AUSCHWITZ -SOME MORE

Now it became an interesting topic.But things were not so nice yet.some more facts about it

some books praise HITLER and says "HITLER wont be considered as a criminal."

WOW.you decide and read about histories one of the worst events happened ever &forget about the repetition of HISTORY

Beginning in 1940, Nazi Germany built several concentration camps and an extermination camp in the area, which at the time was under German occupation. The Auschwitz camps were a major element in the execution of the Holocaust; about 1.1 million people were killed there, of whom almost 90% were Jews.

The three main camps were:

* Auschwitz I, the original concentration camp which served as the administrative center for the whole complex, and was the site of the deaths of roughly 70,000 people, mostly Poles and Soviet prisoners of war. * Auschwitz II (Birkenau), an extermination camp or Vernichtungslager, where at least 960,000 Jews, 75,000 Poles, and some 19,000 Roma (Gypsies) were killed.

Like all German concentration camps, the Auschwitz camps were operated by Heinrich Himmler's SS. The commandants of the camp were the SS-Obersturmbannführers Rudolf Höß (often anglicised to "Hoess") until the summer of 1943, and later Arthur Liebehenschel and Richard Baer. Höß provided a detailed description of the camp's workings during his interrogations after the war and also in his autobiography. He was hanged in 1947 in front of the entrance to the crematorium of Auschwitz I. Command of the women's camp, which was separated from the men's area by the incoming railway line was held in turn by Johanna Langefeld, Maria Mandel, and Elisabeth Volkenrath.

MORE FACTS

he SS selected some prisoners, often German criminals, as specially privileged supervisors of the other inmates (so-called: kapo). The various classes of prisoners were distinguishable by special marks on their clothes; Jews were generally treated the worst. All inmates had to work in the associated arms factories, except on Sundays, which were reserved for cleaning and showering and upon which there were no work assignments.

The harsh work requirements, combined with poor nutrition and hygiene, led to high death rates among the prisoners. Block 11 of Auschwitz (the original standing cells and such were block 13) was the "prison within the prison", where violators of the numerous rules were punished. Some prisoners were made to spend the nights in "standing-cells". These cells were about 1.5 metres square, and four men would be placed in them; they could do nothing but stand, and were forced during the day to work with the other prisoners. In the basement were located the "starvation cells"; prisoners incarcerated here were given neither food nor water until they were dead.

Also in the basement were the "dark cells"; these cells had only a very tiny window, and a solid door. Prisoners placed in these cells would gradually suffocate as they used up all of the oxygen in the air; sometimes the SS would light a candle in the cell to use up the oxygen more quickly. Many were subjected to hanging with their hands behind their backs, thus dislocating their shoulder joints for hours, even days.

The execution yard is between blocks 10 and 11. In this area, prisoners who were thought to merit individual execution received it. Some were shot, against a reinforced wall which still exists; others suffered a more lingering death by being suspended from hooks set in two wooden posts, which also still exist.

On September 3, 1941, deputy camp commandant SS-Hauptsturmführer Fritzsch experimented on 600 Russian POWs and 250 ill Polish inmates by cramming them into the basement of Block 11 and gassing them with Zyklon B, a highly lethal cyanide based pesticide.[5] This paved the way for the use of Zyklon B as an instrument for extermination at Auschwitz, and a gas chamber and crematorium were constructed by converting a bunker. This gas chamber operated from 1941 to 1942, during which time some 60,000 people were killed therein; it was then converted into an air-raid shelter for the use of the SS. This gas chamber still exists, together with the associated crematorium, which was reconstructed after the war using the original components, which remained on-site.

The first women arrived in the camp on March 26, 1942. From April 1943 to May 1944, the gynecologist Prof. Dr. Carl Clauberg conducted sterilization experiments on Jewish women in block 10 of Auschwitz I, with the aim of developing a simple injection method to be used on the Slavic people. These experiments consisted largely of determining the effects of the injection of caustic chemicals into the uterus. This was extremely painful and many died during and shortly after. Dr. Josef Mengele, who is well known for his experiments on twins and dwarfs in the same complex, was the camp "doctor". He regularly performed gruesome experiments such as castration without anesthetics. Prisoners in the camp hospital who were not quick to recover were regularly killed by a lethal injection of phenol.

