80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau/Holocaust Memorial Day
Today marks 80 years since the liberation of the largest Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, by the Russian Army in the last months of World War II, and also marks Holocaust Memorial Day. Auschwitz was actually a complex of over 40 connected camps, both to hold prisoners for slave labour and for extermination, situated close to the Polish town of Oświęcim. The camp became central to the Nazi's Final Solution, with at least 1.1 million people (mostly Jews) murdered there during its operations and at least 1.3 million prisoners passing through or living in the camp during that time.
As the Soviet Army approached the camp the SS tried to destroy evidence of Nazi crimes at Auschwitz, blowing up the gas chambers and destroying archives which recorded the murderous activities which they had meticulously and proudly documented, before sending all prisoners who were still able to walk on Death Marches to camps in Germany and Austria during which countless more, weakened by starvation and slave labour, died. Those left behind at Auschwitz were very ill and left to fend for themselves without supplies and await liberation, which finally came when the Soviets entered the camp on 27th January 1945.
Images of prisoners held at Auschwitz-Birkenau
Auschwitz-Birkenau is recognised as the site of the largest mass murder to ever take place in one single location. The vast majority of these murders took place through gassings in gas chambers, with the bodies being burned in crematoria or buried in mass graves. However, many also succumbed to starvation and disease, were executed by the SS through shootings or beatings, or died as a result of horrific medical experiments conducted by camp doctors such as Dr Mengele.
Detail of the horrors perpetrated in the name of Nazi ideology at Auschwitz-Birkenau can be found at the following sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz_concentration_camp
https://www.auschwitz.org/en/home-page-80/
https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/31/
On this 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau lets remember the victims of the Holocaust and ensure we all play our part in preventing this horror from ever happening again.