From the Introduction
by Lore Shelley, Ph.D.
Studies in the Shoah Vol. 1
Auschwitz – The Nazi Civilization: Twenty-three Women Prisoner’s Accounts
Auschwitz Camp Administration and SS Enterprises and Workshops
The concentration camp of Auschwitz was formed in May 1940 in the vicinity of the Polish town of Oswiecim, located in the Voivodeship of Cracow, 60 km. west of Cracow and 30 km. south-east of Kattowitz.
It became the largest concentration camp in the German system comprising approximately 135,168 inmates at one time according to a document smuggled out of camp by the resistance movement on August 22, 1944.
After the cessation of the killing centers of Treblinka, Sobibor and Beizec, and the discontinuation of Majdanek and Chelmo, Auschwitz became a giant death factory.
It is estimated that approximately 1.6 million people died in Auschwitz, about 1,350,000 of them were Jews. of these it is believed that about 1,3145,000 were gassed (1,323,000 of them Jews) while about 255,000 found their death through hunger, disease, work, torture, shootings, hanging, phenol injections and pseudo-medical experiments.
In Auschwitz more persons were killed than anywhere ever before at one place on this planet.