Auschwitz Concentration Camp

Type   35 Prison Camp
Historical Name of Location   Oswiecim, Poland
Coordinates   50.035833000, 19.178333000

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Photographs

SS guards marching at the warehouse barracks (A Christmas tree standing in front of Block 15 in Auschwitz I Concentration Camp, date unknownUSAAF intelligence aerial photograph of the Auschwitz I main camp at Oświęcim, Poland taken 4 Apr 1944. This is a scan of an enlarged print taken from the original negative and captioned by the CIA in 1978.Carpatho-Ruthenian Jews being processed upon arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, Poland, May 1944
See all 11 photographs of Auschwitz Concentration Camp

Auschwitz Concentration Camp Timeline

1 Feb 1940 SS-Reichsführer Himmler ordered inspections of potential sites for a planned concentration camp. Among those inspected was the camp at Oswiecim, Poland, known in German as Auschwitz.
21 Feb 1940 The future site of Auschwitz Concentration Camp was found in Poland.
1 May 1940 Rudolf Höss was appointed the first Commandant of Auschwitz Concentration Camp in German-occupied Poland.
14 Jun 1940 A group of 728 Polish political prisoners from Tarnów become the first prisoners of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland.
15 Jul 1940 Erich Mußfeldt was assigned to Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland.
1 Sep 1940 The coke-fired two-retort furnace in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp crematorium was put into service for the disposal of bodies.
22 Nov 1940 The first execution by shooting took place at Auschwitz Concentration Camp; 40 men from Katowice, Poland were shot between 0000 and 0020 hours by SS men in retaliation of assault on a police official.
19 Dec 1940 Archbishop Sapieha of Krakow, Poland sent a letter to Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Höss requesting permission for Christmas mass to be held in the camp for Catholic prisoners. Höss turned down the request because the camp rules did not permit religious observations, but did agree that approximately 6,000 one-kilogram food parcels could be sent to all the prisoners over the holidays.
1 Mar 1941 Heinrich Himmler paid his first visit to Auschwitz Concentration Camp. During the visit, he ordered Commandant Rudolf Höss to expand the current camp to hold a total of 30,000 prisoners, expand the camp to Birkenau with capacity for 100,000 prisoners, supply 10,000 prisoners to work for the nearby I.G. Farben factory, and to expand the camp's agricultural and industrial output.
1 Mar 1941 Rudolf Höss and his family hosted Heinrich Himmler for dinner during Himmler's inspection of Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland.
6 Apr 1941 A transport of 1,021 prisoners from Pawiak Prison in Warsaw, Poland arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Famous actors Bronislaw Dardzinski, Tadeusz Hertman Kanski, Stefan Jaracz, Zbigniew Nowakowski, and Leon Schiller were among them, arrested for the murder of actor Igo Sym who collaborated with German propaganda efforts.
17 Apr 1941 SS-Untersturmfuehrer Maximilian Grabner at Auschwitz Concentration Camp announced that urns containing the ashes of Polish political prisoners who died at Auschwitz no longer needed to be sent to their families.
28 Jul 1941 A special commission created on Heinrich Himmler's orders arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp to select prisoners within the framework of the "Euthanasia Program" for the incurably ill, extended in 1940 to Jews and in the middle of 1941 to prisoners of concentration camps. The 573 selected, most were sick Polish prisoners from Block 15, were told that they were to be transferred to other camps for easier work because of their conditions. At last moment, two German criminals Johann Siegruth and Ernst Krankemann were added to the list. The 575 were sent to Sonnenstein Castle under the supervision of Franz Hössler and were killed by carbon monoxide poisoning in a gas chamber disguised as a shower room.
3 Sep 1941 Experimental trials of gas chambers at Block II of Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland began, using Soviet prisoners of war as test subjects. Zyklon-B was used.
16 Nov 1941 On this Sunday, a Catholic Mass was secretly held in a dark aisle between bunks on the second floor of Block 4 at Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
20 Nov 1941 The two crematoria of Auschwitz Concentration Camp were inactivated for servicing; camp commandant ordered that corpses of prisoners were to be transported to Birkenau (not yet a camp) for burying in mass graves until the servicing was done on 3 Dec 1941.
3 Dec 1941 The two crematoria of Auschwitz Concentration Camp that was inactivated on 20 Nov for service were reactivated.
24 Dec 1941 94 Soviet prisoners of war and 23 political prisoners died in Auschwitz Concentration Camp. On the same day, 37 prisoners from block 20 of Auschwitz were killed by heart phenol injection.
25 Dec 1941 60 Soviet prisoners of war and 23 political prisoners died in Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland.
13 Mar 1942 1,200 sick prisoners from the hospital within Auschwitz I camp who were judged as not able to recover were transferred to the BIb sector of Birkenau camp, where they were killed. Their bodies were transported back to Auschwitz I to be cremated.
15 Mar 1942 At Auschwitz I Concentration Camp, 28 prisoners died in the hospital. At Auschwitz II-Birkenau, SS guards killed 131 prisoners without reason before noon, and in the afternoon about 250 prisoners (including 103 Soviet prisoners of war) died from wounds sustained during torture.
