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Auschwitz was a network of concentration and extermination camps built and operated in occupied Poland by Nazi Germany during the Second World War. It was the largest of the German concentration camps, consisting of Auschwitz I, also known as Buna, a labor camp; and 45 satellite camps
Auschwitz is the German name for Oświęcim, the town the camps were located in and around; it was renamed by the Germans after they invaded Poland in September 1939. Birkenau, the German translation of Brzezinka (birch tree), refers to a small Polish village nearby that was mostly destroyed by the Germans to make way for the camp. Auschwitz II-Birkenau was designated by Heinrich Himmler, Germany's Minister of the Interior, as the locus of the "final solution of the Jewish question in Europe." From spring 1942 until the fall of 1944, transport trains delivered Jews to the camp's gas chambers from all over Nazi-occupied Europe.[2] The camp's first commandant, Rudolf Höss, testified after the war at the Nuremberg Trials that up to three million people had died there, a figure since revised to 1.1 million, around 90 percent of them Jews.[3] Others deported to Auschwitz included 150,000 Poles, 23,000 Roma and Sinti, 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war, and tens of thousands of people of diverse nationalities.[4] Those not killed in the gas chambers died of starvation, forced labor, lack of disease control, individual executions, and medical experiments.[5] On January 27, 1945, Auschwitz was liberated by Soviet troops, a day commemorated around the world as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. In 1947, Poland founded a museum on the site of Auschwitz I and II, which by 1994 had seen 22 million visitors—700,000 annually—pass through the iron gates crowned with the infamous motto, Arbeit macht frei ("work makes you free").
Police in Polandhaverecoveredtheinfamoussign stolen fromthefrontgate of theAuschwitzconcentration camp and arrestedfivemen, theyannouncedMonday. The "ArbeitMacht Frei" sign, whichmeans "Work Sets You Free" in German and issynonymouswiththe Nazi camps of WorldWar II, was stolen late lastweekfromAuschwitz in Poland, policesaid Friday. Thetheftpromptedoutragearoundtheworld. Five men in their 20s and 30s havebeenarrested, journalist Tomas Machala of CNN affiliatePolsat in thePolish capital WarsawsaidMonday. Theywerenot neo-Nazis, he said, in response tospeculation at the time of thetheftthatthefarrightwasresponsible. "Theyhavesome criminal background," he said, notingtheyhadbeenarrestedforrobbery and brawling in thepast. He didnotgivetheirnames. Video: Holocaust symbol stolen "Theywantedtosellthesign and earnsomemoney," he said. Police saiditwastooearlytosayiftheyactedontheirownorwerehiredtocommittherobbery. Theyface up to 10 years in prisonifthey are convicted, Machala said. Itisnotclearhowtheymanagedtostealthesign, whichwascutintothreepiecesintoordertofititinto a car, he said.
concentration camps The electrified wire Auschwitz The access of the trains with the prisoners
the barracks Berths where slept up to 6 persons on each of their 3 heights The latrines One barrack where can fit up to 1000 persons.
They were arrested hundreds of miles north of the concentration camp memorial, near the city of Gdansk. The sign had been hidden in a forest, Machala said. Police were "alerted at 5 a.m. local time on Friday by museum guards" that the sign, was stolen, according to police spokeswoman Agnieszka Szczygiel. The heavy iron sign "was removed by being unscrewed on one side and pulled off on the other," Szczygiel said.
