AUSCHWITZ

BEGINNING

• When hitler was elected chancellor on January 30, 1933 was the spark of the holocaust.
• Nobody really knows why it happened other then the fact that the nazis thought they were better then the jews.

AUSCHWITZ

• Known as Auschwitz-Birkenau
• Location: near Oświęcim in southern Poland
• Was 3 camps in 1: prison camp, extermination camp, and a slave labour camp
• Operational: May 1940 - January 1945

Auschwitz I was the original camp. This camp housed prisoners, was the location of medical experiments, and the site of Block 11 (a place of severe torture) and the Black Wall (a place of execution). At the entrance of Auschwitz I stood the infamous sign that stated "Arbeit Macht Frei" ("work makes one free"). Auschwitz I also housed the Nazi staff that ran the entire camp complex.

Dr. Mengele
Josef Mengele was born march 6, 1911 into a wealthy Bavarian family with a strict catholic upbringing. He studied philosophy in Munich, where he encountered the racial ideology of Alfred Rosenberg.

In 1931, at age 20, he joined the stahlhelm (steel helmet). He joined the nazi party in 1937 & the SS in 1938.

Initially assigned as a battalion medical officer at the start of WWII, he transferred to the concentration camp service in early 1943 & was assigned to Auschwitz. There he saw the opportunity to conduct genetic experiment on the Jews there.

Untitled Slide

List of survivors that are still alive.

• Wladyslaw bartoszewski; DB: 2-19-1922
• George Brady; 2-9-1928
• Boris Braun; 2-9-1928
• Yehuda Bacon; 7-28-1929
• Kazimierz Piechowski; 10-3-1919

End
Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviet Union on January 27, 1945. 1.1 million people had died during the 5 years that Auschwitz was operational. There were several different types of people held captive in auschwitz; ex. Jews, poles, Romanians, and soviet soldiers.

Auschwitz is now a museum. It is a reminder of the hard times humanity has faced and to never forget those who died.