20 Mar 1942 Gas chambers of Block I of Auschwitz II (Birkenau) Concentration Camp began extermination operations.
22 Mar 1942 Mass exterminations of Jews using Zyklon B gas began at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland.
26 Mar 1942 A transport of 999 female Slovakian Jews from Poprad, Czechoslovakia arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland; they were the first Slovakians sent by Adolf Eichmann's RSHA IVB4 office. Coinciding with the arrival of the Slovakian Jews was the arrival of the first transport of female prisoners from Ravensbrück Concentration Camp in northern Germany, also containing 999 Jews.
30 Mar 1942 French Jews began arriving at Auschwitz Concentration Camp, with the first transport originating from Compiegne.
27 Apr 1942 The first of 127 Polish female political prisoners arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. They were imprisoned in Block 8.
27 May 1942 168 prisoners, all Polish artists and actors arrested in the previous month, were shot at the execution wall in the courtyard of Block 11 in Auschwitz I in occupied Poland. They were killed in retaliation of the death of the German Luftwaffe commanding officer in Krakow, where the victims came from.
31 May 1942 Monowitz labor camp, later to become Auschwitz III, opened on this date, housing forced laborers charged with building the Buna-Works for the German chemical firm I. G. Farben.
10 Jun 1942 At Auschwitz Concentration Camp, about 50 Polish prisoners in the penal company attempted to escape while working at a drainage ditch in Birkenau; it was the first mass escape in the history of the camp. 9 were able to escape successfully. In response, the SS guards executed 20 prisoners by firing squad and sent 300 prisoners from the penal company in the gas chamber.
12 Jun 1942 During the morning roll call at Auschwitz Concentration Camp, 60 Polish prisoners were called out. They were shot at the Death Wall in the courtyard of Block 11 in retaliation of clandestine resistance organizations in Silesia region. The victims were transferred to Auschwitz between 1940 and 1942 from Sosnowiec, Katowice, and Krakow.
20 Jun 1942 Polish prisoners of Auschwitz Concentration Camp Kazimierz Piechowski, Stanislaw Gustaw Jaster, Józef Lempart, and Eugeniusz Bendera broke into a SS store room and stole uniforms and weapons and then made their escape from the concentration camp in disguise.
30 Jun 1942 Auschwitz Concentration Camp's Bunker II, the second gas chamber, became operational.
4 Jul 1942 Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland began mass gassings.
17 Jul 1942 Heinrich Himmler visited Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in Poland for two days to inspect the construction of crematoriums, inspect the expansion of prisoner barracks, and observe the extermination of two trainloads of Dutch Jews.
28 Jul 1942 A transport of 1,010 Jews (542 men and 468 women) arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland from Westerbork camp in the Netherlands; after the selection, 473 men and 315 women were registered; the remaining 222 were killed in the gas chambers.
27 Aug 1942 Polish Catholic priest Roman Sitko, formerly a rector of the theological seminary in Tarnów, Poland, was registered into the Auschwitz concentration camp as prisoner number 61908.
9 Sep 1942 Burning of bodies in open-air pits began at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Additionally, a decision was made to dig up 107,000 already-buried bodies and burn them in pits; this decision was made to prevent the large number of bodies contaminating ground water.
30 Sep 1942 Commandant of Auschwitz Concentration Camp Rudolf Höss forbade his SS guards to consume raw fruits, raw vegetables, and raw milk due to the typhus epidemic in the camp.
30 Sep 1942 A transport containing 610 Jews arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp from the Westerbork camp in the Netherlands; 37 men and 118 women were registered into the camp, and the remaining 454 were gassed.
12 Oct 1942 Polish Catholic priest Roman Sitko, a Polish Catholic priest, formerly a rector of the theological seminary in Tarnów, Poland, was killed at Auschwitz concentration camp less than two months after his arrival.
28 Oct 1942 The first transport from Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in occupied Czechoslovakia arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland.
30 Oct 1942 All Jewish prisoners of Auschwitz I Concentration Camp were brought out for a roll call; 800 were chosen to be sent to the newly created Buna sub-camp in Monowice to supply workers for the nearly I.G. Farben chemical plant; a number of prisoners too weak to work were sent to the gas chambers.
1 Nov 1942 About 600 Dutch Jews and 977 German Jews from Berlin were gassed at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
3 Nov 1942 Polish political prisoner Heinz Radomski was caught while attempting to escape from sector BIb of the Auschwitz II-Birkenau concentration camp. He was later executed on 24 Jul 1943 in the washroom of Block 11.
4 Nov 1942 A transport of 954 Jewish men, women, and children from Westerbork Concentration Camp in occupied Netherlands arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. 50 women were registered in the camp and 904 people were killed in the gas chambers.
7 Nov 1942 A transport of 465 Jews arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland from the Westerbork Concentration Camp in the Netherlands. During the selection all of them were said to be unable to work, thus were all sent for one of the two provisional gas chambers.
