Nazi German concentration camp and center for the extermination of Jews created during World War II on the outskirts of Oswiecim. Initially it consisted only of Auschwitz I, created in the spring of 1940, later also of the considerably larger Birkenau camp, and later still of Monowitz and almost 50 sub-camps of various sizes. Germans murder in Auschwitz at least 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, but also Poles, Roma, Soviet POWs and people of different nationalities. All over the world, Auschwitz has become a symbol of terror, genocide, and the Holocaust. It was established by Germans in 1940, in the suburbs of Oswiecim, a Polish city that was annexed to the Third Reich by the Nazis. Its name was changed to Auschwitz, which also became the name of Konzentrationslager Auschwitz.
The direct reason for the establishment of the camp was the fact that mass arrests of Poles were increasing beyond the capacity of existing “local” prisons. The first transport of Poles reached KL Auschwitz from Tarnów prison on June 14, 1940. Initially, Auschwitz was to be one more concentration camp of the type that the Nazis had been setting up since the early 1930s. It functioned in this role throughout its existence, even when, beginning in 1942, it also became the largest of the extermination centers where the “Endlösung der Judenfrage” (the final solution to the Jewish question – the Nazi plan to murder European Jews) was carried out.
