850,000 mass Jewish grave discovered at Treblinca death camp.

A British forensic archaeologist has unearthed fresh evidence to prove the existence of mass graves at the Nazi death camp Treblinka - scuppering the claims of Holocaust deniers who say it was merely a transit camp.

Some 800,000 Jews were killed at the site, in north east Poland, during the Second World War but a lack of physical evidence in the area has been exploited by Holocaust deniers.
Forensic archaeologist Caroline Sturdy Colls has now undertaken the first co-ordinated scientific attempt to locate the graves.

As Jewish religious law forbids disturbing burial sites, she and her team from the University of Birmingham have used 'ground-penetrating radar'.

Her work at the site, where the Nazis tried to destroy all traces of industrial-scale killing, is being followed in forthcoming Radio 4 documentary The Hidden Graves Of The Holocaust.

Sturdy Colls said: 'All the history books state that Treblinka was destroyed by the Nazis but the survey has demonstrated that simply isn’t the case. 'I’ve identified a number of buried pits using geophysical techniques. These are considerable in size, and very deep, one in particular is 26 by 17 metres.'

The programme’s presenter says that the pits contain the burnt remains of thousands of bodies.

The forensic archaeologist, who has now presented her findings to the authorities responsible for the memorial at Treblinka, added: 'I really hope this is the first stage in a long-term programme to seek out those hidden graves of the Holocaust.'

Survivor Kalman Taigman remembers his arrival at the camp’s railway station, packed into a cattle wagon. 'I was with my mother. We were about 100 people in a wagon. They opened the doors, firing guns and hitting us, and sent us into a yard. I ran with my mother and tried to calm her. 'They told me to leave my mother but I didn’t do it quickly and I was hit on the head. When I got up, she was gone. She went with all the rest of the women to the gas chamber.'

850,000 mass Jewish grave discovered at Treblinca death camp http://ow.ly/8AvPO

The Sketchbook from Auschwitz.

A unique work preserved in the collections of the Auschwitz Memorial has been published by the Museum in its entirety for the first time. It is the only set of drawings made in the camp depicting the extermination of Jews deported by German Nazis to Auschwitz. The unknown author documented in his drawings also murdering of prisoners who were sick or had been worked to exhaustion.

The 22 pages were stuffed inside a bottle concealed in the foundations of one of the barracks of the Birkenau camp, not far from the place where gas chambers and crematoria IV and V were located. A former prisoner Józef Odi, who was then acting as a watchman on the grounds of the Memorial, found it at the site in 1947.

The drawings which depict the extermination are mixed with different drawings presenting Auschwitz as a concentration camp. The two functions, the extermination center and the concentration camp, appear in the Sketchbook simultaneously, as it happened in the reality. Yet, the topic of extermination was singled out by the author himself. This shows that he was aware of the unprecedented nature of the events he witnessed.

The Sketchbook from Auschwitz. German Nazis performing the selection among the deported Jews"You can clearly see that the author was determined in presenting the largest number of details. Badges of functionary prisoners, number plates of the trucks, train cars on the ramp as well as block numbers are carefully depicted. The author of the Sketchbook hoped that someone would find his work so that it would became a witness of extermination", says Agnieszka Sieradzka, art historian from the Museum's Collections Department and the author of the study.

The Polish-English publication was provided with an introduction explaining the circumstances of creation of the Sketchbook. Each of the drawings is accompanied by a historical explanation and survivors' accounts.

The book is available at the on-line bookstore of the Auschwitz Memorial. Auschwitz-Birkenau - The Sketchbook from Auschwitz http://ow.ly/8AuZd

This video is the song with pictures of the holocaust and words from the song

People must remember the Holocaust as a insult to humanity. The lives lost were not only great in number, but offered so much to mankind. How the world would have been different if the millions of souls destroyed could have lived.

Doctors have always been thought of as the saviors of mankind, the healers, and caretakers of our utter existence. Even ancient civilizations revered the medicine men as having special power to protect life. The trust of a physician is sacred. This is why the practice of medicine by the doctors of the Third Reich is egregious, outrageous, and shocking. The Nazi doctors violated the trust placed in them by humanity. The most painful truth is for the most part the doctors escaped their crimes against Humanity and lived a life, unlike their victims.

The Experiments

* Freezing / Hypothermia
* Genetics
* Infectious Diseases
* Interrogation and Torture
* Killing / Genocide
* High Altitude
* Pharmacological
* Sterilization
* Surgery
* Traumatic Injuries

Freezing / Hypothermia

The freezing / hypothermia experiments were conducted for the Nazi high command. The experiments were conducted on men to simulate the conditions the armies suffered on the Eastern Front. The German forces were ill prepared for the bitter cold. Thousands of German soldiers died of freezing or were debilitated by cold injuries.

The experiments were conducted under the supervision of Dr. Sigmund Rascher at Birkenau, Dachau and Auschwitz . Dr. Rascher reported directly to Himmler. Dr. Rascher publicized the results of his freezing experiments at the 1942 medical conference entitled "Medical Problems Arising from Sea and Winter".

The freezing experiments were divided into two parts. First, to establish how long it would take to lower the body temperature to death and second how to best resuscitate the frozen victim.

The two main methods used to freeze the victim were to put the person in a icy vat of water or to put the victim outside naked in sub-zero temperatures.

The icy vat method proved to be the fastest way to drop the body temperature. The selections were made of young healthly Jews or Russians. They were usually stripped naked and prepared for the experiment. A insulated probe which measured the drop in the body temperature was inserted into the rectum. The probe was held in place by a expandable metal ring which was adjusted to open inside the rectum to hold the probe firmly in place. The victim was then placed in the vat of cold water and started to freeze. It was learned that most victims lost consciousness and died when the body temperature dropped to 25 C.

