Auschwitz Facts – 37 Horrifying Facts About Auschwitz

Auschwitz Concentration Camp Facts

Though security was very high, 144 prisoners managed to escaped from Auschwitz successfully.

Hans Wilhelm Münch also known as the good man from Auschwitz was the only Nazi to be acquitted of war crimes at the 1947 Auschwitz trials in Kraków, where many inmates testified in his favor.

Auschwitz’s camp commandant Rudolf Hoss, was arrested on 11 March 1946 in Gottrupel by British troops.

He was accused of causing death of three and a half million people, Hoss replied he killed only two and one half million. The rest died due to starvation and disease

Prisoners did not know that they were going in the gas chamber and thought they were simply going to have a shower and be disinfected.

By the end of 1945 Soviet troops were close on their heels; most of the prisoners were murdered during an evacuation and a retreat which was dubbed the death march.

Jewish prisoners known as Sonderkommandos were given the job to bury the prisoners who were executed.

Many Sonderkommandos were aware that they will be killed by the SS in the end. Therefore, they buried their testimonies in jars, to be uncovered after the war ended.

All prisoners of the camp were freed on January 27th 1945.

The prison camp was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.