March 1942 Auschwitz-Birkenau
In late 1941, the Auschwitz concentration camp in occupied Poland was expanded with a second location: Birkenau. From mid 1942 onwards, the Nazis deported Jews from all over Europe to that camp in order to kill them.
The first camp in Auschwitz was set up in May 1940 as a prison for political prisoners and prisoners of war, mainly from Poland and the Soviet Union. Because there was too little room for the growing number of prisoners, in 1942, Birkenau was built a few kilometres away.
The Auschwitz-Birkenau grounds covered 175 hectares. There were hundreds of barracks with hundreds of prisoners each.
The whole purpose of the camp was to have people die there. They were killed upon their arrival. Only people who the Nazis could use as forced labourers were imprisoned. The hygienic conditions were very poor and there was too little food, of poor quality.
Prisoners died of exhaustion and disease. The camp had four large gas chambers which were used for killing prisoners with Zyklon B poisonous gas.
More than 57,000 Jews from the Netherlands were murdered in Auschwitz. Only 970 Dutch Jews survived the camp. In total, more than one million people were murdered in Auschwitz and its satellite camps: around 1 million Jews, 70,000 Poles and 21,000 Roma and Sinti. Almost all 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war in this camp died.
In addition, thousands of political prisoners and resistance fighters from other European countries were killed in Auschwitz.