Two Russian men were seen by a prisoner doctor in the cold vat. They were very strong men and had said a comment to the SS doctor performing the experiment. The prisoner doctor was shocked at how long the Russian men could take the cold without loosing consciousness. He asked the directing doctor to take them out of the tank. He did not allow this and increased the temperature slightly to prolong their pain. They died after a long painful stay in the tank.

The second way to freeze a victim was to strap them to a stretcher and place them outside naked. The extreme winters of Auschwitz made a natural place for this experiment.

The resuscitation or warming experiments were just as cruel and painful as the freezing experiments.

Sun Lamp

The victims were placed under sun lamps which were so hot they would burn the skin. One young homosexual victim was repeatedly cooled to unconsciousness then revived with lamps until he was pouring sweat. He died one evening after several test sessions.

Internal Irrigation

The frozen victim would have water heated to a near blistering temperature forcefully irrigated into the stomach, bladder, and intestines. All victims appeared to have died from the treatment.

Hot Bath

The victim was placed in warm water and the temperature was slowly increased. This method proved to be the best. Many victims died do to shock if they were warmed up to quickly.

Warming by Body Heat

Heinrich Himmler sugested to Dr. Rascher that he try to use women to warm the frozen men. He suggested that the victim and a women copulate. This perverted experiment occured with some success. However it was not as successful as the Warm Bath.

Genetic Experiments

The Nordic or Aryan Race was the most important goal of the Nazis. It was the largest part of the over all plan. The blonde hair, blue eye, super men were to be the only race. The Blacks, Hispanics, Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals and anyone else that did not meet the race requirements were to by cleansed from society through genocide. Hitler and the German High command made a list rules for the fellow Nazis to follow. The new rules required all SS before marriage must submit to general testing to insure racial purity. The rules for marriage were unbelievably complex. Thousands of marriages were denied. If the laws for marriage were broken it could mean the death penalty.

Dr. Sigmund Rascher and his wife learned what not following the marriage laws would hold for their lives. Mrs. Rascher was sterile. They were not illegally married; they adopted two children. They were later investigated by the Gestapo and executed for the crime. In this case, after his medical experimentation, it seems fitting that this killer was caught up by his own party.

Early in power the National Science groups were pushed into research of the race and experiments commenced. First the party needed propaganda to prove all other races were inferior. Measurements of heads, eyes, nose, blood were required. The vast majority of the early experiments were a propaganda sham. It was determined Gypsies had different blood and were inclined to criminal behavior. The same type of findings were made of all races other than the Nazis.

After the camps were started, vast genetic experiments were undertaken. The range of the testing was broad and specialized. The two major groups of experiments were first to refine the master race and second to determine the cause of defects.

Dr. Josef Mengele research on twins and Gypsies exemplifies the quest for the genetic studies. Dr. Mengele was known as the "Angel of Death". He would be at every selection when the new trains would arrive at Auschwitz. After the victims were unloaded off the trains and stripped naked and divided into men, women, and children, he would sort through the thousands of people. Most went straight to the gas chambers and others to hard labor in the camps. The twins, dwarfs, and unique physical specimens were selected to be assigned to the experimental blocks. In many ways the majority who where killed in the gas chambers were much better off than the survivors that had no idea what horrors awaited them.

Experiments on Twins

The twins were examined from head to toe. Measurements of every inch were taken. Dr. Mengele demanded specific and careful exams. If any detail was missed the staff, usually a prisoner doctor, would be punished. The twins were allowed to keep their hair for the first several days of the examination. After all the living data was taken the twins would be killed by a single injection of chloroform in the heart. Care was taken to insure the twins died at the same time. The twins were then dissected with the organs being sent to research centers.

Prisoner doctors tell of the fate of two Hungarian twins who arrived at Auschwitz late in 1943. Dr. Mengele was at the camp selection. The train arrived in the very early morning. Three sets of twins were found. They were taken to the experimental block. Dr. Mengele ordered the two Hungarian twins be placed in the examination room. The two Hungarian twins young men age 18 were described as "extremely athletic and handsome." They had much body hair and were allowed to keep it for the first few weeks. The twins were showered and returned nude to the examination room. The examination started at the head . All parts of their heads were examined. The head examination took almost days. They were then completely X-rayed . The next part of the examination consisted of tubes being forced through their noses and into their lungs. They were then ventilated with a gas which caused them to cough so severely they had to be restrained. The sputum from the lungs was collected for examination.

The twins were then photographed for several days . The purpose of the photographs were to show hair patterns. They were each forced to stand, bend, and kneel in many positions to accomplish the photographs. For example, they were required to stand with their arms lifted for many hours so the under arm hair could be photographed.

After the photographs were finished they were awoken very early in the morning. They were taken into a room with tables and a hot water vat. The water in the vat was very hot. They were made to sit in the water until they were ready to pass out from the heat. They were then strapped to a table where their hair was plucked out trying to save the hair root. They were put back into the hot vat several times. After enough hair was collected, they were totally shaven of every hair on their body. The twins were then again extensively photographed without hair.

The twins then received several two liter enemas which caused them much pain and discomfort. The boys on different days were strapped over a bench table and their rectums were hyper descended after which they received an extensive lower gastric intestinal examination. This extensive procedure was performed without any anesthesia. The young men were crying so loud that Doctor Mengele ordered they be gagged. The next day they received a painful and humiliating urological examination. In this examination tissue samples were taken from the kidneys, prostate, and testicles. Several semen samples were forcefully taken over two days.

After this three weeks of tortuous medical examinations they were taken two the dissection laboratory. Using two doctors, each twin was simultaneously given an injection in the heart, taking their lives. They were dissected and their organs were sent to the Institute of Biological Racial and Evolutionary Research Berlin.

