Auschwitz Concentration Camp - Auschwitz I, Poland Editorial Photo

Auschwitz concentration camp was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschwitz I, the main camp (Stammlager) in O?wi?cim Auschwitz II-Birkenau, a concentration and extermination camp with gas chambers Auschwitz III-Monowitz, a labour camp for the chemical conglomerate IG Farben and dozens of subcamps. The camps became a major site of the Nazis' Final Solution to the Jewish question. A former World War I camp for transient workers and later a Polish army barracks, Auschwitz I was the main camp (Stammlager) and administrative headquarters of the camp complex. Auschwitz consisted at the time of 22 brick buildings, eight of them two-story. A second story was added to the others in 1943 and eight new blocks were built.