Auschwitz Museum, main entrance

After the German invasion and occupation in 1939 (the "September Campaign of 1939" to the Polish), the Nazis were awash in Polish political prisoners. In 1940, the Nazis used prisoner overcrowding in Silesia as the rationale for establishing a concentration camp in the deserted Polish Army barracks outside the town of Oswecim (thereafter "Auschwitz"). Prisoners were Polish prisoners of war, those broadly deemed dissenters or political agitators, and often their families to quell possible revolt against the new order. The first prisoners — 728 Poles from Tarnow — were transported to Auschwitz in June, 1940.

Photo 863, May 2007

Main Gate

Cynical sign reads: "ARBEIT MACHT FREI" (Work brings freedom)

The number of people killed at the Auschwitz complex can't be accurately determined since not all were 'registered'. Many died en route due to the harsh transport or were killed immediately after arrival without being registered (only those not immediately killed were tattooed with a number). Estimates of those murdered in the Auschwitz complex, then, vary from 1.5 million to 4 million people and include Soviet prisoners-of-war, Romany (Gypsies), Poles and, mostly, Jews.

Photo 866, May 2007