2010 HOLOCAUST DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE, APRIL 11–18
Source for information USHMM

“When I was liberated in 1945 by the American Army, somehow many of us were convinced that at least one lesson will have been learned—that never again will there be war, that hatred is not an option, that racism is stupid…. I was so hopeful.”
— Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, during a June 2009 visit to the Buchenwald concentration camp with President Barack Obama, reflecting on his feelings at the moment he was freed.

The United States Congress established the Days of Remembrance as the nation’s annual commemoration of the Holocaust and created the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as a permanent living memorial to the victims. This year, Holocaust Remembrance Day is Sunday, April 11, 2010. In commemoration of the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps, the Museum has designated Stories of Freedom: What You Do Matters as the theme for the 2010 observance.

As Allied soldiers were closing in on Germany in the spring of 1945, they encountered dozens of concentration camps and were suddenly confronted with the reality of Nazi atrocities. The few surviving victims fully experienced the depths of human evil and depravity. For the soldiers, however, even the brutality of war did not prepare them for what they encountered.

Upon seeing Buchenwald, a member of the 333rd Engineers Regiment stated, “My feeling was that this was the most shattering experience of my life.” A U.S. Army chaplain trying to make sense of the carnage wrote to his wife, “This was a hell on earth if there ever was one.” After photographing Buchenwald, Margaret Bourke-White wrote to her editor at Life magazine, “The sights I have just seen are so unbelievable that I don’t think I will believe them myself until I’ve seen the photographs.” One American journalist wrote, “Buchenwald is beyond all comprehension. You just can’t understand it, even when you’ve seen it.”

And that was the problem. Survivors and other eyewitnesses understood and believed. But would the world? General Dwight D. Eisenhower grasped this problem and, after visiting a subcamp of Buchenwald, he addressed his staff: “I want every American unit not actually in the front lines to see this place. We are told the American soldier does not know what he is fighting for. Now, at least he will know what he is fighting against.”

Eisenhower not only understood that this was a war that at its very essence was a struggle for the freedom of peoples and the ideals on which civilization is based but also that the horror was so extreme that it might not be believed. Realizing that a failure to believe would be a danger for the future of mankind, he ordered other soldiers to visit the camps, and encouraged journalists and members of Congress and the British Parliament to bear witness as well. He wanted others to be, just as he was, “in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to ‘propaganda.’” And ultimately he was right.

Sixty-four years later, standing at Buchenwald with Elie Wiesel by his side, President Barack Obama acknowledged the value of bearing witness: “We are here today because this work is not finished. To this day, there are those who insist that the Holocaust never happened—a denial of fact and truth that is baseless and ignorant and hateful. This place is the ultimate rebuke to such thoughts, a reminder of our duty to confront those who would tell lies about our history.”

President Obama referred to the Holocaust as “our history,” understanding that Holocaust memory belongs to all of humanity. Because unlike the battle-hardened soldiers who liberated the camps and brought freedom to Europe, we now know that the unthinkable is thinkable. We know all too well the human capacity for evil and the catastrophic consequences of indifference in the face of evil. And we now realize that to preserve human freedom, what we do matters. Every day each of us has the potential to shape the world in which we live. By keeping these stories of freedom alive and building on Elie Wiesel’s original hope, each of us must work to promote human dignity and confront hate whenever and wherever it occurs. As the American soldiers who unwittingly became liberators 65 years ago understood, our future depends on it.

Ravensbrück or Ravensbrueck (German pronunciation: [ʁaːfənsˈbʁʏk]) was a notorious women's concentration camp during World War II, located in northern Germany, 90 km north of Berlin at a site near the village of Ravensbrück (part of Fürstenberg/Havel).

Construction of the camp began in November 1938 by SS leader Heinrich Himmler and was unusual in that it was a camp primarily for women. The camp opened in May 1939. In the spring of 1941, the SS authorities established a small men's camp adjacent to the main camp.

Between 1939 and 1945, over 130,000 female prisoners passed through the Ravensbrück camp system; only 40,000 survived. Although the inmates came from every country in German-occupied Europe, the largest single national group incarcerated in the camp consisted of Polish women.

When a new prisoner arrived at Ravensbrück they were required to wear a color-coded triangle (a Winkel) that identified them by category, with a letter sewn within the triangle indicating the prisoner's nationality. Polish women wore a red triangle, red denoting a political prisoner, with a letter "P". By 1942, Polish women became the largest national component at the camp. Jewish women wore yellow triangles, but sometimes, unlike the other prisoners, they wore a second triangle for the other categories or for "race defilement". Some transports had their hair shaved, such as from Czechoslovakia and Poland, but "Aryan" transports did not. For instance, in 1943 a group of Norwegian women came to the camp. (Norwegians/Scandinavians were ranked by the Nazis as the purest of all Aryans.) None had their hair shaved. Between 1942 and 1943 almost all Jewish women from the Ravensbrück camp were sent to Auschwitz in several transports following Nazi policy to make Germany "Judenrein" (cleansed of Jews). Common criminals wore green triangles, Soviet  prisoners of war, German and Austrian Communists had red triangles and members of the Jehovah's Witnesses were labeled with lavender triangles. Classified separately with black triangles were prostitutes, Gypsies, lesbians, or women who refused to marry.

Based on the Nazis incomplete transport list "Zugangsliste" consisting 25,028 names of women sent by Nazis to the camp, it is estimated that inmates of Ravensbrück ethnic structure was the following: Poles 24.9%, Germans 19.9%, Jews 15.1%, Russians 15.0%, French 7.3%, Gypsies 5.4%, other 12.4%. Gestapo categorized the inmates as follows: political 83.54%, anti-social 12.35%, criminal 2.02%, Jehovah Witnesses 1.11%, racial defilement 0.78%, other 0.20%. The list is one of the most important documents, preserved in the last moments of the camp operation by courageous members of the Polish underground girl guides unit "Mury" (The Walls). The rest of the camp documents were burned by escaping SS overseers in pits or in the crematorium.

