From spring 1942, the Nazis began the systematic mass deportations of Jews from Germany and the occupied territories to death camps. Auschwitz grew into the largest German concentration and extermination camp complex.

Auschwitz's first camp (Auschwitz I) was set up in May 1940 as a prison for political prisoners and prisoners of war. These were mainly Polish and Soviet POWs.^[1] As there was too little space for the growing number of prisoners, Birkenau was built a few kilometres away in 1942.^[2]

'Arbeit macht frei'

Auschwitz I was located in a former Polish military barracks near the town of Oświęcim, called Auschwitz in German. The large gate that gave access to this camp bore the cynical text Arbeit macht frei, which was meant to give the impression that this was a labour camp.^[3]

By November 1943, the Auschwitz complex was so extensive that it was organisationally divided into three camps: Auschwitz I (The Base Camp or Stammlager), Auschwitz II (Auschwitz-Birkenau) and Auschwitz III. A large proportion of the female prisoners were placed in Auschwitz-Birkenau, making Auschwitz I predominantly a men's camp.

When the eight people who had been in hiding in the Secret Annex arrived in Auschwitz on 6 September 1944, SS-Sturmbannführer Richard Baer (1911-1963) was the camp commandant of Auschwitz. Under his predecessor Rudolf Höss (1901-1947), Auschwitz had become one of the centres of mass murder of European Jews.^[4]

Block 10

In Block 10 of Auschwitz I, the notorious camp doctor Josef Mengele (1911-1979) and his staff performed medical experiments on prisoners. They were often extremely cruel experiments, in which prisoners were given poisonous injections or deliberately infected with deadly diseases to analyse disease progression. Despite Block 10 being in the men's camp, the experiments were mainly carried out on women and twins.^[5]

Zyklon B

In August 1941, experiments with the extremely poisonous prussic acid gas zyklon B were first conducted at Auschwitz I. Around 5 September 1941, larger groups of Russian POWs were murdered for the first time. The first systematic gassings at Auschwitz I took place between late March and early April 1942.

From May 1942, the second camp (Auschwitz-Birkenau) was still under development, but was already being increasingly set up by the camp management as an extermination camp and largely took over the killing from Auschwitz I. In autumn 1942, gassings in the camp crematorium at Auschwitz I ceased. From 1943, Auschwitz-Birkenau became the centre of the Holocaust.^[6]

In September 1944, the males from the Secret Annex ended up in Auschwitz-I. Otto would remain a prisoner there until the liberation of the camp in January 1945.^[7]