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Auschwitz III Concentration Camp

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During World War II, there was a time were Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany systematically murdered about 17 million people. This is referred to as the Holocaust. During the Holocaust one of the main camps responsible for the killing of innocent people was Auschwitz. Auschwitz is located near the industrial town of Oświęcim, Poland. The complex consisted of three main camps: Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II (Auschwitz-Birkenau), and Auschwitz III (Auschwitz-Monowitz). The camps used its prisoners for forced labor and to expand the boundaries of the camp. Auschwitz first inhabitants were German prisoners transferred from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Germany. The prisoners were supposedly repeated criminal offenders and Polish political prisoners …show more content…

Only later did it become a concentration camp in November 1943. The commander of Monowitz was SS Captain Heinrich Schwarz. The construction of the camp began in April 1941 by other Auschwitz inmates. Monowitz was considered the most important camp to the Nazis because the factories located at the camp were essential to the German war effort. Auschwitz III housed prisoners assigned to the Buna synthetic rubber works, which was located on the outskirts of the small village Monowice. The Jews who were assigned to work at Monowitz seemed like they had it easier than other inmates. They had more food, more sleep, and better living conditions. However, this is not true. The prisoners at Monowitz experienced the harshest and most brutal forced labor than anyone else. Most people in Monowitz died because of the labor. The main purpose of Auschwitz III was to rent the labor of prisoners to business that contributed to the German war …show more content…

The first to go was the prisoners. In mid-January 1945, when Soviet forces were getting close to the Auschwitz concentration camp complex, the SS began evacuating all of Auschwitz. They marched nearly 60,000 prisoners west of Auschwitz. SS guards shot anyone ell behind or couldn’t keep up. Many Prisoners suffered from the cold weather, starvation, and exposure to the elements on these marches. The SS also destroyed the remaining gassing installations. Finally, on January 27, 1945, the Soviet army entered Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Monwitz. The liberators discovered around 7,000 surviving prisoners across all three camps. According to theholocaustexplained.org “Many of these survivors had been deemed unfit to join the final evacuation of thousands of prisoners by the SS just ten days earlier on what would become known as the ‘death

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