8 Nov 1942 25 Jewish professional watchmakers were transferred from Majdanek Concentration Camp to Auschwitz Concentration Camp; they were later transferred to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp where they would work in a workshop to sort and repair watches stolen from killed Jews for use by German troops.
14 Nov 1942 Two transports containing a total of 2,500 Jews from Ciechanow ghettos, Poland arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp; 633 men and 135 were registered into the camp, and the remaining 1,732 were killed in gas chambers. On the same day, 1,500 Jews from Bialystok District 2 in Poland arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp; 82 men and 379 women were registered into the came, and the remaining 839 were killed in gas chambers. Finally, the SS doctors of Auschwitz Concentration Camp sent 110 prisoners from the Auschwitz I hospital to Birkenau Concentration Camp to be killed in the gas chambers.
18 Nov 1942 About 1,000 Jews from ghettos of Grodno, Byelorussia arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland; 165 men and 65 women were registered, and about 770 were gassed.
28 Nov 1942 About 1,000 Jews from Ciechanów ghettos in Poland arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp; after the selection 325 men and 169 women were registered in the camp, and the remaining about 506 people were gassed.
2 Dec 1942 Two transports arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp on this date. The first transport from Westerbork Concentration Camp in the Netherlands arrived with 826 Jews; 77 of them were registered into the camp, and the remaining 749 were gassed. The second transport from Grodno ghetto arrived with 1,000 Jews; 178 men and 60 women were registered into the camp, and the remaining 762 were gassed.
3 Dec 1942 Approximately 300 Jewish prisoners from the Sonderkommando who dug up and burned the 107,000 bodies buried in mass graves were taken from Auschwitz II-Birkenau to the main camp by SS guards. They were led to the gas chamber in Crematorium I and killed.
5 Dec 1942 The SS authorities organized a general selection among the prisoners of the female camp BIa in Auschwitz II-Birkenau Concentration Camp, which lasted all day, after which 2,000 young, healthy and fit to work women prisoners were killed in gas chambers.
6 Dec 1942 Two transports arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Of the 811 Jews from the Netherlands, 16 were registered in the camp and 795 were gassed. Of the about 2,500 Jews from the Mlawa ghetto, 406 were registered in the camp and around 2,094 were gassed.
10 Dec 1942 Three transports arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. The first was from the Netherlands with 927 Jews; 39 men and 3 women were registered, and 885 were gassed. The second was from Berlin, Germany with 1,060 Jews; 137 men and 25 women were registered, and 898 were gassed. The third was from Malkinia, Poland with about 2,500 Jews; 524 were registered and about 1,976 were gassed.
29 Dec 1942 In the afternoon, prisoners Otto Küsel, Jan Baras, Mieczyslaw Januszewski, and Dr. Boleslaw Kuczbara escaped from Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Otto Küsel, a German Jew with horse cart driving responsibilities, loaded up four cabinets for transport with the other three hidden inside, reaching an open field in the production area without being checked by SS guards due to the appearance of his usual duty. Mieczyslaw Januszewski came out, wearing a SS uniform and wielding a rifle, and sat next to Küsel. They left the camp after Januszewski produced a false SS identification. They made contact shortly after with the resistance group Polish Home Army.
9 Jan 1943 In the early afternoon, Czech prisoner Georg Zahradka or Zacharatka escaped from Auschwitz I concentration camp, but was captured by midnight near watchtower 26. He was executed on 14 Jan 1943.
13 Jan 1943 Three transports arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp, each containing 1,210 German Jews from Berlin (1,083 of them were sent directly to the gas chambers), 750 Dutch Jews (88 men and 101 women were registered, and the remaining 561 were gassed), and 2,000 Jews of Zambrów ghetto in Poland (148 men and 50 women were registered, and the remaining 1,802 were gassed).
14 Jan 1943 Georg Zahradka was executed at Auschwitz Concentration Camp for attempting to escape during the night of 9 Jan 1943.
24 Jan 1943 A transport from a psychiatric hospital at Apeldoornse Bosh with 921 Jews arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. After the selection, 16 men and 60 women were registered; the remaining were sent to the gas chambers.
29 Jan 1943 Kurt Prüfer of German engineering firm J. A. Topf und Söhne visited the Central Construction Office of Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland, inspecting the Crematoria II, III, IV, and V construction progress; he estimated the launch of Crematorium II to be around 15 Feb, Crematorium III around 17 Apr, Crematorium IV around 28 Feb, and Crematorium V's completion date depended largely on weather.
31 Jan 1943 A transport with 2,834 Polish Jews from Pruzany arrived in Auschwitz Concentration Camp; it included 230 children under four and 520 children between four and ten. 313 men and 180 women were registered in the camp; the remaining 2,341, including all 750 children, were gassed.
1 Feb 1943 At Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland, SS personnel selected 20 Jewish prisoners who were already working at the crematorium in Auschwitz I and readied them for work in the soon-to-be-ready new crematoriums in Birkenau.
