In Birkenau, which was built anew on the site of a displaced village, only a small number of historic buildings have survived. Due to the method used in constructing those buildings, planned as temporary structures and erected in a hurry using demolition materials, the natural degradation processes have been accelerating. All efforts are nevertheless being taken to preserve them, strengthen their original fabric and protect them from decay.
Many historic artefacts from the camp and its inmates have survived and are currently kept in storage. Some are exhibited in the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. These include personal items brought by the deportees, as well as authentic documents and preserved photographs, complemented with post-war testimonies of the survivors. The property is protected by Polish law under the provisions of heritage protection and spatial planning laws, together with the provisions of local law.
The site, buildings and relics of the former Auschwitz Birkenau camp are situated on the premises of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, which operates under a number of legal Acts concerning the operation of museums and protection of the Former Nazi Extermination Camps, which provide that the protection of these sites is a public objective, and its fulfilment is the responsibility of the State administration.
The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum is a State cultural institution supervised directly by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, who ensures the necessary financing for its functioning and the fulfillment of its mission, including educational activities to understand the tragedy of the Holocaust and the need to prevent similar threats today and in future.
The Museum has undertaken a long-term programme of conservation measures under its Global Conservation Plan. It is financed largely through funds from the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, which is supported by states from around the world, as well as by businesses and private individuals. The existing legal system provides appropriate tools for the effective protection and management of the property.
In addition, the International Auschwitz Council acts as a consultative and advisory body to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland on the protection and management of the site of the former Auschwitz Birkenau camp and other places of extermination and former concentration camps situated within the present territory of Poland. Several protective zones surround components of the World Heritage property and function de facto as buffer zones.
They are covered by local spatial development plans, which are consulted by the Regional Monuments Inspector. For better management and protection of the attributes of the Outstanding Universal Value of the property, especially for the proper protection of its setting, a relevant management plan must be put into force.
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By Properties. Cultural Criteria: i ii iii iv v vi Natural Criteria: vii viii ix x. Category Cultural Natural Mixed. All With videos With photo gallery. Country Region Year Name of the property. Without With. Some subcamps, such as Freudenthal and Bruenn Brno , were located in Moravia.
In general, subcamps that produced or processed agricultural goods were administratively subordinate to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Subcamps whose prisoners were deployed at industrial and armaments production or in extractive industries e. This division of administrative responsibility was formalized after November Auschwitz inmates were employed on huge farms, including the experimental agricultural station at Rajsko. They were also forced to work in coal mines, in stone quarries, in fisheries, and especially in armaments industries such as the SS-owned German Equipment Works established in Periodically, prisoners underwent selection.
If the SS judged them too weak or sick to continue working, they were transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and killed. Prisoners selected for forced labor were registered and tattooed with identification numbers on their left arms in Auschwitz I.
They were then assigned to forced labor at the main camp or elsewhere in the complex, including the subcamps. In mid-January , as Soviet forces approached the Auschwitz concentration camp complex, the SS began evacuating Auschwitz and its subcamps. SS units forced nearly 60, prisoners to march west from the Auschwitz camp system.
Thousands had been killed in the camps in the days before these death marches began. Tens of thousands of prisoners, mostly Jews, were forced to march either northwest for 55 kilometers approximately 30 miles to Gliwice Gleiwitz or due west for 63 kilometers approximately 35 miles to Wodzislaw Loslau in the western part of Upper Silesia. Those forced to march northwest were joined by prisoners from subcamps in East Upper Silesia, such as Bismarckhuette, Althammer, and Hindenburg.
Those forced to march due west were joined by inmates from the subcamps to the south of Auschwitz, such as Jawischowitz, Tschechowitz, and Golleschau. SS guards shot anyone who fell behind or could not continue. Prisoners also suffered from the cold weather, starvation, and exposure on these marches. At least 3, prisoners died on route to Gliwice alone.
