Auschwitz Birkenau main control tower in the entrance with railways leading to it. Auschwitz concentration camp (German: Konzentrationslager Auschwitz [ÃËaÃÅ ÃÆvêts] ( listen)) was a network of concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II. It was the largest of the German concentration camps, consisting of Auschwitz I (the Stammlager or base camp); Auschwitz IIââ¬âBirkenau (the Vernichtungslager or extermination camp); Auschwitz IIIââ¬âMonowitz, also known as Bunaââ¬âMonowitz (a labor camp); and 45 satellite camps. Construction on Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the extermination camp, began in October 1941 to ease congestion at the main camp. It was larger than Auschwitz I, and more people passed through its gates than through Auschwitz I. It was designed to hold several categories of prisoners, and to function as an extermination camp in the context of Heinrich Himmler's preparations for the Final Solution of the Jewish Question, the extermination of the Jews.[19] The first gas chamber at Birkenau was The Little Red House, a brick cottage converted into a gassing facility by tearing out the inside and bricking up the walls. It was operational by March 1942. A second brick cottage, The Little White House, was similarly converted some weeks later. Cracow area, Poland
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