One of the forms of the resistance were underground education programs organized by prisoners for their fellow inmates. All national groups had some sort of program. The most extensive were among Polish women where various high school level classes were taught by experienced teachers.

Inmates at Ravensbrück suffered greatly. Living in subhuman conditions, thousands were shot, strangled, gassed, buried alive, or worked to death. Periodically, the SS authorities subjected prisoners in the camp to "selections" in which the Germans isolated those prisoners considered too weak or injured to work and killed them. At first, "selected" prisoners were shot. Beginning in 1942, they were transferred to "euthanasia" killing centers or to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. The SS staff also murdered some prisoners in the camp infirmary by lethal injection.

Starting in the summer of 1942, medical experiments were conducted without consent on 86 women; 74 of them were Polish inmates. There were two types of the experiments done on the Polish political prisoners. The first type tested the efficacy of sulfonamide drugs. These experiments involved deliberate cutting into and infecting leg bones and muscles with virulent bacteria, cutting nerves, introducing substances like pieces of wood or glass into tissues, and fracturing bones. The second set of experiments studied bone, muscle and nerve regeneration, and the possibility of transplanting bones from one person to another. Out of the 74 Polish victims, called Króliki, Kaninchen, Lapins or Rabbits by the experimenters, five died as a result of the experiments, six with unhealed wounds were executed and the rest survived due to the help of other inmates in the camp, but with permanent physical damage. Four of them—Jadwiga Dzido, Maria Broel-Plater, Władysława Karolewska and Maria Kuśmierczuk—testified against Nazi doctors at the Doctors' Trial in 1946.

Between 120 and 140 Gypsy women were sterilized in the camp in January 1945. All of them, unaware of the consequences, signed the consent form after being told by the camp overseers that the German authorities would release them if they agreed to sterilization.

All inmates were required to do heavy labor, ranging from heavy outdoor jobs to building the V-2 rocket parts for Siemens. The SS also built several factories near Ravensbrück for the production of textiles and electrical components.

The bodies of those killed in the camp were cremated in the nearby Fürstenberg crematorium until 1943. In that year, SS authorities constructed a crematorium at a site near the camp prison. In the autumn of 1944, the SS constructed a gas chamber near the crematorium. The Germans gassed several thousand prisoners at Ravensbrück before the camp's liberation in April 1945.

With the Soviet Army's rapid approach in the Spring of 1945, the SS decided to exterminate as many prisoners as they could in order to avoid leaving anyone to testify as to what had happened in the camp. With the Russians only hours away, at the end of March, the SS ordered the women still physically well enough to walk to leave the camp, forcing over 20,000 prisoners on a death march toward northern Mecklenburg. Shortly before the evacuation, the Germans had handed over 7000 female prisoners, mostly French, to officials of the Swedish and Danish Red Cross. Fewer than 3,500 malnourished and sickly women and 300 men remained in the camp when it was liberated by the Red Army  on April 30, 1945. The survivors of the Death March were liberated in the following hours by a Russian scout unit.

By the time liberation came, tens of thousands (estimates are about 30,000 to 40,000) of women and children had perished there.

More then 3 million women and children were killed in concentration camps. This film depicts some of the atrocities performed om women before murdered by the nazi's

Jewish women, gypsy women, and other women including political dissidents in Germany and in Nazi-occupied countries were sent to concentration camps, forced to work, subjected to medical experiments, and executed, as men were. One Nazi concentration camp, Ravensbrück, was created especially for women and children; of 132,000 from more than 20 countries incarcerated there, about 92,000 died of starvation, illness, or were executed.

A woman's gender in the camps could subject her to special victimization including rape and sexual slavery, and a few women used their sexuality to survive. In a world in which women are often valued for their beauty and their child-bearing potential, the shearing of women's hair and the effect of a starvation diet on their menstrual cycles added to the humiliation of the concentration camp experience. Just as a father's expected protective role over wife and children was mocked when he was powerless to protect his family, so it added to a mother's humiliation to be powerless to protect and nurture her children.

Ravensbrück or Ravensbrueck (German pronunciation: [ʁaːfənsˈbʁʏk]) was a notorious women's concentration camp during World War II, located in northern Germany, 90 km north of Berlin at a site near the village of Ravensbrück (part of Fürstenberg/Havel).

Construction of the camp began in November 1938 by SS leader Heinrich Himmler and was unusual in that it was a camp primarily for women. The camp opened in May 1939. In the spring of 1941, the SS authorities established a small men's camp adjacent to the main camp.

Between 1939 and 1945, over 130,000 female prisoners passed through the Ravensbrück camp system; only 40,000 survived. Although the inmates came from every country in German-occupied Europe, the largest single national group incarcerated in the camp consisted of Polish women.

Inmates at Ravensbrück suffered greatly. Living in subhuman conditions, thousands were shot, strangled, gassed, buried alive, or worked to death. Periodically, the SS authorities subjected prisoners in the camp to "selections" in which the Germans isolated those prisoners considered too weak or injured to work and killed them. At first, "selected" prisoners were shot. Beginning in 1942, they were transferred to "euthanasia" killing centers or to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. The SS staff also murdered some prisoners in the camp infirmary by lethal injection.

Starting in the summer of 1942, medical experiments were conducted without consent on 86 women; 74 of them were Polish inmates. There were two types of the experiments done on the Polish political prisoners. The first type tested the efficacy of sulfonamide drugs. These experiments involved deliberate cutting into and infecting leg bones and muscles with virulent bacteria, cutting nerves, introducing substances like pieces of wood or glass into tissues, and fracturing bones. The second set of experiments studied bone, muscle and nerve regeneration, and the possibility of transplanting bones from one person to another. Out of the 74 Polish victims, called Króliki, Kaninchen, Lapins or Rabbits by the experimenters, five died as a result of the experiments, six with unhealed wounds were executed and the rest survived due to the help of other inmates in the camp, but with permanent physical damage. Four of them—Jadwiga Dzido, Maria Broel-Plater, Władysława Karolewska and Maria Kuśmierczuk—testified against Nazi doctors at the Doctors' Trial in 1946.

Between 120 and 140 Gypsy women were sterilized in the camp in January 1945. All of them, unaware of the consequences, signed the consent form after being told by the camp overseers that the German authorities would release them if they agreed to sterilization.

All inmates were required to do heavy labor, ranging from heavy outdoor jobs to building the V-2 rocket parts for Siemens. The SS also built several factories near Ravensbrück for the production of textiles and electrical components.

The bodies of those killed in the camp were cremated in the nearby Fürstenberg crematorium until 1943. In that year, SS authorities constructed a crematorium at a site near the camp prison. In the autumn of 1944, the SS constructed a gas chamber near the crematorium. The Germans gassed several thousand prisoners at Ravensbrück before the camp's liberation in April 1945.

Auschwitz Concentration Camp Timeline 1940-1945

AUSCHWITZ CAMP OPENS
May 20, 1940
The Auschwitz I concentration camp opens with the arrival of 30 German prisoners. They are the first prisoners to receive serial numbers in the camp. German authorities will begin the deportation of Polish prisoners to Auschwitz in June 1940. Auschwitz I, the first camp opened in the Auschwitz complex, is located near the Polish town of Oswiecim. Construction began in early May using the existing Polish military barracks in the Oswiecim suburb of Zasole. The camp is about 37 miles west of Krakow, near the prewar German-Polish border in Eastern Upper Silesia, an area annexed to Germany in August 1939. Auschwitz I, primarily a concentration camp, functions as a detention facility for prisoners. The Auschwitz complex will expand over the next few years with the establishment of forced-labor camps throughout the region and an extermination camp near Birkenau (Brzezinka).

HIMMLER INSPECTS AUSCHWITZ
March 1, 1941
Heinrich Himmler, leader of the SS and chief of German police, inspects Auschwitz. Because nearby factories use prisoners for forced labor, Himmler is concerned about the prisoner capacity of the camp. On this visit, he orders both the expansion of Auschwitz I camp facilities to hold 30,000 prisoners and the building of a camp near Birkenau for an expected influx of 100,000 Soviet prisoners of war. Himmler also orders that the camp supply 10,000 prisoners for forced labor to construct an I.G. Farben factory complex at Dwory, about a mile away. Himmler will make additional visits to Auschwitz in 1942, when he will witness the killing of prisoners in the gas chambers.

SS TESTS GASSING FACILITIES
September 3, 1941
The first gassings of prisoners occur in Auschwitz I. The SS tests Zyklon B gas by killing 600 Soviet prisoners of war and 250 other ill or weak prisoners. Testing takes place in a makeshift gas chamber in Auschwitz I. Zyklon B was the commercial name for crystalline hydrogen cyanide gas, manufactured by I.G. Farben and normally used as an insecticide. The "success" of these experiments will lead to the adoption of Zyklon B as the killing agent for the yet-to-be-constructed Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. Mass killings will begin at Auschwitz-Birkenau in the spring of 1942.

CONSTRUCTION OF AUSCHWITZ II
October 8, 1941
Construction of the Auschwitz-Birkenau (Auschwitz II) camp begins. Of the three camps established in the Auschwitz complex, Birkenau will have the largest prisoner population. The camp will include sections for women, men, Roma (Gypsies), and families deported from the Theresienstadt ghetto. Auschwitz-Birkenau will play a central role in the Nazi plan to kill the Jews of Europe. At the height of killing operations, deportation transports will arrive at Auschwitz-Birkenau daily from across Europe--including western and southern Europe.

GASSING OPERATIONS BEGIN
March 20, 1942
The SS puts the new gas chambers at Auschwitz into operation. The gas chambers are located in specially renovated farmhouses near the Birkenau section of the camp. The SS forces an entire transport of Polish Jews directly to the gas chambers without a selection (the separation of prisoners chosen for forced labor from those to be killed).

DEPORTATIONS FROM FRANCE
March 30, 1942
The first mass transport of Jews from France arrives at Auschwitz. There are about 1,000 people in this transport. Almost all the Jews in this transport are processed into the camp upon arrival. Transports from France will continue to arrive on a regular basis until August 1944. The majority of the 75,000 Jews deported from France will be killed in the gas chambers in Birkenau.

FORCED-LABOR CAMP OPENS
May 31, 1942
German authorities open the I.G. Farben labor camp at Monowitz (Auschwitz III). This camp is to provide forced laborers for the Buna synthetic rubber works (part of the German conglomerate I.G. Farben). I.G. Farben chose to establish installations at Auschwitz because of its available pool of forced laborers and also for its access to gravel pits and other resources located in the region. Prisoners selected for forced labor are registered in Auschwitz I before they are assigned to labor projects in Auschwitz III or any of the other forced-labor subcamps in the Auschwitz camp system. Over the next three years, an estimated 25,000 prisoners will die in the Monowitz labor camp.

TYPHUS EPIDEMIC
July 3, 1942
A typhus epidemic breaks out in Auschwitz-Birkenau. 184 male prisoners and an unknown number of female prisoners die in this epidemic.

