Just as in
Germany and Austria previously, Nazi rule required
concentration camps in Poland. Nazi leaders chose the
peaceful agrarian village of Oświęcim, located along an
important railroad line, as the location for the Auschwitz
concentration camp. Auschwitz became synonymous with mass
murder, the place where an estimated 1.6 million people were
put to death in the Holocaust from 1941 to 1945. Its
infamous commandant, Rudolf Höss, arrived to establish the
facility on April 29, 1940, and the first transport of
prisoners, consisting of 708 Poles and 20 Jews from Tarnów,
arrived May 30. Auschwitz opened officially on June 14,1940,
and was liberated by the Red Army on January 27, 1945.
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Below, top:
A February 28, 1942, formular envelope mailed by prisoner
number 205 (first transport) to
Tarnów. Boxed
red censor mark on the back. Below, bottom: An unmailed post
card published by the Auschwitz Museum after World War II
shows the camp crematorium in 1943, location of an
unsuccessful prisoners' revolt in 1943. |