Auschwitz
The most important Nazi concentration and death camp, seen after the war as a symbol
of the entire Holocaust machine.
Auschwitz was established in mid-1940. Its first commandant (April
1940 - November 1943) was Rudolf Hoess, its second (November 1943 - May
1944) was Liebehenschel, and its last (May 1944 - January 1945) was
Richard Baer.
Its oldest part-the main camp-was created in buildings of former
military barracks that were adapted by the Germans, using Jewish labor
from the Oswiecim (Auschwitz) Jewish Community. This part could hold
from 15,000 to 20,000 prisoners. On May 20, 1940, thirty German criminal
prisoners were brought from Sachsenhausen to Auschwitz and would serve
as camp guards. On June 14, 1940, the first transport of Poles arrived
from Tarnów, with 728 people. At first, the camp held Poles who had been
taken in the mass arrests, particularly the intelligentsia and members
of the resistance. During the first phase, this camp was no different
than the numerous other concentration camps that had been founded in the
1930's by the Germans within the Third Reich itself. Auschwitz
continued to be a concentration camp as long as it existed, even after
1942, when it also became the largest death camp.
The prisoners who arrived had their personal belongings confiscated,
then went through the "sauna" (baths) and were photographed, though it
soon turned out their extreme exhaustion made the people's faces
unrecognizable. They had numbers tattooed on their forearms, and were
issued prison uniforms ("stripes") that had a symbol indicating the
prisoner's category. These included political prisoners, Jehovah's
Witnesses, priests, émigrés, anti-socials, common criminals and
homosexuals. In addition, the Jews also had to wear yellow emblems, the
Poles were given an additional letter "P", French had an "F", and
separate symbols indicated one's penal company, as well as those who
were suspected of having tried to escape, or recidivists. The new
arrivals were put in quarantine, which was an introduction to camp's
terror. The daily food ration was from 1,300 to 1,700 calories, which,
with the hard work and bad conditions, led to quick exhaustion.
The prisoners worked in numerous commandos, some of which were so
exhausting that the people assigned to work there had little chance of
surviving more than a few months. These commandos worked in the camp
services or on the camp's expansion, or servicing the killing machine,
sorting the victims' belongings, and as slave labor on farms and in
German companies. The camp had about 40 sub-camps, the largest of which
(Buna-Monowitz, later known as Auschwitz III) held about 10,000
prisoners.
From late 1941 and early 1942, Auschwitz began functioning as a
death camp for Jews, and from 1943 also for Roma. As early as April
1941, the residents of the village of Brzezinka were resettled and the
village dismantled. The second part of the camp-Auschwitz-Birkenau-was
built on over 140 hectares of land (plans had been made for 170
hectares). About three hundred barracks and other buildings were
constructed. This part of the camp was designed for the purpose of
extermination, a technical process that began at the ramp and ended in
the gas chambers and crematorium.
The prisoners slated for immediate extermination were not put on the
camp list. The transports were unloaded onto the ramp, where they were
segregated according to sex. Selected individuals who were fit to work
were also segregated. The rest were herded to the gas chambers. The
wounded and disabled were transported by trucks. They were told that
they would be washed and disinfected, and were ordered to undress. The
people were sent into the gas chambers, the doors were closed, and the
Zyklon B was released. Death occurred in up to twenty minutes, and
sometimes after just a few. The victims' glasses were taken, long hair
cut, gold and silver teeth removed. In twenty-four hours, the five
crematoria at Auschwitz could burn 4,500 corpses.
Despite the extreme conditions and the omnipresent terror, prisoners
formed self-help groups within the camp, usually organized according to
nationality. There were also various groups of the Polish underground
organizations. Witold Pilecki's efforts deserve special attention. In
1940, as a volunteer of the Polish underground, he allowed himself to be
caught and sent to Auschwitz, with the aim of setting up cells of the
resistance there.
Specific Polish resistance organizations united their structures and
activities during the second half of 1941. In 1942, resistance
activities spread to Birkenau and Monowitz. These activities were
focused on assisting the prisoners and on collecting evidence and
documenting German crimes. At least 802 prisoners attempted to escape,
of which half were Poles. Of these, it is known that 144 were successful
and survived the war. It was thanks to these escapes, among other
things, that reports about what was happening in Auschwitz were sent to
Warsaw almost from the camp's earliest days. Beginning in 1941, the Home
Army Headquarters sent London information about the situation in
Auschwitz.
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Before the Red Army arrived, the Germans
began eliminating the traces of their crimes in 1944. Documents were
destroyed, some sites were dismantled, and others were burnt or blown
up, such as the gas chambers). In mid-January 1945, orders were issued
for the final evacuation and liquidation of the camp. The prisoners able
to march were evacuated in late January 1945 in the direction of the
Reich. From January 17-21 1945, about 56,000 prisoners were led on foot
from Auschwitz and its sub-camps. Many of them perished during the
course of that horrendous evacuation, called "the death march". The
several thousand left in the camp were liberated by the soldiers of the
Red Army on January 27, 1945.
