The Liberation of Auschwitz (1945)

Auschwitz. A name that is synonymous with fascist oppression and religious persecution. One of the largest Concentration camps built by the Nazis, it was 1,000 m long and 400 m wide, consisting primarily of 22 brick buildings, eight of them two-story; a second story was added to the others in 1943 and eight new blocks were constructed. Initially built to imprison Polish political prisoners, it was used to realise Hitler's 'Final Solution' where 1.3 million Jews where transported via freight trains as the Nazis increased their boundaries throughout Europe to be killed by being gassed or medical experiments or by starvation and individual executions. 

The Auschwitz Concentration Camp was one of the largest Concentration camps built by the Nazis. It was declared a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO in 1979.

The final days of the camp was far more horrific than the five years it existed. As the Nazis gradually began to realise that they were fighting a lost war, they increased their torture on these inmates whose labour was used in the factories producing chemicals, armaments and other materials. In the meantime they began to obliterate evidences of their crimes by destroying the killing sites, tearing down many of the buildings and burning the scrupulous records they kept of those who were killed. The began evacuating the camps January 17th onwards making the imprisoned walk long distances into the Reich and those who were too ill to embark on this journey were promptly shot. Earning the sorbiquet of 'Death March' it led to the deaths of 15,000 people. Many were jammed in freight cars and moved further into the German occupied areas. In the meantime, the remaining Nazi Soldiers began to burn the possessions they had plundered from these Jews and moving the costly items mostly into their pockets. By 22nd of January, they had fled from the camps leaving behind 9000 captives in falling health without any food, clothes or medicines.

Soviet Soldiers after the Liberation of the Camp.

On 27th January 1945, the Soviet Red Army tore down the gates of this hell-house founding millions of torn limbs and a few thousands of nearly dead people with no SS soldier in sight. When Colonel Georgii Elisavetskii proclaimed their libertion in English it generated no response which remained the same after similar announcements were made in Russian, Polish and German. Finally when he spoke in Yiddish disclosing his Jewish religious identity, that they realised the genuineness of this proclamation and to quote Georgii, "“They rushed toward us shouting, fell on their knees, kissed the flaps of our overcoats, and threw their arms around our legs."

The imprisoned were found in failing heath- physical and psychological after the immense persecution it faced from the SS.

It was after the liberation of Auschwitz that the international world came to know of what horrors the Nazis and their SS had committed. Piles of ash which were previously human bodies were photographed by journalists and published on dailies across the world. The Polish Red Cross Workers tirelessy toiled to save the dying with their limited supplies and the Soviet Army also helped in this regard. It was due to their hard efforts that 7500 of them survived. In 1947, Rudolf Höss who had served as the commandant of this camp for four years was hanged in this very place where he sanctioned 1.1 million deaths after being found guilty of committing crimes against humanity by Poland's Supreme National Tribunal. Unlike his confederates who denied any wrongdoing, he didn't budge from his actions, though in the memoirs he composed during his last days he expressed remorse for what he did. The hanging of Höss was Poland's last public execution.

Rudolf Höss, the commandant of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp during his trials. 

Seventy-five years after this inhumane and tyrannical event, we are witnessing the repetition of such occurences in Asia where governments are engaged in systematic repression of minorities and constructing similar camps. When in elementary classes, history is introduced, the teachers explain its aims which include learning the mistakes made by mankind in the past. As we are being muted spectators of such episodes, it seems we have failed history in this regard.


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