DEPORTATIONS FROM THE NETHERLANDS
July 17, 1942
The first transports of Jews from the Netherlands arrive at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Out of two transports carrying close to 2,000 people, nearly 500 people are gassed or shot immediately. SS doctors select the remaining group, mostly men, for forced-labor projects in Auschwitz. Between July 1943 and September 1944, over 60,000 Jews will be deported from the Netherlands to Auschwitz. The majority will be gassed upon arrival in the camp.

DEPORTATIONS FROM BELGIUM
August 5, 1942
The first transport of close to 1,000 Jews from Belgium arrives in Auschwitz-Birkenau. After a selection, nearly 750 people are registered in the camp. The others are gassed or shot. Close to 25,000 Jews will be deported from Belgium, the majority to Auschwitz, by June 1944.
DEPORTATION OF ROMA (GYPSIES)

February 26, 1943
The first transport of Roma (Gypsies) from Germany and Austria arrives in Auschwitz. The SS places the arrivals in a section of Birkenau that becomes the Gypsy family camp. More Roma will arrive in transports throughout the spring of 1943 and will be sent to the same family camp. Approximately 23,000 Roma will be interned at Auschwitz during the camp's existence. Throughout 1944, thousands of Roma will be transported to other concentration camps, used for forced-labor projects, or killed in the gas chambers. Between 6,500 and 16,000 Roma will be killed at Auschwitz.

DEPORTATIONS FROM SALONIKA
March 20, 1943
The first transport of Jews from the ghetto in Salonika, Greece, arrives in Auschwitz. Of 2,800 deportees, the SS registers about 600 men and women in the camp to work as forced laborers. The remaining men, women, and children are killed in the gas chambers. By June 1943 the Germans will have deported 46,000 Jews from Salonika--and another 7,000 from other Greek areas--to Auschwitz.

NEW GASSING FACILITIES CONSTRUCTED
March 22, 1943
The first of four new gas chambers and crematoria in Auschwitz-Birkenau is ready for use. The other three will be completed by June 1943. The new facilities each have three components: a disrobing area, a large gas chamber, and crematorium ovens. Each chamber has the capacity to gas about 2,000 people daily.

DEPORTATIONS FROM THERESIENSTADT
September 9, 1943
Over 5,000 Jewish prisoners from the Theresienstadt ghetto in the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia arrive in Auschwitz-Birkenau. A special family camp is set up for the Jews deported from Theresienstadt. The SS has maintained the Theresienstadt ghetto, since 1941, as a "model ghetto." Propaganda primarily for public consumption in the Reich sought to use Theresienstadt to dispel reports of deplorable conditions in ghettos and deportations to extermination camps. The propaganda ploy continues when deportations of Jews from Theresienstadt arrive in Auschwitz. The SS allows new arrivals from Theresienstadt to remain together in families. They are permitted to keep their civilian clothes and are not forced to have their hair shorn. Living conditions, however, are not better than those elsewhere in Birkenau. More than 1,000 of this first group will die within six months. More deportations, with another 5,000 Jews from Theresienstadt, will arrive in December 1943.
DEPORTATIONS FROM ITALY

October 23, 1943
The first train carrying Jews from Italy arrives in Auschwitz-Birkenau, with over 1,000 people. Only about 200 men and women are admitted to the camp. The rest are killed in the gas chambers or shot. Some 8,300 Jews will be deported from Italy to Auschwitz over the next year.

AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHS OF AUSCHWITZ
April 4, 1944
An Allied aerial reconnaissance plane takes photographs of the I.G. Farben complex at Auschwitz. This is the first of many aerial reconnaissance missions resulting in photographs that show Auschwitz barracks and crematoria. Allied bombings of the I.G. Farben factory works and of some of the satellite camps will occur during the summer and fall of 1944, but there are no direct bombings of Auschwitz I, Auschwitz-Birkenau, or the gas chambers and crematoria.

WETZLER AND VRBA ESCAPE
April 7, 1944
Two Slovak Jews, Alfred Wetzler and Rudolf Vrba, escape from Auschwitz and flee to Slovakia. They make contact with representatives of the Jewish council in Zilina, Slovakia, and present a detailed report of their experiences in Auschwitz. Their report is sent to Allied governments, the Vatican, and the Polish and Slovak governments-in-exile. Although much is already known about the German killing of Europe's Jews, this report presents detailed information about how it is possible for the Germans to kill millions of people.

DEPORTATIONS FROM HUNGARY
May 16, 1944
Following the German occupation of Hungary, the first transports of Hungarian Jews begin arriving in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Nearly 440,000 Hungarian Jews will be deported from Hungary, most of them to Auschwitz, by July 1944. The majority of deportees will be taken directly to the gas chambers or shot. The transports of Hungarian Jews are the last of the large transports to Auschwitz.

PRISONER UPRISING
October 7, 1944
Members of the Jewish prisoner detachment (the Sonderkommando) that was forced to remove bodies from the gas chambers and operate the crematoria stage an uprising. They successfully blow up Crematorium IV and kill several guards. Women prisoners had smuggled gunpowder out of nearby factories to members of the Sonderkommando. The SS quickly suppresses the revolt and kills all the Sonderkommando members. On January 6, 1945, just weeks before Soviet forces liberate the camp, the SS will also hang four women who smuggled gunpowder into the camp.

GASSING OPERATIONS END
November 25, 1944
As Soviet and Allied forces continue to move into German-occupied territory, Heinrich Himmler orders the destruction of the Auschwitz-Birkenau gas chambers and crematoria. During this SS attempt to destroy the evidence of mass killings, prisoners will be forced to dismantle and dynamite the structures.

