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Auschwitz Birkenau
German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp (1940-1945)

Auschwitz Birkenau
German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp (1940-1945)

The fortified walls, barbed wire, platforms, barracks, gallows, gas chambers and cremation ovens show the conditions within which the Nazi genocide took place in the former concentration and extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest in the Third Reich. According to historical investigations, 1.5 million people, among them a great number of Jews, were systematically starved, tortured and murdered in this camp, the symbol of humanity's cruelty to its fellow human beings in the 20th century.

Description is available under license CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0

Auschwitz Birkenau
Camp allemand nazi de concentration et d'extermination (1940-1945)

Les enceintes, les barbelés, les miradors, les baraquements, les potences, les chambres à gaz et les fours crématoires de l'ancien camp de concentration et d'extermination d'Auschwitz-Birkenau, le plus vaste du IIIe Reich, attestent les conditions dans lesquelles fonctionnait le génocide hitlérien. Selon des recherches historiques, 1,1 à 1,5 million de personnes – dont de très nombreux Juifs – furent systématiquement affamées, torturées et assassinées dans ce camp, symbole de la cruauté de l'homme pour l'homme au XXe siècle.

Description is available under license CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0

اوشفيتز بيركينو / معسكر الاعتقال والابادة النازي الالماني (1940 – 1945)

تشهد الاسوار والاسلاك الشائكة والمَراقب والمعسكرات والمنصبات وغرف الغاز ومحرقات معسكر الاعتقال والابادة اوشفيتز بيركينو القديم، كلّها على الظروف التي كانت تجري في ظلّها الابادة الجماعية الهتليرية. وتفيد بحوث تاريخية ان 1،1 مليون الى 5،1 مليون شخص، معظمهم من اليهود، جُوِّعوا بصورة منظّمة وتعرّضوا للتعذيب وقُتلوا في هذا المخيّم، رمز وحشية الانسان مع أخيه الانسان في القرن العشرين.

source: UNESCO/ERI
Description is available under license CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0

前纳粹德国奥斯维辛-比克瑙集中营(1940-1945年)

这里壁垒森严,四周电网密布,设有哨所看台、绞形架、毒气杀人室和焚尸炉,展现了纳粹德国在原奥斯维辛—比克瑙集中营即第三帝国最大的灭绝营中执行种族灭绝政策的状况。历史调查显示,有150万人(其中绝大部分是犹太人)在此被饿死、惨遭严刑拷打和杀戳。奥斯维辛是20世纪人类对其同类进行残酷虐杀的见证。

source: UNESCO/ERI
Description is available under license CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0

Концлагерь Освенцим (Аушвиц)

Мощные стены, колючая проволока, платформы, бараки, виселицы, газовые камеры и кремационные печи показывают условия, в которых нацисты осуществляли свою политику геноцида в бывшем концентрационном лагере смерти Аушвиц-Биркенау (Освенцим) – крупнейшем в Третьем Рейхе. Исторические исследования говорят, что 1,5 млн. человек, среди которых большинство составляли евреи, подвергались пыткам и умерщвлялись в этом лагере, – месте, ставшем в ХХ в. символом человеческой жестокости по отношению к себе подобным.

source: UNESCO/ERI
Description is available under license CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0

Auschwitz Birkenau Campo nazi alemán de concentración y exterminio (1940-1945)

Los recintos, las alambradas, las torretas de vigilancia, las casamatas, las horcas, las cámaras de gas y los hornos crematorios de este campo de concentración y exterminio, que fue el más vasto de los creados por el Tercer Reich, dan fe de las condiciones en que se perpetró el genocidio nazi. Según los trabajos de investigación histórica, entre 1.100.000 y 1.500.000 prisioneros –en gran parte judíos– fueron sistemáticamente privados de alimentación, torturados y asesinados en este campo, símbolo de la crueldad ejercida por el hombre contra sus semejantes en el siglo XX.

source: UNESCO/ERI
Description is available under license CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0

アウシュヴィッツ・ビルケナウ ナチスドイツの強制絶滅収容所(1940-1945)
第二次世界大戦中ポーランドを占領したドイツ軍は、アウシュヴィッツなどに強制収容所を建設し、そこに一般のユダヤ人やポーランド人などを連行し、強制労働や虐殺を行なった。ここで虐殺されたユダヤ人は400万人以上にのぼるともいわれる。現在は博物館となっており、人類の過ちを二度と犯さないように、平和を祈って、ガス室や犠牲者の衣服などを展示している。

source: NFUAJ

Auschwitz Birkenau - Duits naziconcentratie- en vernietigingskamp (1940-1945)

