Inside Auschwitz: The shocking reality of genocide and the power of survival

German occupation authorities established Auschwitz in May 1940 to relieve overcrowding in Polish prisons, particularly those holding political opponents of the Nazi regime.

The chosen location, a former military barracks in the town of Oświęcim, was in southern Poland and offered efficient rail connections across occupied Europe.

When the SS repurposed the site, they ensured they could process large numbers of prisoners while maintaining isolation from major urban areas. 

Rudolf Höss was its first commandant and he quickly oversaw the conversion of Auschwitz I into a centre of imprisonment and forced labour.

The early inmates arrived in June 1940 and were mostly Polish political prisoners, though they were soon joined by Soviet POWs, Roma, and German criminals used as overseers.

These prisoners endured brutal conditions as the SS tested methods of control and punishment.

The camp layout soon expanded, as planners introduced a second site, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, which began construction in October 1941.

This new section was designed from the outset to act as a death camp, and its features included large gas chambers, crematoria, and rail lines capable of delivering thousands of people per day.

Mass killing using these facilities began in early 1942. 

Next, Auschwitz III-Monowitz, was formally established in late October 1942 and operational by early 1943.

Its closeness to the IG Farben chemical plant allowed the Nazis to exploit prisoner labour for economic purposes while continuing the racial agenda of destruction.

More than forty subcamps spread across the region, including sites such as Jawischowitz and Budy.

By linking them to the main complex, the SS created a vast network that could operate as a tool of extermination and as a source of profit for the German war economy. 

What is more, SS administrators selected Auschwitz because its location offered ample space for expansion and strong security.

They surrounded the camp with electrified fences and watchtowers, and they required new arrivals to contribute to the ongoing construction of facilities designed to prolong suffering.

It showed a belief that no number of victims would ever be sufficient rather than necessity. 

When prisoners were transported in sealed cattle wagons, they arrived hungry and disoriented.

Armed guards barked orders as SS doctors carried out selections on the unloading ramps, known as the Judenrampe, where people were sorted into two groups: those destined for immediate death and those chosen for forced labour.

The process took minutes, but its consequences were permanent. 

Unfortunately, the barracks offered no protection against disease or weather.

Wooden bunks packed tightly together housed inmates with no bedding or heating.

Food consisted of watery soup served with stale bread in meagre portions that could not sustain the energy needed for exhausting labour.

Diarrhoea and lice spread rapidly, and untreated infections often proved fatal.

As a result, prisoners rarely lived long enough to adapt. 

Violence dominated daily routines as guards issued beatings for trivial reasons, and punishment blocks imposed starvation, torture, or execution.

Roll calls occurred before dawn and lasted for hours, even in snow or rain. Inmates stood in rigid silence, knowing that any movement could invite death.

Some collapsed from exhaustion, and those who fell out of line often disappeared permanently. 

Within this nightmare, the SS encouraged mistrust and betrayal. They appointed certain prisoners as Kapos and gave them power over others in exchange for better rations and privileges.

This system turned desperate victims into reluctant collaborators and reinforced a hierarchy that protected the guards from direct oversight of every prisoner.

Clearly, the inmates could not rely on fairness, predictability, or solidarity. 

Despite the constant brutality, many prisoners tried to hold on to their humanity.

Some whispered prayers under their breath while others shared their food with weaker cellmates.

A few kept diaries or taught secret lessons to children, because they believed that small acts of resistance could preserve their sense of self.

For many, survival depended on a refusal to become entirely broken. 

After the Nazi regime formally adopted the ‘Final Solution’ in early 1942, Auschwitz became the most active centre of mass murder in occupied Europe.

Heinrich Himmler, who oversaw the SS, specifically selected Birkenau as the main site for the extermination of Jews. 

So, SS engineers fitted Birkenau with four crematoria, each equipped with gas chambers presented as shower blocks.

Victims entered the buildings under false pretences, expecting delousing or processing, and never emerged.

The poison used, Zyklon B, had previously been used to kill vermin and had been produced by Degesch.

Although Fritz Haber helped develop earlier chemical agents, he died in 1934 and had no direct role in the Holocaust-era production or use of Zyklon B.