SS EVACUATES AUSCHWITZ
January 18, 1945
As Soviet forces approach from the east, the SS begins evacuating (to the west) the prisoners of the Auschwitz camp complex. Tens of thousands of prisoners, mostly Jews, are forced to march to the city of Wodzislaw in the western part of Upper Silesia. During the march, SS guards shoot anyone who cannot continue. In Wodzislaw, the prisoners will be put on unheated freight trains and deported to concentration camps in Germany, particularly to Flossenbürg, Sachsenhausen, Gross-Rosen, Buchenwald, and Dachau, and to Mauthausen in Austria. In all, nearly 60,000 prisoners are forced on death marches from the Auschwitz camp system. More than 15,000 die during the death marches. Thousands more were killed in the days before the evacuation.

SOVIET FORCES LIBERATE AUSCHWITZ
January 27, 1945
The Soviet army enters Auschwitz and liberates the few thousand prisoners remaining in the camp. At least 1.1 million Jews from across Europe were killed in Auschwitz during the camp's existence. Other victims included between 70,000 and 75,000 Poles, between 6,500 and 16,000 Roma (Gypsies), and 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war.

LIST OF TRANSPORTS FROM BERLIN TO THE EAST

No. Date Destination Number of Deportees
18 October 1941 Lodz 1,013,
2. 24 October 1941 Lodz 1,024,
3. 27 October 1941 Lodz 1,009,
4. 1 November 1941 Lodz 1,033,
5. 14 November 1941 Minsk,
6. 17 November 1941 Kovno 3,715,
7. 27 November 1941 Riga,
8. 13 January 1942 Riga 907,
9. 19 January 1942 Riga 579,
10. 25 January 1942 Riga 905,
11. 28 March 1942 Travniki (Lublin area) 972,
12. 2 April 1942 Travniki (Lublin area) 728,
13. 2 April 1942 Travniki (Lublin area) 642,
14. 14 April 1942 Travniki (Lublin area) 72,
15. 13 June 1942 East 748,
16. 26 June 1942 East 201,
17. 11 July 1942 Auschwitz 210,
18.15 August 1942 Riga 1,004,
19. 5 September 1942 Unknown 790,
20. 3 October 1942 Unknown 816,
21. 19 October 1942 Unknown 944,
22. 26 October 1942 Unknown 800,
23. 29 November 1942 Auschwitz 980,
24. 9 December 1942 Auschwitz 1,000,
25. 14 December 1942 Auschwitz 811,
26. 12 January 1943 Auschwitz 1,190,
27. 29 January 1943 Auschwitz 1,000,
28. 3 February 1943 Auschwitz 952,
29. 19 February 1943 Auschwitz 1,000,
30. 26 February 1943 Auschwitz 913,
31. 1 March 1943 Auschwitz 1,682,
32. 2 March 1943 Auschwitz 1,592,
33. 3 March 1943 Auschwitz 1,732,
34. 4 March 1943 Auschwitz 1,143,
35. 6 March 1943 Auschwitz 657,
36. 12 March 1943 Auschwitz 946,
37. 19 April 1943 Auschwitz 338,
38. 17 May 1943 Auschwitz 395,
39. 28 May 1943 Auschwitz 319,
40. 4 August 1943 Auschwitz 99,
41. 24 August 1943 Auschwitz 50,
42. 10 September 1943 Auschwitz 53,
43. 28 September 1943 Auschwitz 74,
44. 14 October 1943 Auschwitz 74,
45. 29 October 1943 Auschwitz 49,
46. 8 November 1943 Auschwitz 50,
47. 7 December 1943 Auschwitz 55,
48. 20 January 1944 Auschwitz 48,
49. 22 February 1944 Auschwitz 32,
50. 9 March 1944 Auschwitz 32,
51. 18 April 1944 Auschwitz 30,
52. 3 May 1944 Auschwitz 27,
53. 19 May 1944 Auschwitz 24,
54. 15 June 1944 Auschwitz 29,
55. 12 July 1944 Auschwitz 30,
56. 10 August 1944 Auschwitz 38,
57. 6 September 1944 Auschwitz 39,
58. 12 October 1944 Auschwitz 31,
59. 24 November 1944 Auschwitz 28,
60. 8 December 1944 Auschwitz 15,
61. 5 January 1945 Auschwitz 14,
62. 5 January 1945 Bergen-Belsen 6, 2 February 1945 Males ¯ Sachsenhausen 14, 2 February 1945 Females ¯ Ravensbruck 11,
63 Men ¯ planned for Sachsenhausen 11 Women ¯ planned for Ravensbruck 13

Total: Deportation from Berlin to the east 35,738

Holocaust 1944 Key Dates

January 22
U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt issues Executive Order 9417, creating the War Refugee Board. Roosevelt instructs the War Refugee Board to take measures to rescue victims of enemy oppression in imminent danger of death. The activities of the War Refugee Board contribute to saving tens of thousands of Jews from deportation and death, possibly up to 200,000.

March 19
German troops occupy Hungary.

Early Spring
German authorities begin the evacuation of Lublin/Majdanek and deports the remaining inmates to Auschwitz, Natzweiler-Struthof, Ravensbrück, Plaszow, and Gross-Rosen.

April 5
Under German guidance, Hungarian authorities require all Jews to wear the yellow star.

April 16
German authorities begin to establish concentration points for the deportation of Jews from Hungary.

April 29-30
Hungarian authorities send the first two transports of Hungarian Jews into German custody.

May 15-July 9
Hungarian gendarmerie officials, under the guidance of German SS officials, deport around 440,000 Jews from Hungary. Most are deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where, upon arrival and after selection, SS functionaries kill the majority of them in gas chambers.

May 15-18
German authorities deport 7,003 German, Austrian, and Czech Jews from the camp-ghetto Theresienstadt to Auschwitz-Birkenau in order to “thin out” the Jewish population of Theresienstadt in preparation for the visit of representatives of the International Red Cross and the Danish Red Cross. Upon arrival in Auschwitz-Birkenau, the prisoners on these transports are incarcerated in a “Theresienstadt family camp” in Birkenau.

