NOVANEWS
By David Cole
Here are some key facts on Auschwitz: * German forces occupying Poland set up Auschwitz in 1940 as a labour camp for Polish prisoners, gradually expanding it into a vast labour and death camp.
* The complex contained three camps and at least 36 sub-camps which were built outside the town of Oswiecim, on an isolated 15 sq mile site, between 1940-1942.
* Auschwitz I was built for Polish political prisoners in June 1940.
* Auschwitz II or Birkenau, built in October 1941, held more than 100,000 and was the main site of mass killings. Gas chambers and crematoria capable of disposing of about 2,000 a day were built at Birkenau. By 1944 some 6,000 a day were being killed.
* Auschwitz III supplied forced-labour for the nearby I G Farben plant.
* Between 1.2-1.5 million people died at the camps, of whom about 1 million were Jewish.
* Other groups of people who died included Polish political prisoners, Soviet prisoners of war, Gypsies, homosexuals, people with disabilities and prisoners of conscience or religious faith.
* The camp was liberated by Soviet soldiers on January 27, 1945.
* About 200,000 inmates of the camp between 1940-45 survived.
* Out of a total of about 7,000 guards at Auschwitz, including 170 female staff, 750 were prosecuted and punished once Nazi Germany was defeated.