It now became the method of choice for exterminating entire trainloads of human beings.

Engineers perfected techniques for disposing of corpses, and the crematoria operated day and night during peak periods of killing. 

Transports arrived from across German-occupied Europe. Jews from Hungary, France, the Netherlands, and Greece boarded trains under the illusion that they would be resettled.

Between May and July 1944, more than 437,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz, most of whom were murdered upon arrival.

Once they reached Birkenau, most never even entered the main camp. Selections on the ramp determined their fate in seconds, and those rejected were marched straight to their deaths. 

Auschwitz also hosted notorious experiments under the direction of SS doctors such as Josef Mengele, who held doctorates in both medicine and anthropology.

He arrived at Auschwitz in May 1943 and became infamous as the "Angel of Death."

He targeted twins, Roma children, and people with disabilities, using them for surgical procedures, chemical tests, and genetic research without anaesthesia.

These actions were part of a planned assault on human dignity in the name of racial science. 

Late in 1944, as the Red Army advanced through Poland, the Nazis began destroying evidence of their crimes.

They dismantled gas chambers, burned documents, and forced prisoners to exhume mass graves.

However, the destruction came too late to prevent the exposure of the crimes.

Survivors, witnesses, and remaining infrastructure revealed the scale of the killings to the world. 

Rudolf Höss, who led the camp from 1940 to 1943, designed many of its procedures.

Under his command, the SS established systems of terror that continued under his successors.

Arthur Liebehenschel and Richard Baer enforced the same rules, increased how many people they could kill, and oversaw the same machinery of death.

They followed orders, but they also improved upon the techniques of murder.

Höss was later captured, tried at Nuremberg, and executed by hanging in 1947 at Auschwitz. 

Thousands of SS personnel worked across the Auschwitz complex. These included male guards and female overseers who served in women’s sections such as the Birkenau women’s camp.

Some, like Irma Grese and Maria Mandel, became infamous for their cruelty.

In fact, training courses taught them how to discipline, punish, and dehumanise. 

Responsibility did not stop with the camp personnel. German corporations such as IG Farben, Krupp, and Siemens used prisoner labour to support wartime production.

They built factories next to the camps, coordinated with SS officers, and treated human beings as disposable equipment.

Managers signed contracts, set quotas, and paid fees to the SS for prisoner use. Profits mattered more than human life. 

Also, railway officials scheduled transports, civil servants kept records, and legal departments approved regulations that stripped Jews and other victims of their rights.

Every level of the German state helped make Auschwitz possible. 

As Soviet forces advanced through Poland in January 1945, SS leaders ordered the evacuation of Auschwitz.

More than 50,000 prisoners were forced to march westward in freezing weather, often without shoes, food, or shelter.

Those who lagged behind or collapsed were shot on the roadside. At least 15,000 prisoners died before reaching other camps in Germany or Czechoslovakia. 

The SS left behind the sickest prisoners, who could not walk. On 27 January 1945, troops from the Soviet 322nd Rifle Division of the 60th Army entered the complex and discovered between 7,000 and 7,500 survivors in desperate condition.

Many were children or elderly people who had been overlooked during the final selections.

Soviet medics worked to stabilise the survivors, though many died shortly afterwards due to starvation and illness. 

Soviet investigators found storehouses filled with human hair, artificial limbs, piles of shoes, and hundreds of thousands of items taken from victims.

They documented the remains of gas chambers and crematoria, recorded survivor testimonies, and photographed the scenes they encountered.

Their reports would later become some of the most important evidence in postwar trials, including the Auschwitz Trials held in Kraków in 1947, where 23 SS officers stood trial and 21 received death sentences. 

Unfortunately, liberation did not bring immediate peace to the survivors, as many had lost entire families and could not return home.

Others faced continued antisemitism and displacement. In the years that followed, survivors gave testimony at trials, published memoirs, and dedicated their lives to remembrance.

Auschwitz became a museum in 1947, when Polish authorities formally established the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum on 2 July, and it continues to educate visitors about the Holocaust and the capacity for human cruelty.