Construction on Auschwitz II (Birkenau) began in October 1941 to ease congestion at the main camp. It was designed to hold several categories of prisoners, and to function as an extermination camp in the context of Himmler's preparations for the Final Solution of the Jewish Question

Many people know the Birkenau camp simply as "Auschwitz"; it was larger than Auschwitz I, and more people passed through its gates than did those of Auschwitz I. It was the site of imprisonment of hundreds of thousands, and of the killing of over one million people, mainly Jews but also large numbers of Poles, and Gypsies, mostly through gassing.

Birkenau had four gas chambers, designed to resemble showers, and four crematoria, used to incinerate bodies. Approximately 40 more satellite camps were established around Auschwitz. These were forced labor camps and were known collectively as Auschwitz III. The first one was built at Monowitz and held Poles who had been forcibly evacuated from their hometowns by the Nazis. The inmates of Monowitz were forced to work in the chemical works of IG Farben.

Prisoners were transported from all over German-occupied Europe by rail, arriving at Auschwitz-Birkenau in daily convoys. Arrivals at the complex were separated into four groups:

* One group, about three-quarters of the total, went to the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau within a few hours; they included all children, all women with children, all the elderly, and all those who appeared on brief and superficial inspection by an SS doctor not to be fully fit. In the Auschwitz Birkenau camp more than 20,000 people could be gassed and cremated each day. At Birkenau, the Nazis used a cyanide gas produced from Zyklon B pellets, which were manufactured by two companies who had acquired licensing rights to the patent held by IG Farben. The two companies were Tesch & Stabenow, of Hamburg, who supplied two tons of the crystals each month, and Degesch, of Dessau, who produced three-quarters of a ton. The bills of lading were produced at Nuremberg. * A second group of prisoners were used as slave labor at industrial factories for such companies as IG Farben and Krupp. At the Auschwitz complex 405,000 prisoners were recorded as slaves between 1940 and 1945. Of these about 340,000 perished through executions, beatings, starvation, and sickness. Some prisoners survived through the help of German industrialist Oskar Schindler, who saved about 1,100 Polish Jews by diverting them from Auschwitz to work for him, first in his factory near Kraków and later at a factory in what is now the Czech Republic. * A third group, mostly twins and dwarfs, underwent medical experiments at the hands of doctors such as Josef Mengele, who was also known as the "Angel of Death". * The fourth group was composed of women who were selected to work in "Canada", the part of Birkenau where prisoners' belongings were sorted for use by Germans. The name "Canada" was very cynically chosen. In Poland it was used as an expression used when viewing, for example, a valuable and fine gift. The expression comes from the time when Polish emigrants were sending gifts home from Canada.

Bunk beds in the Auschwitz II camp. There were as many as four inmates per bunk. There could be as many as a thousand inmates per barrack like the one pictured. Bunk beds in the Auschwitz II camp. There were as many as four inmates per bunk. There could be as many as a thousand inmates per barrack like the one pictured. Sonderkommando Henryk Mandelbaum and translator talking to a group at Auschwitz II crematoria ruins Sonderkommando Henryk Mandelbaum and translator talking to a group at Auschwitz II crematoria ruins

The camp was staffed partly by prisoners, some of whom were selected to be kapos (orderlies) and sonderkommandos (workers at the crematoria). The kapos were responsible for keeping order in the barrack huts; the sonderkommando prepared new arrivals for gassing (ordering them to remove their clothing and surrender their personal possessions) and transferred corpses from the gas chambers to the furnaces, having first pulled out any gold that the victims might have had in their teeth. Members of these groups were killed periodically. The kapos and sonderkommandos were supervised by members of the SS; altogether 6,000 SS members worked at Auschwitz.

By 1943 resistance organizations had developed in the camp. These organizations helped a few prisoners escape; these escapees took with them news of exterminations, such as the killing of hundreds of thousands of Jews transported from Hungary between May and July 1944. In October 1944 a group of sonderkommandos destroyed one of the crematoria at Birkenau. They and their accomplices, a group of women from the Monowitz labor camp, were all put to death. It was also not uncommon that if one prisoner escaped, selected persons in the escapee's block were killed. Plan of the gas chamber and crematoria at Auschwitz II. Victims we led into underground chambers (A) where they were orderd to strip. They were then led into gassing chamber (D) where officers would pour gas granules into four holes (E) in the roof of the the chamber. The Sonderkommandos would then remove the bodies to an area (F) and remove gold teeth and check the openings of the victims bodies for valuables. Then they would be put onto carts (area F) and loaded into ovens. The smoke would rise from the chimney (H). The ashes were periodically removed and dumped in pits (I). Plan of the gas chamber and crematoria at Auschwitz II. Victims we led into underground chambers (A) where they were orderd to strip. They were then led into gassing chamber (D) where officers would pour gas granules into four holes (E) in the roof of the the chamber. The Sonderkommandos would then remove the bodies to an area (F) and remove gold teeth and check the openings of the victims bodies for valuables. Then they would be put onto carts (area F) and loaded into ovens. The smoke would rise from the chimney (H). The ashes were periodically removed and dumped in pits (I).