4 Feb 1943 A transport of 890 Jews from Westerbork Concentration Camp in the Netherlands arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland. 48 of the 312 males and 52 of the females were registered; the remaining 790 were sent to the gas chambers.
6 Feb 1943 All female prisoners at Auschwitz Concentration Camp were gathered for a general roll call at 0330 hours then marched outside the camp. They were kept outdoors until 1700 hours, then were ordered to run back to the camp, prodded by swinging clubs. About 1,000 women died during this forced march. Those who were not able to keep up but survived were rounded up and sent to block 25 in the BIa sector of the camp, from which location they would later be transported to the gas chambers.
11 Feb 1943 A transport from the Westerbork Concentration Camp in the Netherlands arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland with 476 men and 708 women; 113 men and 66 women were registered, and the remaining 1,005 were killed in the gas chambers.
14 Feb 1943 Commandant Rudolf Höss of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp issued Garrison Order No. 3 which instructed the SS guards to "maintain an appropriate distance from the prisoners" to order to prevent the spread of typhus which was rampant among the prisoners.
23 Feb 1943 Germans brought 39 Jewish prisoners from Auschwitz II-Birkenau to Block 20 of Auschwitz I in occupied Poland. These prisoners, aged 13 to 17, were killed by phenol injections administered by SS-Unterscharführer Herbert Scherpe in the evening. These prisoners were originally from the Zamosc region of Poland.
26 Feb 1943 The first transport of Roma and Sinti arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland; they were assigned to the BIIe sector at Auschwitz II-Birkenau and housed in what was called the "Gypsy camp" (Zigeunerlager); this sector would eventually grow to house 23,000 Sinti and Roma people; 20,000 of them would not survive the Holocaust.
28 Feb 1943 A mistake in record-keeping at Auschwitz Concentration Camp caused registration information of the women's camp in Birkenau to be in a state of confusion. All female prisoners of Birkenau camp were gathered for a prolonged roll call which lasted the entire day to re-confirm camp records; at the same time, a selection also took place among the women, which condemned some of them to the gas chambers.
2 Mar 1943 At 2140 hours, Auschwitz Concentration Camp commandant Rudolf Höss was informed that 15,000 Berlin Jews were being transported to the camp; he ordered that the prisoners must be kept in good health during the journey so that they could work at Auschwitz.
3 Mar 1943 The 32nd transport from Berlin, Germany arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland in two trains, totaling 1,758 German Jews and 158 Norwegian Jews. 535 men and 145 women were registered into the camp from the first train, and 50 and 164 were registered from the second train. The remaining 1,022 were killed in gas chambers.
5 Mar 1943 During a test run of Crematorium II at Auschwitz-Birkenau, it took 40 minutes to cremate 45 bodies. An observing commission, which included engineers from the firm J. A. Topf and Sons and SS officers, complained that the amount of time it took was too long. They instructed the prisoners who operated the crematorium to keep the generators running for several days to increase the temperature.
7 Mar 1943 Roma and Sinti people from occupied Poland and Soviet Union began arriving at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland.
22 Mar 1943 Crematorium 4 began operation at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland.
23 Mar 1943 A group of Greek Jews were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland.
30 Mar 1943 A transport of 2,501 Jews from Thessaloniki, Greece arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland. 312 men and 141 women were registered, while the remaining 2,048 were gassed.
31 Mar 1943 Crematorium 2 began operation at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland.
4 Apr 1943 The German SS Central Construction Office reported to Auschwitz Concentration Camp that Crematorium V had been completed in Auschwitz II-Birkenau, and its administration was now turned over to the camp administration. According to the firm that built the crematorium, J. A. Topf und Söhne, it had the capacity to cremate 768 bodies each day.
18 Apr 1943 A transport of 2501 Jews from the ghetto in Thessaloniki, Greece arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland. Only 605 were registered into the camp; the remaining 1,896 were sent to the gas chambers.
20 May 1943 The women's camp in Auschwitz II-Birkenau in Poland reported that it had 20,635 female prisoners (9,337 with working assignments, 4,510 without working assignments, and 6,788 unable to work).
24 May 1943 SS-Hauptsturmfuehrer Dr. Josef Mengele arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. He was soon to begin experiments on prisoners.
25 May 1943 507 men and 528 women of the Gypsy camp in Birkenau of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp system, most of whom were from Poland and Austria, were gassed. At least several hundred of them were sick, many of whom with typhus, thus giving the camp authorities to write off their deaths as natural.
30 May 1943 SS-Hauptsturmführer Josef Mengele became the doctor for the Gypsy Family Camp (Sector BIIe) of Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp in occupied Poland.
25 Jun 1943 Crematorium III began operation at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. The camp now had the capacity of cremating 4,756 bodies per day.
