Auschwitz concentration camp


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.
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.


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