German Nazis had been using concentration camps since the early 1930s to house their prisoners. However, in June of 1940, the Germans began housing arrested Poles in another polish city because their prisons were overflowing. This city was renamed Auschwitz. But by 1942, Auschwitz became the Nazi’s largest death camp.
The first camp was called Auschwitz I, that housed anywhere from 15,000 to 20,000 prisoners. The second section was the Birkenau camp, which was often called Auschwitz II. This camp was built in 1941 to help with over-crowding in Auschwitz I and was the largest section of the camp. Shortly after this camp started operations, Adolph Hitler ordered the annihilation of the Jews. Birkenau Camp then became an extermination camp where
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The success of the ‘Red House’ brought about the second gas chamber called the ‘White House’ that was built very similarly. By 1943, the mass killings grew to another level with the use of the Crematorium II, which had previously been used as a mortuary. The Nazis installed vents that would diffuse Zyklon B throughout the chamber, air-tight doors, and proper ventilation to release the gases. Three additional crematoriums were built and modeled after the first to carry out the mass killings. From then until late 1944, over one million people were exterminated in the camp’s gas chambers by the pesticide, Zyklon B. The majority of these people were Jews but also included were Poles, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Gypsies, homosexuals, and prisoners of war. The small amount of prisoners that didn’t die by gas, met their demise by other horrible means such as, starvation, execution, or disease. However, it is documented that 144 prisoners successfully were able to escape Auschwitz. Three survivors have even written about their experiences as prisoners in