19 Jul 1943 12 Polish prisoners of Auschwitz I camp were executed by hanging in front of the kitchen during roll call for helping three fellow prisoners escape. The men were Stanislaw Stawinski (No. 6569), Czeslaw Marcisz (No. 26891), Janusz Skrzetuski-Pogonowski (No. 253), Edmund Sikorski (No. 25419), Jerzy Wozniak (No. 35650), Józef Wojtyga (No. 24740), Zbigniew Foltanski (No. 41664), Boguslaw Ohrt (No. 367), Leon Rajzer (No. 399), Tadeusz Rapacz (No. 36043), Józef Gancarz (No. 24538), and Mieczyslaw Kulikowski (No. 25404).
24 Jul 1943 Polish political prisoner Heinz Radomski was executed in the washroom of Block 11 at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland.
2 Aug 1943 Auschwitz Concentration Camp's special camp for Roma people was liquidated; 2,897 prisoners were gassed.
10 Aug 1943 A transport of about 3,000 arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp from the liquidated ghetto in Sosnowiec, Poland. 110 men and 195 were registered into the camp; the remainder were killed in the gas chambers. On the same day, Auschwitz received 754 sewing machines from the liquidated ghetto of Bedzin, Poland.
21 Aug 1943 The authorities at the Birkenau women's camp at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland selected 498 Jewish women considered unable to work for the gas chamber; 438 of them were Greeks.
8 Sep 1943 A transport of 5,006 Jews (2,293 men and boys, 2,713 women and girls) from Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in Czechoslovakia arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland. They were housed in the BIIb sector.
9 Sep 1943 5,006 Jews from the Theresienstadt ghetto in Czechoslovakia arrived at the newly created Familienlager-Theresienstadt family camp in sector BIIb of Auschwitz II-Birkenau Concentration Camp in Poland.
5 Oct 1943 1,196 Polish Jewish children originally from the liquidated Bialystok ghetto in Poland were transferred from Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in occupied Czechoslovakia to Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland.
21 Oct 1943 1,007 Jews from the Westerbork camp in the Netherlands arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland. There were 87 children, 407 men and women under the age of 50 and 207 older people. After the selection 347 men and 170 women were registered. The other 409 were killed in the gas chambers.
22 Oct 1943 Block 11 of Auschwitz I concentration camp held a trial that sentenced 76 men and 19 women to death; they had been transferred from the prison in Myslowitz. The trial was presided by the new head of the Kattowitz Gestapo, SS-Obersturbanfuehrer Johannes Thümmler, who was never punished after the war and passed away in old age in May 2002.
23 Oct 1943 A transport of prisoners from Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp arrived at Gas Chamber II of Auschwitz Concentration Camp. In the undressing room, one of the Jewish women seized SS man Josef Schillinger's pistol and shot Schillinger and another guard, Wilhelm Emmerich. Other prisoners joined in to attack other guards, but the SS eventually took control of the situation. Schillinger died on the way to the hospital; Emmerich survived the wound, but became permanently disabled.
2 Nov 1943 1,870 Jews from labor camp in Szopienice, Katowice, Poland arrived at Auschwitz. 463 men and 28 women were registered into the camp; the rest were sent to the gas chambers.
3 Nov 1943 A transport of 1,203 Jews arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp from a slave camp from Szopienice in southern Poland. 284 men and 23 women were registered into the camp; the remaining 896 were sent to a gas chamber.
11 Nov 1943 Liebehenschel became the new commandant of Auschwitz Concentration Camp as his predecessor, Höss, was promoted to become the chief inspector of concentration camps. A report dated on this date noted that the total number of prisoners in Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau Concentration Camps and all subcamps was 54,673 men and 33,179 women, for the total of 87,852 prisoners.
19 Nov 1943 En route to a gas chamber at Auschwitz II in Poland, Bina Braun and Rosa Theberger attempted to escape but was caught and shot, and the rest were gassed. The list of 394 prisoners killed on this day was stolen and smuggled to the resistance leader in Auschwitz I camp, who sent the list on to Krakow, Poland on 21 Nov and then to London, England, United Kingdom.
30 Nov 1943 Rudolf Höss served his final day as the commandant of Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland.
1 Dec 1943 Arthur Liebehenschel became the second commandant of Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland.
2 Dec 1943 The first transport of Jews from Vienna arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
8 Dec 1943 A transport of 55 Berlin Jews arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland. After the selection, 14 were registered and 31 were gassed.
16 Dec 1943 The chief surgeon at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland reported that 106 castration operations had been performed on prisoners.
20 Dec 1943 The Rapportführer of the quarantine camp at Auschwitz II-Birkenau Concentration camp (Sector BIIa) gave an order to flog the whole first row of prisoners for too little springy posture at the roll call, which took place during the cold wind and falling snow. Four prisoners were then transferred to the camp hospital due to the flogging.
25 Dec 1943 By this date in 1943, there were a total of 86,919 prisoners in the Auschwitz camp system in occupied Poland, 56,595 of whom were men and 30,324 were women.
31 Dec 1943 As of this date, Auschwitz Concentration Camp had a population of 85,298 prisoners (55,785 men and 29,513 women). In the month of Dec 1943, 5,748 male and 8,931 female registered prisoners died at Auschwitz; these numbers did not include those killed in gas chambers immediately after arriving without being registered.
