Apr 27, 1940 - Following a number of inspections at various sites, Heinrich Himmler, Commander of the SS, gave out the order to establish a concentration camp in the former artillery barracks in Oświęcim, known at the time as Auschwitz. The basis for Auschwitz consisted of 22 prewar brick barracks buildings. Over time, the camp exp...anded steadily in both organizational and spatial terms. At its peak in the summer of 1944, Auschwitz covered about 40 sq. km. in the core area, and more than 40 branch camps dispersed within a radius of several hundred kilometers. At this time, there were about 135 thousand people (105 thousand registered prisoners and about 30 thousand unregistered) in the Auschwitz complex, which accounted for 25% of all the people in the entire concentration camp system (525 thousand). #wwii #holocaust
Posted on: Sun, 27 Apr 2014 17:06:58 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015