Auschwitz Birkenau was het grootste concentratie- en vernietigingskamp in het Derde Rijk. De versterkte muren, prikkeldraad, perrons, galg, gaskamers en crematieovens laten de omstandigheden zien waarin de genocide door de nazi’s plaats vond. Volgens historisch onderzoek werden er in dit kamp 1,5 miljoen mensen, systematisch uitgehongerd, gemarteld en vermoord. Hiervan waren er meer dan een miljoen Joods en tienduizenden Pools. Auschwitz diende ook als een kamp voor de raciale moord op duizenden Roma en Sinti. De plaats staat symbool voor de wreedheid die de mens zijn medemens in de 20e eeuw aandeed. Het kamp is een belangrijke plaats ter herinnering aan de Holocaust.

Source: unesco.nl

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Entrance of Auschwitz I © Nathalie Valanchon
Outstanding Universal Value

Brief synthesis

Auschwitz Birkenau was the principal and most notorious of the six concentration and extermination camps established by Nazi Germany to implement its Final Solution policy which had as its aim the mass murder of the Jewish people in Europe. Built in Poland under Nazi German occupation initially as a concentration camp for Poles and later for Soviet prisoners of war, it soon became a prison for a number of other nationalities. Between the years 1942-1944 it became the main mass extermination camp where Jews were tortured and killed for their so-called racial origins. In addition to the mass murder of well over a million Jewish men, women and children, and tens of thousands of Polish victims, Auschwitz also served as a camp for the racial murder of thousands of Roma and Sinti and prisoners of several European nationalities.

The Nazi policy of spoliation, degradation and extermination of the Jews was rooted in a racist and anti-Semitic ideology propagated by the Third Reich.

Auschwitz Birkenau was the largest of the concentration camp complexes created by the Nazi German regime and was the one which combined extermination with forced labour. At the centre of a huge landscape of human exploitation and suffering, the remains of the two camps of Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau were inscribed on the World Heritage List as evidence of this inhumane, cruel and methodical effort to deny human dignity to groups considered inferior, leading to their systematic murder. The camps are a vivid testimony to the murderous nature of the anti-Semitic and racist Nazi policy that brought about the annihilation of over one million people in the crematoria, 90% of whom were Jews.

The fortified walls, barbed wire, railway sidings, platforms, barracks, gallows, gas chambers and crematoria at Auschwitz Birkenau show clearly how the Holocaust, as well as the Nazi German policy of mass murder and forced labour took place. The collections at the site preserve the evidence of those who were premeditatedly murdered, as well as presenting the systematic mechanism by which this was done. The personal items in the collections are testimony to the lives of the victims before they were brought to the extermination camps, as well as to the cynical use of their possessions and remains. The site and its landscape have high levels of authenticity and integrity since the original evidence has been carefully conserved without any unnecessary restoration.

Criterion (vi): Auschwitz Birkenau, monument to the deliberate genocide of the Jews by the German Nazi regime and to the deaths of countless others, bears irrefutable evidence to one of the greatest crimes ever perpetrated against humanity. It is also a monument to the strength of the human spirit which in appalling conditions of adversity resisted the efforts of the German Nazi regime to suppress freedom and free thought and to wipe out whole races. The site is a key place of memory for the whole of humankind for the Holocaust, racist policies and barbarism; it is a place of our collective memory of this dark chapter in the history of humanity, of transmission to younger generations and a sign of warning of the many threats and tragic consequences of extreme ideologies and denial of human dignity.

Integrity

Within the 191.97-ha serial property – which consists of three component parts: the former Auschwitz I camp, the former Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp and a mass grave of inmates – are located the most important structures related to the exceptional events that took place here and that bear testimony to their significance to humanity. It is the most representative part of the Auschwitz complex, which consisted of nearly 50 camps and sub-camps.

The Auschwitz Birkenau camp complex comprises 155 brick and wooden structures (57 in Auschwitz and 98 in Birkenau) and about 300 ruins. There are also ruins of gas chambers and crematoria in Birkenau, which were dynamited in January 1945. The overall length of fencing supported by concrete poles is more than 13 km. Individual structures of high historical significance, such as railway sidings and ramps, food stores and industrial buildings, are dispersed in the immediate setting of the property. These structures, along with traces in the landscape, remain poignant testimonies to this tragic history.

