http://www.english.illinois.edu/MAPS/holocaust/essaypics/auschwitz.jpghttp://www.english.illinois.edu/MAPS/holocaust/essaypics/auschwitz.jpg

• Largest Germany concentration

camp• Main symbol of the Holocaust• Located at Oswiemcim, Poland• In operation from May 1940 till January 1945• 1.1 million people were murdered there• Polish prisoners, Soviet POW, Sinti Roma, Jehovah

Witnesses, homosexuals, and mainly Jews• Brought in by cattle-cars• Assigned a number, shaved heads, striped uniforms

http://www.english.illinois.edu/MAPS/holocaust/essaypics/auschwitz.jpg

• First commander of Auschwitz• Commanded in May 1940• Commanded for 3 ½ years• Hoss tested and perfected the

techniques of mass killing• Experimented with various method

of gassing• Hoss introduced the poison gas Zyklon B• Zyklon B was said to work within three to fifteen minutes

http://www.cwporter.com/hoessx.jpg

• Anyone could be up for selection: men, women, children or elderly

• They were told that it was only a shower

• The victims would change in an outer chamber and then would walk into the actual gas chamber

• The gas chambers were disguised

as showers with dummy shower

heads

• SS men would dump in the cyanide

pellets through holes in the roof

• More than 20,000 people could be

gassed per dayhttp://www.english.illinois.edu/MAPS/holocaust/essaypics/auschwitz.jpg

• About 700 prisoners tried to escape• Around 300 actually made it• Common punishments were death by starvation• If anyone did escape, the SS officers would pick 10

random people• Those ten random people would be killed for no reason

• "Auschwitz/concentration camps time line." Junior Scholastic 25 Apr. 2005: T-7(2). General OneFile. Web. 15 Dec. 2009.

<http://find.galegroup.com/gps/start.do?prodId=IPS&userGroupName=s0940>. • “The Auschwitz album: story of a death factory: Hitler's 'final solution of the Jewish

question' sent millions to extermination in this installation's gas chambers and crematoriums." USA Today [Magazine] Mar. 2006: 28+. General OneFile. Web. 15 Dec. 2009. <http://find.galegroup.com/gps/start.do?prodId=IPS&userGroupName=s0940>.

• "Auschwitz: A History." Publishers Weekly 252.20 (2005): 47+. General OneFile. Web. 15 Dec. 2009. <http://find.galegroup.com/gps/start.do?prodId=IPS&userGroupName=s0940>.

• Beschloss, Michael. "FDR's Auschwitz Secret: In an exclusive excerpt from his new book, historian Michael Beschloss reveals the untold story of how Franklin Roosevelt decided against bombing the Nazi death camp.(Excerpt)."

Newsweek 14 Oct. 2002: 37. General OneFile. Web. 15 Dec. 2009. <http://find.galegroup.com/gps/start.do?prodId=IPS&userGroupName=s0940>.