It is difficult to determine the exact number of victims at
Auschwitz. Seventy to seventy-five percent of the transports were sent
directly to the gas chambers, without being entered into the camp's
records. The Nazis destroyed the camp documents. Rudolf Hoess's
testimony had to be verified through an arduous process of researching
the transports and population loss in various cities and ghettos. Most
historians estimate that approximately 1-1.5 million people perished at
Auschwitz. The latest research estimates that 1.1 million Jews died at
Auschwitz (primarily from Hungary and the prewar Polish territories),
over 140,000 Poles, 20,000 Roma, 15,000 prisoners-of-war from the Red
Army, and from 10,000 to 20,000 prisoners of other nationalities. Among
those included in the camp's records, 50% died from starvation,
exhaustion, executions, disease, pseudo-medical experiments, and random
acts perpetrated by Germans. Of the 7,000 Nazi camp functionaries,
almost 1,000 were tried after the war.
On July 2, 1947, the Polish authorities created a museum at the site
of the former camp. Both a memorial and a place of research, it is the
largest such institution in the world. The museum is visited by over
half a million people each year. Of these, half are Poles-primarily
young people. The International Auschwitz Council oversees the museum's
activities. The museum's conservation projects, which are becoming
increasingly difficult with the passage of time, are supported by many
states all over the world. The museum also conducts extensive publishing
activities.
Visiting the museum is free of charge, though organized groups are
asked to take a guided tour-available in English, Croatian, Czech,
French, Spanish, Japanese, Dutch, German, Polish, Russian, Serbian,
Slovak, Swedish, Hungarian and Italian. The museum's educational program
enables visitors to participate in various kinds of activities,
including competitions and workshops. There is a wide variety of
training programs designed for teachers, students and school-aged
children.
More information about the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum is available at: www.auschwitz.org.pl.
Practical Information
One can take either buses or trains to the town of Oswiecim
(Auschwitz). The most frequent connections arrive from Katowice and
Krakow. Oswiecim itself has only limited accommodation, but a good hotel
is located twenty minutes south of town on the market square in Kety.
Accommodation is also available near the Museum at the International
Youth Meeting Center in Oswiecim (www.mdsm.pl), as well as in the Center for Dialogue and
Prayer in Auschwitz www.um.oswiecim.pl/centrum). The museum itself has a small number of
guest rooms available as well.
While in Oswiecim (www.um.oswiecim.pl),
one should not miss visiting the restored prewar synagogue at Father
Jan Skarbek Square. The Jewish Educational Center is now located there www.ajcf.pl.
The Oswiecim castle is also worth seeing, with its thirteenth-century
bastion, as is the fourteenth-century Gothic chapel of St. Hyacinth.
The closest functioning Jewish Communities are in Bielsko-Biala, Katowice and Krakow.
(pc/cm)
Serwisy aukcyjne z bronią palną to platformy internetowe, gdzie użytkownicy mogą wystawiać bron palną krótką i długą, optykę myśliwską, termowizory, noktowizory i akcesoria do broni oraz wyposażenie strzeleckie na aukcję, a potencjalni kupcy rywalizują ze sobą, podnosząc ceny. Sprzedający określają początkową cenę broni, a kupujący podnoszą ją, oferując wyższe kwoty. Aukcje mogą trwać przez określony czas, po którym najwyższa oferta staje się zwycięzcą, a sprzedawca zobowiązany jest do sprzedania przedmiotu za tę cenę.
Serwisy aukcyjne z bronią palną i akcesoriami strzeleckimi cieszą się dużą popularnością, zarówno wśród osób prywatnych, które chcą sprzedawać lub kupować używane broń lub wyposażenie strzeleckie, jak i wśród firm, które korzystają z aukcji do zbywania towarów w ilościach hurtowych. licytacje broni palnej Jednym z najbardziej znanych serwisów aukcyjnych z bronią palną jest serwis broniowy.
Korzyści z korzystania z serwisów aukcyjnych obejmują:
Szeroki Wybór:
Oferują szeroki zakres produktów, od broni palnej krótkiej, broni palnej długiej
Części i akcesoria mocowane do broni
Akcesoria i wyposażenie dla strzelca
Amunicja, elaboracja, konserwacja broni i narzędzia
Noże i broń biała
Ochrona strzelca
Odzież, obuwie, mundury itp. inne elementy.
Przechowywanie i transport broni, amunicji i akcesorii
Sprzęt medyczny i survival
i kolekcji po nowoczesne gadżety i elektronikę.
Oszczędność:
Kupujący często mogą znaleźć dobre okazje i oszczędzić w porównaniu do cen detalicznych.
Sprzedaż Niepotrzebnych Przedmiotów:
Umożliwiają użytkownikom pozbycie się niepotrzebnych rzeczy i zarobienie na nich.
Rywalizacja:
Aukcje generują rywalizację między kupującymi, co może prowadzić do uzyskania lepszej ceny dla sprzedawcy.
Globalny Rynek:
Serwisy aukcyjne umożliwiają handel na całym świecie, co zwiększa szanse na znalezienie rzadkich przedmiotów:
Dalmierze
Iluminatory, Oświetlacze podczerwieni
Kolimatory, Powiększalniki do kolimatorów
Lornetki obserwacyjne
Lunety celownicze
Termowizja, Noktowizja
Pozostała elektronika i Akcesoria optyczne
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Najpopularniejsze serwisy aukcyjne różnią się w zależności od regionu i rodzaju produktów, ale w ogólności cieszą się uznaniem w społeczności internetowej. Warto jednak zachować ostrożność i zwracać uwagę na reputację sprzedawcy oraz warunki aukcji.
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