27/01/2025
80 years ago, on the 27th January 1945, Soldiers of the 60th Army of the First Ukrainian Front arrived at the gates of Auschwitz Concentration Camp, and liberated approximately 7000 prisoners, but this is not the number Auschwitz is known for.
The first concentration set up during the N**i regime was on the 22nd March 1933, shortly after Hi**er came to power. This Camp, a short distance from Munich, was built to house political prisoners, and intimidate the leaders of social, and cultural movements that the N**is saw as a threat to the survival of the regime. By 1934 however, prisoners were being used for forced labor for SS construction, which in some cases included the expansion of the camps themselves.
The prisoners destined for concentration camps also grew. What started as a place to hold political rivals, quickly became the destination for gypsies, mentally and physically disabled, homosexuals, and most of all, the Jewish.
As the N**is took land, the concentration camp system grew, and by the start of WW2, there were 6 concentration camps established in the so-called ‘Greater German Reich’.
At the start of the war, the Jewish were primarily sent to labor camps, however, in January 1942 in the town of Wannsee on the outskirts of Berlin, the ‘final solution to the Jewish question’ was discussed, and a plan put in motion for a mass extermination of the European Jews in so called ‘Death camps’. The plan called for Europe to be ‘swept’, and detain all Jews from infants to the elderly, and deport them to these camps.
Of the 6 million Jewish people who were killed during the Holocaust, around 1 million died in Auschwitz between 1942 and 1944.
The exact number of concentration camps and ghettos is something we do not know for sure, but many historians believe the number was around 44,000, used for detention, forced labor, and mass murder.
Holocaust remembrance day is recognised and commemorated all over the world, with a large number of memorials found in many countries In fact you will struggle to visit a European country that doesn’t have a holocaust memorial. The important thing we need to remember here, is these people are in no cemetery. These men, women, and children have no grave. All we have of them now is a name, and according to Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust memorial center, approximately 1 million Jews killed during the Holocaust are still unknown. Researchers have started experimenting with AI to scan through documents, and find names that might have been previously missed.
As impressive as this system may be, it is agreed that first hand accounts are better…but as on January 2025, it is believed there are now only 1000 survivors left so time is very much running out.
Photos:
Holocaust.cz
The National WW2 Museum
