Liberation of Auschwitz
Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau, revealing the full horror of Nazi death camps to the world.
Where this fits on the timeline. As World War II drew toward its end in Europe, Allied armies advancing into German-held territory began to uncover the Nazi camps, and with them the full, staggering scale of the Holocaust. On January 27, 1945, soldiers of the Soviet Red Army reached Auschwitz, the largest of the Nazi killing centers. What they found there became one of the central testimonies of the Holocaust, and that date is now marked around the world as a day of remembrance.
What Auschwitz was
The largest of the Nazi camps. Auschwitz was built by the SS beginning in 1940 near the Polish town of Oświęcim, in German-occupied Poland. It grew into a vast complex of camps, the three main ones being Auschwitz I, the original camp; Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the enormous killing center with its gas chambers and crematoria; and Auschwitz III-Monowitz, a forced-labor camp attached to a chemical factory. At least 1.1 million people were murdered at Auschwitz, about one million of them Jews, along with tens of thousands of Poles, Roma and Sinti, Soviet prisoners of war, and others. It was the deadliest single site of the Holocaust.
The machinery of murder
Killing organized like a factory. Most Jews deported to Auschwitz arrived packed into freight trains after journeys of days without food or water. On the ramp, SS men carried out a 'selection,' sending those judged fit to work into the camp and the rest, including most children, the elderly, and mothers with young children, directly to the gas chambers. There the victims were murdered with a poison gas called Zyklon B, and their bodies burned in the crematoria. Those kept alive faced starvation, disease, brutal forced labor, and cruel medical experiments. It was murder carried out on an industrial scale, and the plans for this Europe-wide genocide had been coordinated by senior Nazi officials at meetings such as the Wannsee Conference in 1942.
The final months
Erasing the evidence. By late 1944 the Soviet army was advancing from the east, and the SS began trying to hide their crimes, dismantling and blowing up the crematoria and burning records. In mid-January 1945, as Soviet troops drew near, the SS forced tens of thousands of prisoners out of Auschwitz on foot in brutal winter 'death marches' toward camps deeper inside German territory. Prisoners who collapsed or fell behind were shot; more than fifteen thousand died on these marches from cold, hunger, and exhaustion.
January 27, 1945
What the soldiers found. When Red Army soldiers entered Auschwitz on January 27, 1945, they found about 7,000 prisoners still alive, most of them sick, starving, and barely able to move, including more than two hundred children. They also found the evidence the SS had not managed to destroy: warehouses crammed with the belongings of the murdered, among them hundreds of thousands of shoes and articles of clothing, piles of eyeglasses and suitcases, and thousands of pounds of human hair. These silent mountains of possessions revealed, more plainly than any words, how many people had been killed there.
Bearing witness
Turning survival into testimony. Some who lived through Auschwitz devoted the rest of their lives to making sure the world would not forget. Elie Wiesel, deported to Auschwitz as a teenager, told his story in the memoir 'Night' and later won the Nobel Peace Prize; the Italian chemist Primo Levi wrote 'If This Is a Man' about his imprisonment there. Their testimony, and that of thousands of other survivors, is central to how we understand the Holocaust and to answering those who would deny it happened. In 2005 the United Nations designated January 27, the anniversary of the liberation, as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Why we remember
A warning carved into history. The liberation of Auschwitz, and the film and photographs taken there, helped reveal the full scale of the Holocaust to a disbelieving world, and Auschwitz became its central symbol. The following year, surviving Nazi leaders were held to account at the Nuremberg Trials, which established that individuals can be prosecuted for crimes against humanity. Today the site is preserved as a memorial and museum, visited by millions, so that new generations can see the evidence with their own eyes. Its enduring lesson is contained in two words spoken by survivors ever since: 'Never again.'
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Key Takeaways
Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz, the largest Nazi death camp, on January 27, 1945
At least 1.1 million people were murdered there, about one million of them Jews
The camp used a "selection" process, gas chambers, and crematoria to carry out mass murder on an industrial scale
As the Soviets neared, the SS destroyed evidence and forced prisoners on deadly winter "death marches"
Soldiers found about 7,000 survivors and warehouses of victims' belongings, exposing the scale of the killing
January 27 is now International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and the site is preserved as a memorial museum
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