Possibly as many as 15, prisoners died during the evacuation marches from Auschwitz and the subcamps. The rail journey lasted for days. Without food, water, shelter, or blankets, many prisoners did not survive the transport.
In late January , SS and police officials forced 4, prisoners to evacuate Blechhammer on foot. Blechhammer was a subcamp of Auschwitz-Monowitz. The SS murdered about prisoners during the march to the Gross-Rosen concentration camp. SS officials also killed as many as prisoners left behind in Blechhammer as a result of illness or unsuccessful attempts to hide. After a brief delay, the SS transported around 3, Blechhammer prisoners from Gross-Rosen to the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany.
On January 27, , the Soviet army entered Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Monowitz and liberated more than six thousand prisoners, most of whom were ill and dying. Berenbaum, Michael, and Yisrael Gutman, editors.
Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, Auschwitz from A to Z. An Illustrated History of the Camp. Oswiecim: Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Dlugoborski, Waclaw et al. Auschwitz, — Central Issues in the History of the Camp.
Langbein, Hermann. People in Auschwitz. Levi, Primo. New York: Collier Books, Swiebocka, Teresa, editor. Auschwitz: A History in Photographs. We would like to thank Crown Family Philanthropies and the Abe and Ida Cooper Foundation for supporting the ongoing work to create content and resources for the Holocaust Encyclopedia. View the list of all donors. Trending keywords:. Featured Content. Tags Find topics of interest and explore encyclopedia content related to those topics.
Browse A-Z Find articles, photos, maps, films, and more listed alphabetically. For Teachers Recommended resources and topics if you have limited time to teach about the Holocaust. Often it was mere chance or the mood of the SS officer that decided whether someone died immediately or had a hope of survival. The prisoners selected for slave labour were sent to one of the many auxiliary camps at Auschwitz or elsewhere in the Nazi concentration camp system.
Their aim was Vernichtung durch Arbeit - extermination through labour. The prisoners put up various forms of resistance to the tyranny of the camp. Resistance organisations helped inmates to obtain medicine and food, documented Nazi crimes, supported attempts to escape and sabotage, tried to put political prisoners into positions of responsibility, and prepared for an uprising. A total of prisoners escaped from Auschwitz, but of them were caught in the vicinity of the camp and immediately executed.
They managed to cross into Slovakia and to tell Jewish leaders - and through them the world - about the terrible reality of Auschwitz, about which they wrote an extensive report.
On the 7th of October , there was an uprising by the Sonderkommando working in the gas chambers. The prisoners managed to destroy one of the gas chambers, and thus to hinder the extermination process. All the rebels died. A group of young female prisoners was also executed for having smuggled gunpowder to the rebels from the factory in Monowitz.
Soon afterwards, the gas chambers and crematoria were destroyed on Himmler's orders, since the regime wanted to hide the traces of its murdering machine ahead of the advancing Red Army.
As Soviet troops came near to the camp in January , it was hurriedly evacuated and 58 prisoners were driven out on a death march, during which most were killed. On the 27th of January , the Red Army entered the camp link in Czech. They found 7 exhausted and starving prisoners and a number of pieces of evidence of crimes that the Nazis had not had time to destroy. In the camp stores they found almost eight tonnes of human hair and over a million men's suits and women's dresses. Photograph of child prisoners after the liberation of Auschwitz.
According to various estimates, between 1. Auschwitz became the symbol of the Nazis' final solution to the Jewish question , a symbol of Nazi inhumanity and genocide. After the war, many of those who had committed crimes at Auschwitz were put on trial in Poland and West Germany. A further 22 Germans were sentenced in Frankfurt between and for crimes committed in Auschwitz. See also: The gypsy camp at Auschwitz. The exhibition of the Czech Republic at Auschwitz in Czech. Testimony of Mr.
Toman Brod, born Testimony of Mrs. Vilma A. Links: Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Museum. The state museum at Auschwitz.
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