamber to see how much pressure they could withstand.
Gas chambers were buildings disguised as showers that were really rooms with lethal gasses. The chemical that was used to kill the prisoners was called zyklon B. Block eleven was sealed off one day because their cleaning supplies, which were lethal, mixed in the air. That meant that the guards had to seal off the block. That day the prisoners saw guards running around with gas masks on, but all prisoners in block eleven died.
In mid January, 60,000 prisoners were forced to march west of Auschwitz, any prisoners that could not continue, or who fell behind were shot. Then on January 27th 1945, the soviet army entered and liberated the 7,000 prisoners still left. After they took over they then estimated that 1.3 million had been murdered in Auschwitz. The camp Auschwitz still stands as a memorial. Over 25 million people visit Auschwitz from all over the world.