4 Jan 1944 At Auschwitz Concentration Camp, SS Doctor Eduard Wirths notified fellow medical officers at Auschwitz III-Monowitz that, as of this date, corpses of deceased prisoners should be identified and then sent directly to the crematoria, bypassing the previous procedure of sending the corpses to the morgue at Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau first. Death reports, however, must still be filed at the orderly room of prisoners' hospital in Auschwitz I by noon time of the same day that the corpses were sent to the crematoria.
12 Jan 1944 1,000 Jews from Stutthof Concentration Camp arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp; 120 men and 134 women were registered into the camp while 746 were gassed upon arrival.
1 Feb 1944 A new satellite camp of Auschwitz III (Monowitz), located at the Guenthergrube in Ledziny, Poland opened. This new satellite camp would house 300 prisoners for coal mining for the German industrial firm I. G. Farben.
2 Feb 1944 A transport from Trieste, Italy arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Most of the prisoners were sent to the gas chambers upon arrival.
6 Feb 1944 A transport from Drancy Concentration Camp in Paris, France arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. 999 of the 1,214 Jews were sent to the gas chambers upon arrival; only 166 men and 49 women were registered into the camp.
22 Feb 1944 Auschwitz III commandant SS-Hauptsturmführer Schwarz ordered that night shift workers not be assigned to do any day shift work, the prisoners be given seven to eight hours of rest per day, and roll call be limited to five to ten minutes; his motivations were to maintain a high level of productivity from the forced laborers in his camp. On this date a total of 73,669 prisoners were in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp; Auschwitz I housed 17,177 male prisoners, Auschwitz II housed 18,378 male and 24,637 female prisoners, and Auschwitz III housed 13,477 male prisoners.
23 Feb 1944 39 Polish boys between the age of 13 to 17 originally from the Zamosc region were brought from Auschwitz II-Birkenau to block 20 at Auschwitz I. They were told that they would be trained to be nurses, but that evening they were killed with phenol heart injections given by SS-Unterscharführer Scherpe.
26 Feb 1944 650 Italian Jews from Fossoli transit camp near Carpi, Modena and 84 Soviet prisoners of war from the Lamsdorf (Lambinowice, Poland) POW camp arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland. Of the Italian Jews, 95 men and 29 women were registered into the camp; the remaining 526 were sent to the gas chambers.
5 Mar 1944 732 Jews from the Westerbork transit camp arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in Poland. 477 of them were sent to the gas chambers without being registered into the camp.
5 Mar 1944 Auschwitz-Birkenau camp officials decided to gas the Czech Jews of Theresienstadt camp (sector BIIb). They were given postcards post-dated 25-27 Mar 1944 with pre-printed message "we are healthy and fine" and were told to sign them. These prisoners were gassed on 8 Mar 1944 and the postcards were mailed after 25 Mar.
8 Mar 1944 3,791 Czech Jews were gassed at Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in occupied Poland. The men were killed in Crematorium III and the women and children in Crematorium II.
10 Mar 1944 1,501 Jews arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp from Drancy Concentration Camp in Paris. 110 men and 80 women were registered into the camp, while the remaining 1,311 were sent to the gas chambers.
18 Mar 1944 At 1100 hours, Auschwitz Concentration Camp prisoner Rudolf Friemel married forced laborer Margarita Ferrer at the camp's Registry Office. It was the only case where a prisoner was allowed to marry in the camp. They had met in Spain when Rudolf Friemel, an Austrian, fought as a volunteer for the Spanish Republicans in the civil war. Friemel was executed by hanging on 30 Dec 1944 for a failed attempt to escape Auschwitz. Ferrer and their child survived the war.
25 Mar 1944 184 Jews who had been recently arrested from their hiding places in the Hague in the Netherlands arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
4 Apr 1944 A transport from two hospitals and one psychiatric institution in Trieste, Italy arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland; 62 of the about 300 patients died en route, while another 103 were gassed upon arrival.
4 Apr 1944 In Poland, the first Allied aerial photographs were taken of Auschwitz I camp, the town of Auschwitz (known as Oswiecim in Polish), the I. G. Farben factories, and the Auschwitz III camp complex (also known as Monowitz).
5 Apr 1944 Siegfried Lederer escaped from Auschwitz-Birkenau camp and made it safely to Czechoslovakia; he warned the Elders of the Council at Theresienstadt about the atrocities being committed at Auschwitz.
7 Apr 1944 Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler escaped from Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp in occupied Poland; they would cross the border to Slovakia three days later.
16 Apr 1944 A transport of 1,500 Jews from Drancy Concentration Camp outside of Paris arrived at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp; it was the 71st transport from Drancy to Auschwitz. 165 men and 223 women were registered into the camp, while the remaining 1,112 were gassed.
2 May 1944 Two transports arrived at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp with 1,800 Jews from Budapest, Hungary and 2,000 from Topolya, Yugoslavia. 1,102 were registered into the camp, and the remaining 2,698 were sent to the gas chambers.