When the Soviet army liberated Auschwitz on January 27, 1945, they found about 7,600 survivors abandoned there. More than 58,000 prisoners had already been evacuated by the Nazis and sent on a final death march to Germany.

In 1947, in remembrance of the victims, Poland founded a museum at the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp. By 1994, some 22 million visitors - 700,000 annually-had passed through the iron gate crowned with the motto "Arbeit macht frei"

The surrounding work camps were closely connected to German industry and were associated with arms factories, foundries and mines. The largest work camp was Auschwitz III Monowitz, named after the Polish village of Monowice. Starting operations in May 1942, it was associated with the synthetic rubber and liquid fuel plant Buna-Werke owned by I. G. Farben. In regular intervals, doctors from Auschwitz II would visit the work camps and select the weak and sick for the gas chambers of Birkenau. The largest subcamps were built at Trzebinia, Blechhammer and Althammer. Female subcamps were constructed at Budy, Plawy, Zabrze, Gleiwitz I, II, III, Rajsko and at Lichtenwerden (now Světlá).

The whole Auschwitz complex of camps was liberated in early 1945 by the advancing Russian army.

Photograph of Birkenau, taken May 31 1944, by a De Havilland Mosquito plane of the South African Air Force, sent to photograph the fuel factory at nearby Monowitz. The photographic analysts missed the significance of the photograph; it was identified only in the late 1970s and analyzed by the CIA in 1978. Smoke can be seen issuing from an area behind Crematorium V Photograph of Birkenau, taken May 31 1944, by a De Havilland Mosquito plane of the South African Air Force, sent to photograph the fuel factory at nearby Monowitz. The photographic analysts missed the significance of the photograph; it was identified only in the late 1970s and analyzed by the CIA in 1978. Smoke can be seen issuing from an area behind Crematorium V

Information regarding Auschwitz has been available to the Allies during years 1941-1943 by accurate and frequent reports of Polish Army Captain Witold Pilecki the only known person to volunteer to be imprisoned at Auschwitz concentration camp, who spent 945 days at Auschwitz not only actively gathering evidence of genocide and supplying it to the British in London by Polish resistance movement but also organizing resistance structures at the camp before his escape on April 27, 1943, but the claims of mass killings were generally dismissed as exaggerations. This changed with receipt of the very detailed report of two prisoners, Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler who escaped on April 7, 1944 which finally convinced most Allied leaders of the truth about Auschwitz in the middle of 1944. Picture of the crematoria ovens and floor rails at Birkenau. Crematorium II and III each had 15 muffles and Crematorium IV and V each had 8. Picture of the crematoria ovens and floor rails at Birkenau. Crematorium II and III each had 15 muffles and Crematorium IV and V each had 8.

Detailed air reconnaissance photographs of the camp were taken accidentally during 1944 by aircraft seeking to photograph nearby military-industrial targets, but no effort was made to analyse them. (In fact, it was not until the 1970s that these photographs of Auschwitz were looked at carefully.)

Starting with a plea from the Slovakian rabbi Weissmandl in May 1944, there was a growing campaign to persuade the Allies to bomb Auschwitz or the railway lines leading to it. At one point Winston Churchill ordered that such a plan be prepared, but he was told that bombing the camp would most likely kill prisoners without disrupting the killing operation, and that bombing the railway lines was not technically feasible. Later several nearby military targets were bombed. One bomb accidentally fell into the camp and killed some prisoners. The debate over what could have been done, or what should have been attempted even if success was unlikely, has continued heatedly ever since.

During his second visit to the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem on January 10, 2008, U.S. President George W. Bush mentioned to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the U.S. should have bombed the death camp to stop the extermination of Jews there.[9]