Auschwitz

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Auschwitz

The Oxford Companion to World War II | 2001 | | © The Oxford Companion to World War II 2001, originally published by Oxford University Press 2001. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Auschwitz was the German name for Oswiecim, a town in southern Poland which was annexed to the Reich after the Polish campaign in September– October 1939. The name is now reserved for the complex of three Nazi concentration camps, and 36 sub-camps, which were built outside the town in 1940–2. Auschwitz I was built in June 1940 for Polish political prisoners; Auschwitz II, or Birkenau, which could accommodate over 100,000 inmates, opened in October 1941; and Auschwitz III grew out of a camp at nearby Monowitz which supplied forced labour for the nearby I. G. Farben synthetic rubber and oil plant. To help implement the Final Solution gas chambers and crematoria capable of disposing of 2,000 bodies at a time, and using zyklon-B gas, were constructed at Birkenau, making part of it a death-camp similar to those built for OPERATION REINHARD. By 1944, according to some sources over 6,000 a day were being murdered and 250,000 Jews from Hungary were exterminated in six weeks. Elsewhere in the complex hundreds were dying daily from maltreatment, from the pseudo-medical experiments of Dr Mengele, or from execution.

A resistance network operated within Auschwitz from the start, two Polish escapers from Auschwitz I brought the first detailed news of conditions within the camps to the outside world in 1942. The full extent of Birkenau's genocidal operations was not known, however, until two years later when three Jewish escapers reached Slovakia. In October 1944 there was a revolt when one gas chamber was blown up with explosives smuggled in from a nearby armaments factory, and another was set on fire. About 250 then escaped but they were all shot, as were another 200 who were also involved. Some weeks before the camps were liberated by Soviet forces in January 1945, the SS had begun to demolish the installations, and all the surviving inmates fit to walk had been marched into Germany.

Later, the Soviet government announced that four million people may have died at Auschwitz; and this impossible figure passed unchallenged into conventional wisdom. Only in 1991, after the fall of communism, did the Auschwitz museum issue a revised estimate of 1.2–1.5 million victims, of whom about 800,000 were Jews.

Norman Davies

Bibliography

Garlinski, J. , Fighting Auschwitz (London, 1975).
Gilbert, M. , Auschwitz and the Allies (London, 1981).

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I. C. B. DEAR and M. R. D. FOOT. "Auschwitz." The Oxford Companion to World War II. Oxford University Press. 2001. Encyclopedia.com. 3 Dec. 2009 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

I. C. B. DEAR and M. R. D. FOOT. "Auschwitz." The Oxford Companion to World War II. Oxford University Press. 2001. Encyclopedia.com. (December 3, 2009). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O129-Auschwitz.html

I. C. B. DEAR and M. R. D. FOOT. "Auschwitz." The Oxford Companion to World War II. Oxford University Press. 2001. Retrieved December 03, 2009 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O129-Auschwitz.html

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Auschwitz

The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable | 2006 | | © The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable 2006, originally published by Oxford University Press 2006. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Auschwitz a Nazi concentration camp in the Second World War, near the town of Oświęcim (Auschwitz) in Poland. It may be referred to as a symbol of the Holocaust.

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ELIZABETH KNOWLES. "Auschwitz." The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Oxford University Press. 2006. Encyclopedia.com. 3 Dec. 2009 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

ELIZABETH KNOWLES. "Auschwitz." The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Oxford University Press. 2006. Encyclopedia.com. (December 3, 2009). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O214-Auschwitz.html

ELIZABETH KNOWLES. "Auschwitz." The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Oxford University Press. 2006. Retrieved December 03, 2009 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O214-Auschwitz.html

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Auschwitz

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions | 1997 | | © The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions 1997, originally published by Oxford University Press 1997. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Auschwitz. The largest Nazi concentration camp. Established in 1940 on the outskirts of Oseiecim, Poland. It has become a symbol of the horrors of the Holocaust—as also of the extreme issues of theodicy, of ‘Theology after Auschwitz’ (see HOLOCAUST).

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JOHN BOWKER. "Auschwitz." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. 1997. Encyclopedia.com. 3 Dec. 2009 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

JOHN BOWKER. "Auschwitz." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. 1997. Encyclopedia.com. (December 3, 2009). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O101-Auschwitz.html

JOHN BOWKER. "Auschwitz." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. 1997. Retrieved December 03, 2009 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O101-Auschwitz.html

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