8 May 1944 Rudolf Höss returned to Auschwitz Concentration Camp to supervise Aktion Höss, the extermination of 430,000 Hugarian Jews.
9 May 1944 Rudolf Höss returned to Auschwitz Concentration Camp and ordered the expansion of the rail platforms, the activation of Crematorium V, the reactivation of Bunker 2 (gas chamber), the digging of five pits, among other items, in preparation for the arrival of Hungarian Jews at Auschwitz.
11 May 1944 German SS Sturmbannführer Richard Baer was appointed the commandant of Auschwitz I after his predecessor Liebehenschel was transferred to Majdanek Concentration Camp.
12 May 1944 39 German Sinti children, 20 boys and 19 girls, arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. They were separated from their parents as a part of Eva Justin's dissertation "The fate of Gypsy children and their offspring raised in alien environments". She became a professor at Berlin University in 1943 and the paper was published in 1944.
16 May 1944 A transport of Jews from Hungary arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland. Adolf Eichmann, in charge of all transports to the camps, arrived to oversee and speed up the extermination process personally.
21 May 1944 Four trains arrived at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland with 12,438 Hungarian Jews (3,013 from Viseu de Sus (Felsövisó), 3,274 from Nyiregyháza, 3,290 from Sátoraljaújhely, and 2,861 from Mukacevo (Munkács)) and 2,000 Jews from Yugoslavia. 1,102 were registered into the camp; 2,698 were sent to the gas chambers.
23 May 1944 Four trains arrived at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland with 12,674 Hungarian Jews (3,023 from Viseu de Sus (Felsovisó), 3,272 from Nyiregyháza, 3,269 from Mukacevo (Munkács), and 3,110 from Oradea (Nagyvárad)). 5 women were registered into the camp; 12,669 were sent to the gas chambers.
3 Jun 1944 Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp's electric fence, which had previously been turned off during the daylight hours to save energy, was now on throughout the entire day in response to the numerous escape attempts by Hungarian Jews. On the same day, four transports brought 11,569 Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz (2,937 from Nagyszölös (Vinogradov), 2,499 from Kassa Kosice, 2,972 from Nagyvárad (Oradea), and 3,161 from Szilágysomló (Simleu Silvaniei)).
7 Jun 1944 The administration of the crematoriums in Auschwitz II-Birkenau concentration camp ordered four sieves from the manufacturing firm Deutsche Ausrüstungswerke (DAW) to sift through human ashes. The sieves were to be equipped with an iron frame and the openings of the sieve screens were to be 10 millimeters in size.
20 Jun 1944 Jakob Edelstein, the former senior Jewish elder ("Judenaeltester") of the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp, and his family were shot in Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland.
24 Jun 1944 Prisoners Edward Galinski and Mala Zimetbaum escaped from Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland but they would be re-captured in Jul 1944.
26 Jun 1944 The crematoria in Auschwitz-II Birkenau in occupied Poland received four sieves for sifting bones out of human ashes. Up above, Allied aircraft took photographs of the Auschwitz camps complex at the altitude of about 30,000 feet (about 10,000 meters).
30 Jun 1944 A transport of 2,044 Jews from Athens and Corfu Island in Greece arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland; 455 men and 175 women were registered into the camp while the remainder were gassed. On the same day, another transport of 1,000 Jews from the Fossoli di Carpi transit camp in Italy also arrived; 180 men and 51 women were registered while the remainder were gassed.
7 Jul 1944 Six trains carrying 14,846 Hungarian Jews (3,077 from Sopron, 2,793 from Pápa, 1,072 from Paks, 3,549 from Monor, 3,151 from Óbuda, and 2,204 from Sárvár) acrossed into occupied Poland, destined for the Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
2 Aug 1944 Zigeunernacht ("Gypsy Night"): 4,000 Roma were killed and cremated at Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
12 Aug 1944 The first transport of civilians arrested in Warsaw, Poland after the start of Warsaw Uprising reached Auschwitz II-Birkenau concentration camp via Pruszków transit camp. 1,984 males and over 3,800 females were in this transport.
25 Aug 1944 Allied reconnaissance aircraft flew over Auschwitz Concentration Camp and took photographs of the complex.
29 Aug 1944 As of this date, at Auschwitz Concentration Camp, the number of prisoners in the Sonderkommando, the work group created by the Germans to operate the gas chambers and crematoria, was 874.
14 Sep 1944 800 Gypsy children, more than 100 of whom were boys between 9 and 14 years of age, were executed at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland.
15 Sep 1944 Prisoners Edward Galinski and Mala Zimetbaum were executed at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland for their attempted escape from Auschwitz II–Birkenau in Jun 1944.
18 Sep 1944 Nazi German SS doctors conducted a selection in the infirmaries of Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland. 330 men and 65 boys, all Jews, were selected and sent to the gas chambers.
