 All over the world, Auschwitz has become a symbol of terror, genocide, and the Holocaust. It was established by Germans in 1940, in the suburbs of Oswiecim, a Polish city that was annexed to the Third Reich by the Nazis. Its name was changed to Auschwitz, which also became the name of Konzentrationslager Auschwitz.
The direct reason for the establishment of the camp was the fact that mass arrests of Poles were increasing beyond the capacity of existing "local" prisons. Initially, Auschwitz was to be one more concentration camp of the type that the Nazis had been setting up since the early 1930s. It functioned in this role throughout its existence, even when, beginning in 1942, it also became the largest of the death camps. |
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We kindly appeal to all former prisoners, members of their families and other people possessing original camp documents: letters, death certificates, death telegrams, confirmations of receiving a package – to make them accessible (or their copies) for the Museum Archives. So far we have managed to find and save many precious documents and materials and help many people who search information about their relatives. The documents we receive are kept in air-conditioned rooms and taken care by our preservationists.
 THE OFFICE FOR INFORMATION ON FORMER PRISONERS
THE DATA BASE WITH PARTLY PRESERVED DATA ABOUT AUSCHWITZ PRISONERS |
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The concealment of the crime and removal of evidence by the perpetrators Despite the fact that the tens of thousands of prisoners who survived Auschwitz were witnesses to the crimes committed there; despite the fact that they left behind thousands of depositions, accounts, and memoirs; despite the fact that considerable quantities of documents, photographs, and material objects remain from the camp—despite all of this, there are people and organizations who deny that hundreds of thousands of people were murdered in this camp, that gas chambers operated there, or that the crematoria could burn several thousand corpses per day. In other words, they deny that Auschwitz was the scene of genocide. |
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 After the liquidation of the Polish state and its institutions, the fundamental goal of German policy in occupied Poland was the exploitation of material and labor resources, and the removal of the local Polish population and ethnic minorities. This was done through expulsion and systematic extermination. The Polish lands were to be completely germanized, through German settlement in the depopulated area. |
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 Until early 1942, the Nazis deported to Auschwitz only a relatively small number of Jews, who were sent there along with the non-Jewish prisoners, mostly Poles, who accounted for the majority of the camp population until mid-1942. |
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