After the Nazi occupation of Poland, the city of Auschwitz, founded in the 60th century, XNUMX kilometers west of Krakow, was officially incorporated into Germany and renamed Auschwitz. Under this name, he was preserved in the memory of Europeans. In Soviet and Russian historiography, the old Polish name Auschwitz is often used.
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In the years 1940-1945, in the vicinity of this city, a whole complex of concentration camps was located, consisting of three main camps: Auschwitz-1, Auschwitz-2 and Auschwitz-3, all together covering an area of more than 500 hectares.
The first camp was equipped in May 1940 on the site of the former Polish military barracks. Local patriots arrested by the invaders were brought here for the arrangement and further construction of the camp. He will remain a working camp with a fairly strict regime, with a punishment cell, torture and execution sites. Auschwitz-3 will also be a worker, consisting of a group (approximately - 40) of small camps.
The administration of the entire complex is located in Auschwitz-1-Birkenau. About 20 thousand prisoners settled here. Soviet prisoners of war also got into the camp. It was on them that on September 3, 1941, the first test of the Cyclone B gas was made to poison people. In the basement chambers of Block 11, the Nazis destroyed 600 Soviet and 250 Polish prisoners with gas.
After this barbaric action near the village of Birkenau (or Brzezinka) in October 1941, the Germans began to build a real death camp, adapted for the mass destruction of people. Actually, we call it Auschwitz.
By the summer of 1943, four gas chambers and the same number of crematoria were built here. The death factory stood on its terrible conveyor. Jews, gypsies, the mentally ill, opponents of the Hitler regime and other doomed were brought here from all over Europe.