18 Sep 1944 A transport with 2,500 Jews arrived at Auschwitz Concentration Camp from the Łódź ghetto in occupied Poland; about 80% of this transport were children between 13 and 16 years of age. 150 were registered into the camp, the remaining were all killed in the gas chambers.
28 Sep 1944 Beginning on this date and through the following month, about 18,402 prisoners from Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in occupied Czechoslovakia were transferred to Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland.
7 Oct 1944 Jewish prisoners of the Sonderkommando of Auschwitz II-Birkenau Concentration Camp organized a large revolt and escape. Crematorium IV was set on fire, while SS guards came under attack. During the havoc, some of the prisoners were successful in cutting through the perimeter fencing and got outside, but the SS guard responded and successfully rounded up all escapees and killed them all. After the revolt was put down in the camp, about 250 prisoners, including leader Zalmen Gradowski and Józef Deresinski, were dead. Three SS men were also killed; ten were wounded. Four Jewish women who had stolen the explosives from their workplace at the Union-Werke armaments factory, which were used during this revolt, were later hanged.
28 Oct 1944 Jewish prisoner Kurt Gerron, who had completed a propaganda film at Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in occupied Czechoslovakia for the Germans, was killed at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland.
31 Oct 1944 14,000 Jews were transported from Slovakia to Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland.
1 Nov 1944 The gas chamber at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland was used for the last time, killing 206 Jews.
26 Nov 1944 Heinrich Himmler ordered the destruction of the crematoria at Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp in attempt to hide evidence of mass killings. Dismantling work of Crematorium II of Auschwitz Concentration Camp began on the same day. First, the motor that pumped the air out of the gas chamber was removed and sent to Mauthausen Concentration Camp. Then, pipes were removed and sent to Gross-Rosen Concentration camp. Other equipment were removed in order and shipped into various parts of Germany.
1 Dec 1944 Heinrich Himmler ordered the crematoriums and gas chambers of Auschwitz Concentration Camp dismantled and blown up.
25 Dec 1944 Three baby girls were born in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in occupied Poland.
30 Dec 1944 150 female prisoners of Auschwitz Concentration Camp were employed in the demolition squad (Abbruchkommando), working on the demolition of crematorium III. 50 female prisoners worked in the forestry-demolition squad (Gehölz-Abbruchkommando), which was filling in the incineration pits and covering them with grass and planting small trees on the grounds of crematorium IV.
1 Jan 1945 100 male and 100 female Polish prisoners of the Gestapo from block 11 in Auschwitz I camp were transferred by SS doctor Fritz Klein to the chief of Auschwitz II-Birkenau Crematorium V Erich Muhsfeldt. Muhsfeldt's men executed these police prisoners by firing squad.
5 Jan 1945 The last session of the police summary court of the Kattowitz Gestapo took place in block 11 in Auschwitz I camp. Around 100 Polish prisoners were condemned to death, to be executed by firing squad on the next day. The court was presided by Johannes Thuemmler. These prisoners were under the jurisdiction of the Gestapo and not of the commandant of the concentration camp.
6 Jan 1945 Four Jewish women, Ella Gartner, Róza Robota, Regina Safir, and Estera Wajsblum, were executed by hanging in the female camp of Auschwitz Concentration Camp; they had smuggled explosives out of their workplace which were used during the 7 Oct 1944 uprising in the camp. About 100 other Auschwitz prisoners were also executed on this date, having sentenced to death by the Kattowitz Gestapo on the previous day; they faced a firing squad at Auschwitz II-Birkenau and were sent to Crematorium V. These prisoners were among the last to be executed at Auschwitz.
17 Jan 1945 67,012 prisoners were present at Auschwitz Concentration Camp's last evening roll call; they would soon embark on the Death March. Meanwhile, Nazi doctor Josef Mengele began to destroy his laboratories at sector BIIf of Birkenau camp; he would soon evacuate the camp with records of his experiments on twins, dwarfs, and disabled people.
18 Jan 1945 66,000 prisoners from the Auschwitz Concentration Camp were transferred into Germany.
27 Jan 1945 Reconnaissance troops of the Soviet 100th Infantry Division discovered the prisoners' infirmary at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp at about 0900 hours. The remainder of the division arrived 30 minutes later. Soviet troops entered the main camp in the afternoon where they fought off the remaining German resistance at the cost of 231 lives. By this time, only 7,000 prisoners remained to be liberated in the entire Auschwitz system; the bulk of had been marched away previously.
16 Apr 1947 Rudolf Höss was executed by hanging next to the crematorium of Auschwitz I concentration camp. He was pronounced dead at 1021 hours by a medical doctor. He was then buried in a unmarked grave nearby.




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Visitor Submitted Comments

1. Anonymous says:
13 Sep 2014 03:18:39 PM

I escaped frrom Auschwitz Birkenau, Zerlege Betriebe with Rusasian prisoner of War. We were caught about a month later and brought to death block 11 Auschwitz, then a bout a week later sent to Starffcompanie in Birkenau. I was shipped (being Roman Catholic Polish Polital prisoner to Mauthausen

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