Gate greeting prisoners to Auschwitz I

"Work will set you free"

Upon arrival to the camps, prisoners were registered

and received numbers tattooed on their left arm.

405,000 prisoners of different nationalities were registered in this way, not including those who went to the gas chamber and were killed immediately.

The belongings left in the cars by the incoming victims were gathered by a forced-labor detachment called "Kanada" (Canada)

Those victims not sent to the chambers were sent to a part of the camp called the "quarantine, " where their hair was shorn--men and women alike.

In the quarantine, a prisoner if not soon transferred to 'slave labor' ,could only expect to survive a few weeks.

While in the forced-labor camps, the average life expectancy was extended to a few months.

Cyclon-B canisters - a pesticide used to gas Jews and others.

After that time, many of the prisoners became so emaciated and weak that they could hardly move or react to their surroundings.

It was no wonder that every prisoner tried to get out of quarantine as soon as possible.

Storehouse for seized property ("Canada") and Zyclon B.

Most prisoners were sent to Auschwitz subcamps.

Some prisoners were sent to other concxentration camps.

By July 12, 1944, 92,208 prisoners were held in Auschwitz, and by August 22, that number had resen to 105.168.

A relatively small experimental gas chamber was built in Auschwitz I.

The first gassing, using zyclon-B took place on September 3, 1941.

The victims were 600 Soviet prisoners of war and 250 other prisoners chosen from among the sick.

Nazi staff of the camp was aided by a number of privileged prisoners who were offered better food and conditions.

Memorial on tracks that transported prisoners to Auschwitz II

The prisoners of the 'Sonderkommando' (Jews forced to work in the gas chamber and crematoria) organized an uprising that took place on October 7, 1944

They destroy at least one of the gas chambers. All the participants of that uprising fell in battle.

The SS discovered later it was a group of young Jewish women led by Roza Robota who had smuggled out the gunpowder used in the uprising.

Four of these women, including Robota, were executed. Prior to the crematoria's destruction 6,000 people were killed daily.

Prior to the uprising, the prisoners of the Sonder-kommando kept and buried detailed diaries later discovered and used against the Nazis.

Gallows where Nazi war criminal Rudolf Hoess was hanged June 16, 1947.

Hoss was commandant of the concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau.