Auschwitz-Birkenau (1941 - 1945) was the largest of Nazi Germany's concentration camps. Located in German-occupied southern Poland, it took its name from the nearby town of Oświęcim, situated within the range of about 60 kilometers from Krakow, and 280 kilometers from Warsaw. The complex consisted of three main camps: Auschwitz I - the administrative centre, Auschwitz II (Birkenau) - an extermination camp, and Auschwitz III (Monowitz) - a work camp. In 1990, the figure of the people killed in the camp was placed at 1.1 - 1.6 million. About 90 percent of them were Jews from almost every European country. Most of the dead were killed in gas chambers using Zyklon B; other deaths were caused by systematic starvation, enforced labor, lack of disease control, individual executions, and the so-called medical experiments. At the end of the war, the SS made great efforts to destroy what remained of the camp, burn the archives, and murder all the people they referred to as the "Bearers of Secrets". However, they did not manage to destroy everything; evidence, witnesses, and memory still exist. Auschwitz is a legible and unambiguous symbol of human suffering that is extremely moving for anyone who visits its premises. It is no accident that more and more people visit the former camp every year. Only in 2007, more than 1.2 million people came to learn about what remains of the most horrible secret of the Third Reich.

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