Auschwitz, also known as Auschwitz-Birkenau, opened in 1940 and was the largest of the Nazi concentration and death camps. Located in southern Poland, Auschwitz initially served as a detention center for political prisoners. However, it evolved into a network of camps where Jewish people and other perceived enemies of the Nazi state were exterminated, often in gas chambers, or used as slave labor. Some prisoners were also subjected to barbaric medical experiments led by Josef Mengele (1911-79). During World War II (1939-45), more than 1 million people, by some accounts, lost their lives at Auschwitz. In January 1945, with the Soviet army approaching, Nazi officials ordered the camp abandoned and sent an estimated 60,000 prisoners on a forced march to other locations. 

When the Soviet army entered Auschwitz on January 27, they found approximately 7,600 sick or emaciated detainees who had been left behind. The liberators also discovered mounds of corpses, hundreds of thousands of pieces of clothing and pairs of shoes and seven tons of human hair that had been shaved from detainees before their liquidation. According to some estimates, between 1.1 million to 1.5 million people, the vast majority of them Jews, died at Auschwitz during its years of operation. An estimated 70,000 to 80,000 Poles perished at the camp, along with 19,000 to 20,000 Gypsies and smaller numbers of Soviet prisoners of war and other individuals.

As early as 1947, the first exhibition, expanded in 1950, was opened in several camp blocks at the Auschwitz I concentration camp site. It presented the history of extermination and the conditions in which the prisoners lived. A new exhibition was opened in 1955. With some changes, it is still in use today. After 1960, some of the camp blocks contained the so-called "national exhibitions," created at the initiative of former prisoners from various countries who are associated in the International Auschwitz Committee. They primarily portray the fate of the citizens of those countries who were deported by the Nazis in transports to Auschwitz concentration camp.

Have a virtual tour of a camp http://panorama.auschwitz.org/

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