The Auschwitz I main camp was a place of extermination, effected mainly by depriving people of elementary living conditions. It was also a centre for immediate extermination. Here were located the offices of the camp’s administration, the local garrison commander and the commandant of Auschwitz I, the seat of the central offices of the political department, and the prisoner labour department. Here too were the main supply stores, workshops and Schutzstaffel (SS) companies. Work in these administrative and economic units and companies was the main form of forced labour for the inmates in this camp.

Birkenau was the largest camp in the Auschwitz complex. It became primarily a centre for the mass murder of Jews brought there for extermination, and of Roma and Sinti prisoners during its final period. Sick prisoners and those selected for death from the whole Auschwitz complex – and, to a smaller extent, from other camps – were also gathered and systematically killed here. It ultimately became a place for the concentration of prisoners before they were transferred inside the Third Reich to work for German industry. Most of the victims of the Auschwitz complex, probably about 90%, were killed in the Birkenau camp.

The property is of adequate size to ensure the complete representation of the features and processes that convey its significance. Potential threats to the integrity of the property include the difficulty in preserving the memory of the events and their significance to humanity. In the physical sphere, significant potential threats include natural decay of the former camps’ fabric; environmental factors, including the risk of flooding and rising groundwater level; changes in the surroundings of the former camps; and intensive visitor traffic.

Authenticity

The Auschwitz camp complex has survived largely unchanged since its liberation in January 1945. The remaining camp buildings, structures and infrastructure are a silent witness to history, bearing testimony of the crime of genocide committed by the German Nazis. They are an inseparable part of a death factory organized with precision and ruthless consistency. The attributes that sustain the Outstanding Universal Value of the property are truthfully and credibly expressed, and fully convey the value of the property.

At Auschwitz I, the majority of the complex has remained intact. The architecture of the camp consisted mostly of pre-existing buildings converted by the Nazis to serve new functions. The preserved architecture, spaces and layout still recall the historical functions of the individual elements in their entirety. The interiors of some of the buildings have been modified to adapt them to commemorative purposes, but the external façades of these buildings remain unchanged.

In Birkenau, which was built anew on the site of a displaced village, only a small number of historic buildings have survived. Due to the method used in constructing those buildings, planned as temporary structures and erected in a hurry using demolition materials, the natural degradation processes have been accelerating. All efforts are nevertheless being taken to preserve them, strengthen their original fabric and protect them from decay.

Many historic artefacts from the camp and its inmates have survived and are currently kept in storage. Some are exhibited in the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. These include personal items brought by the deportees, as well as authentic documents and preserved photographs, complemented with post-war testimonies of the survivors.

Protection and management requirements

The property is protected by Polish law under the provisions of heritage protection and spatial planning laws, together with the provisions of local law. The site, buildings and relics of the former Auschwitz Birkenau camp are situated on the premises of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, which operates under a number of legal Acts concerning the operation of museums and protection of the Former Nazi Extermination Camps, which provide that the protection of these sites is a public objective, and its fulfilment is the responsibility of the State administration. The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum is a State cultural institution supervised directly by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, who ensures the necessary financing for its functioning and the fulfillment of its mission, including educational activities to understand the tragedy of the Holocaust and the need to prevent similar threats today and in future. The Museum has undertaken a long-term programme of conservation measures under its Global Conservation Plan. It is financed largely through funds from the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, which is supported by states from around the world, as well as by businesses and private individuals. The Foundation has also obtained a State subsidy to supplement the Perpetual Fund (Act of 18 August 2011 on a Subsidy for the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation Intended to Supplement the Perpetual Fund).

The existing legal system provides appropriate tools for the effective protection and management of the property. The Museum Council, whose members are appointed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, supervises the performance of the Museum’s duties regarding its collections, in particular the execution of its statutory tasks. In addition, the International Auschwitz Council acts as a consultative and advisory body to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland on the protection and management of the site of the former Auschwitz Birkenau camp and other places of extermination and former concentration camps situated within the present territory of Poland.

Several protective zones surround components of the World Heritage property and function de facto as buffer zones. They are covered by local spatial development plans, which are consulted by the Regional Monuments Inspector. The management of the property’s setting is the responsibility of the local government of the Town and Commune of Oświęcim. For better management and protection of the attributes of the Outstanding Universal Value of the property, especially for the proper protection of its setting, a relevant management plan must be put into force.