View of the entrance to Auschwitz-Birkenau from inside the camp after May 1945. —USHMM #08909 / Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz

Liberation of Auschwitz

“So I was hiding out in the heap of dead bodies because in the last week when the crematoria didn’t function at all, the bodies were just building up higher and higher. So there I was at nighttime, in the daytime I was roaming around in the camp, and this is where I actually survived, January 27, I was one of the very first, Birkenau was one of the very first camps being liberated. This was my, my survival chance.”
—Bart Stern

Auschwitz was the largest camp established by the Germans. A complex of camps, Auschwitz included a concentration, extermination, and forced-labor camp. It was located 37 miles west of Krakow (Cracow), near the prewar German-Polish border.

In mid-January 1945, as Soviet forces approached the Auschwitz camp complex, the SS began evacuating Auschwitz and its satellite camps. Nearly 60,000 prisoners were forced to march west from the Auschwitz camp system. Thousands had been killed in the camps in the days before these death marches began. Tens of thousands of prisoners, mostly Jews, were forced to march to the city of Wodzislaw in the western part of Upper Silesia. SS guards shot anyone who fell behind or could not continue. Prisoners also suffered from the cold weather, starvation, and exposure on these marches. More than 15,000 died during the death marches from Auschwitz. On January 27, 1945, the Soviet army entered Auschwitz and liberated more than 7,000 remaining prisoners, who were mostly ill and dying. It is estimated that at minimum 1.3 million people were deported to Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945; of these, at least 1.1 million were murdered.

PHOTO
Soon after liberation, surviving children of the Auschwitz camp walk out of the children’s barracks. Poland, after January 27, 1945.
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ENCOUNTERING AUSCHWITZ
Historians and survivors discuss the significance of Auschwitz.
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MAP ANIMATION
Auschwitz camp.
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TESTIMONY
Ruth Webber talks about survival in Auschwitz.
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TESTIMONY
Fritzie Fritzshall describes death march from Auschwitz.
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TESTIMONY
Bart Stern describes how he survived to be liberated at Auschwitz.
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FILM
Footage taken after Soviet troops entered Auschwitz.
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FILM
Footage taken after the Soviet liberation of Auschwitz.
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FILM
Footage taken upon the liberation of Auschwitz.
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PUBLISHED IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM

• Eyewitness Auschwitz
  
• Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp
  
• At the Mind’s Limits
  
• People in Auschwitz
  
• The Bombing of Auschwitz
  
• Triumph of Hope
  

RELATED LINKS

• Stories of Liberation
  
  (USC Shoah Foundation Institute)
• International Holocaust Remembrance Day
  
  (USHMM Special Focus)
• UN Special Session
  
  (web link)
• January 2005 message from Pope John Paul II on the 60th anniversary
  
  (web link, Vatican)
• Auschwitz
  
  (Holocaust Encyclopedia article)
• From Liberation to the Pursuit of Justice
  
  (USHMM Special Focus)
• Liberation of Nazi Camps
  
  (Holocaust Encyclopedia article)
• Thomas Buergenthal ID Card
  
  (Holocaust Encyclopedia)
• Auschwitz Revolt
  
  (Miles Lerman Center for the Study of Jewish Resistance)
• Historical photos
  
  (From the Photo Archives)
• Encyclopedia project
  
  (Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies)
• Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum
  
  (Web link)
• bbc.co.uk Press Pack, Auschwitz: The Nazis & the ‘Final Solution’
  
  (Web link)
• pbs.org, Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State
  
  (Web link)

VOICES FROM AUSCHWITZ

The train arrived in the middle of the night, so we were greeted by very bright lights shining down on us. We were greeted by soldiers, SS men, as well as women. We were greeted by dogs and whips, by shouting and screaming, orders to try to empty the train, by confusion... There is no way to describe your first coming to Auschwitz.
—Fritzie Weiss Fritzshall

And they said, “From now on you do not answer by your name. Your name is your number.” And the delusion, the disappointment, the discouragement that I felt, I felt like I was not a human person anymore.
—Lilly Appelbaum Lublin Malnik

So I was hiding out in the heap of dead bodies because in the last week when the crematoria didn’t function at all, the bodies were just building up higher and higher. So there I was at nighttime, in the daytime I was roaming around in the camp, and this is where I actually survived, January 27, I was one of the very first, Birkenau was one of the very first camps being liberated. This was my, my survival chance.
—Bart Stern

Candles mark the railway tracks leading to the Auschwitz camp during the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the camp. Poland, January 27, 2005.
—Reuters.
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