May 16
The SS attempts to liquidate the Gypsy family camp BIIe at Auschwitz. Having been tipped off by a camp official, the inmates, armed with knives, shovels, and other weapons, refuse to leave their barracks. As a result of internal disagreement and in the face of resistance from the prisoners, the SS postpones the liquidation of the family camp until August 1944.

June 6
D-Day. British and American troops launch an invasion of France.

June 18-22, 1944
The Auschwitz Report, written by two Slovak Jewish prisoners who escaped from Auschwitz on April 7, 1944, and composed a report in Slovak by the end of April, goes public worldwide through media channels in Switzerland

June 22-August 1
Soviet troops destroy German Army Group Center in eastern Belorussia and sweep forward to the east bank of the Vistula River across from the center of Warsaw, Poland.

June 23
With the permission of the RSHA, representatives of the International Red Cross and the Danish Red Cross inspect a “specially prepared” Theresienstadt camp-ghetto.

June 23-July 14
The SS resumes deportations from the Lodz ghetto to the Chelmno killing center, deporting and killing more than 7,000 Jews.

June 24-August 14
War Refugee Board representative John Pehle and several U.S. Jewish organizations including the World Jewish Congress make several requests to the U.S. government to bomb the gas chambers at Birkenau or the rail lines leading to Birkenau. Assistant State Secretary of Defense John J. McCloy handles most of these requests. The U.S. government declines the requests on the grounds that Auschwitz-Birkenau was not a military target, that such a mission would divert resources needed to bring the war to a successful conclusion, and that the speedy end of the war would be most effective in saving lives.

July 2
German authorities begin liquidating the labor camps in Wilno (Vilnius) and kill approximately 3,000 Jews in the Ponary (Paneriai) woods.

July 6
Regent Miklos Horthy of Hungary issues an order that the Hungarian government will cease deporting Jews from Hungary in Germany custody. Deportations halt on July 9.

July 8-12
As the Soviet army approaches, SS authorities liquidate the Kauen concentration camp, transferring around 8,000 Jews to the Stutthof and Dachau concentration camps in the German Reich.

July 9
Raoul Wallenberg arrives in Budapest as first secretary to the Swedish legation in Hungary and with financing from the U.S. War Refugee Board. Along with numerous other legations, including the Swiss, the Turkish, the Italian, and several Latin American legations, the Sweden delegation, inspired by the activism of Wallenberg, effectively protects tens of thousands of Budapest Jews endangered by German and Hungarian plans to deport them.

July 13
The Soviet army liberates Wilno (Vilnius) in Lithuania.

July 23-24
Soviet troops liberate Lublin/Majdanek concentration camp. Although they had evacuated most of the remaining prisoners westward to evade the advancing Soviet army, the SS camp authorities are surprised by the rapid Soviet advance and fail to destroy the camp and the evidence of mass murder.

July 25-September 15
Allied forces break out of the Normandy beachhead, routing the German defenders. On August 25, Free French troops liberate Paris; by September 15, U.S. troops will reach the German border.

August 1
The Soviet army liberates the city of Kaunas.

August 1-October
The underground Polish Home Army rises against the Germans in an effort to play a role in the liberation of Warsaw.

August 2
The SS liquidates the Gypsy family camp BIIe at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The SS authorities transport 1,408 Roma from the family camp and from Auschwitz I to Buchenwald concentration camp. SS men then murder the remaining 2,897 inmates of the Gypsy family camp in the gas chambers at Birkenau.

August 6
SS authorities evacuate the few remaining Jews at Kaiserwald to Buchenwald and Dachau via Stutthof.

August 9-August 28
SS and police units liquidate the Lodz ghetto and deport more than 60,000 Jews and an undetermined number of Roma (Gypsies) to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

August 29-October 28
Slovak resistance organizations rise against the German-supported Slovakian government. Between September and October, German SS and police officials, assisted by German military units and Slovak fascist paramilitary units, deport approximately 12,600 Slovak Jews, most of them to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

October 3
SS units shoot around 3,000 prisoners at Vaivara: 1,500 Jewish men and women, 800 Soviet prisoners of war, and 700 Estonian political prisoners. The SS evacuates most of the surviving inmates to the Stutthof concentration camp.

October 7
At Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Sonderkommando (special detachment of Jewish prisoners deployed to remove corpses from the gas chambers and burn them) blows up Crematorium IV and kills the guards. About 250 participants of the revolt die in battle with the SS and police units. The SS and police units shoot 200 more members of the Sonderkommando after the battle ends.

October 28
After establishing it on August 27, 1943, as a subsidiary camp of the Buchenwald concentration camp, the SS Inspectorate of Concentration Camps redesignates Mittelbau-Dora (also known as Nordhausen-Dora) as an autonomous concentration camp.

October 30
The last transport of Jews from the camp-ghetto Theresienstadt arrives at Auschwitz. During October, SS officials deport approximately 18,000 Jews from Theresienstadt to the Auschwitz camp complex, where camp officials murder most of them in the gas chambers at Birkenau.

November 23
U.S. troops liberate Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp.

November 25
At Heinrich Himmler's order, the Auschwitz camp authorities demolish the gas chambers and crematoria at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

December 1944
The Inspectorate of Concentration Camps officially designates the Bergen-Belsen “residence camp” a concentration camp.

December 11
At Hartheim, German authorities carry out the last gassing of inmates. Under SS guard, Mauthausen prisoners dismantle the killing facility. Between April and December 1940, German authorities killed more than 6,000 prisoners from Mauthausen, Gusen, and Dachau at Hartheim. In all, the Germans killed around 30,000 people, including concentration camp prisoners and victims of the “euthanasia” programs, at Hartheim.