On January 27, 1945, Soviet troops liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp, marking the beginning of the end of the Holocaust.
The Nazis targeted Jewish Europeans and other ethnic groups, such as the Romani, Polish, and Slavic, during World War II. Adolf Hitler considered these groups to be genetically inferior to his “Aryan” master race. Removing the Jewish people was one of the steps in Hitler’s plan for world domination.
To facilitate this mass murder the Nazis built concentration camps. At first, these highly organized camps were used to terrorize and intimidate, but in 1941 when Hitler decided to murder all of the Jewish people, the camps became killing factories. About 2.5 million people were murdered at the concentration camp in Auschwitz, Poland, alone.
Witold Pilecki was the only person known to voluntarily be imprisoned by the Nazis at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Pilecki was a Polish cavalry officer who saw heavy fighting at the outset of World War II. When the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, the Polish resistance collapsed. Pilecki then helped found the “Secret Polish Army,” an underground resistance unit. As news of the Auschwitz camp surfaced, he volunteered to investigate and allowed himself to be captured.
For two and a half years Pilecki organized resistance, fed information about the camp to the outside world, and wrote about the details of the camp. Pilecki helped create resistance cells and smuggled information out of the camp. But by 1943, he realized no help was coming. Pilecki decided to escape to give his report in person, and one night he and two other prisoners succeeded. Pilecki’s reports, however, were dismissed as unbelievable exaggerations, and neither the British nor the Russians would help.
Then in mid-1944, about half of the 130,000 prisoners were moved to other camps. That November, the Soviet Red Army began approaching Auschwitz through Poland. Aware of their impending arrival, the camp’s Nazi organizers quickly began to dismantle the crematoriums and convert them into air raid shelters. They destroyed most written records and other evidence of what had occurred there, including many of the buildings. Another 58,000 Auschwitz detainees were relocated on January 17.
Then, on January 27, 1945, the Soviets arrived and liberated the remaining 7,500 prisoners. Though the Nazis had destroyed much of the camp, the liberators were still shocked at what they found there, including the belongings of over a million people. By the end of the war approximately 6 million Jewish people, about two-thirds of all the Jewish people in Europe, had been killed by the Nazis. The total number of civilians killed by the Nazis is estimated to be at least 11 million.
Fifty years later, the United Nations named January 27 as “International Holocaust Remembrance Day,” to honor the victims of the Holocaust. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called the Holocaust “a unique evil that cannot simply be consigned to the past and forgotten.”
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Click here to visit the US Holocaust Museum Memorial’s website.
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It is very sad even to read what one man could do to millions of fellow human beings.
A dark chapter in the history of the human race. I had never read of Witold Pilecki previously. Thank you Mystic for sharing his story.
Indeed a sad chapter in human history. Sadder still are the idiots today who persist in denying that it ever took place. History winds up repeating itself because we failed to pay attention the first time.
The biggest problem was that the British and the Americans thought that the reports
were fabricated by the Soviets to hasten an invasion of mainland Europe in France to
relieve the pressure on the Eastern Front. FDR and the State Department along with
British Intelligence could not believe that Hitler would divert so much of his assets for
that purpose. Why the Russians did not believe the reports is a mystery, because they
would have pressed more for an Allied invasion of France.
I am not understanding -please help my ignorance: “the Americans and British thought ‘the reports’ were fabricated by the Soviets…” vs “why the Soviets (Russians) did not believe ‘the reports’ is a mystery…” What reports are you referring to – what was the source of “the reports” that the Americans and British AND Russians did not believe? Please clarify and thanks for additional insight!
I started to not say anything here, but a couple of comments prompted me to do so. I could not sit by and see comments that diminished the pain, suffering, and atrocities of the holocaust victims. Comparing abortion to the inhumanity the Jewish people suffered at the hands of these insane and satanic devils does them, their history, and the world a disservice. There can be no comparison os their inhumane treatment, and when they had nothing else to give, they were systematically murdered. We can never forget what happened, or allow their treatment to be diminished.
All lives are worth living.
Dennis “With people like that in the world…do you think it’s possible the holocaust can happen again?”
The Nazi’s were fascists. Fascism: a form of radical authoritarian ultra-nationalism. Fascists believe that liberal democracy is obsolete and they regard the complete mobilization of society under a totalitarian one-party state. Fascists advocate a mixed economy, with the principal goal of achieving national economic self-sufficiency through protectionist and interventionist economic policies. Fascist states pursued policies of social indoctrination through propaganda in education and state run media, and by removal of the free press.
Sounds a lot like an orange skinned, blond wigged buffoon who spends most of his time on Twitter.
To Charles T. Apparently, the plain truth hurts, so typical of people like you, start calling names.
Thank you once again for elucidating history and stimulating discussion through philately. This was indeed a dark time in world history. One would think that this would help mankind realize of what evils man is capable. I toured Auschwitz about 18 months ago.. The horrors that occurred there are beyond imagination! Yet, around the world people are being killed and tortured. I hope that most people realize that the torture and genocide of the Eastern European Jews during The Holocaust could happen again to other groups in other parts of the world.. We must try to understand, respect, and learn from individuals of all cultures. Then, maybe, we can have a friendlier and more peaceful world!
“Can’t we all just get along”
Feel sorry for the naysayers