Auschwitz concentration camp (German: Konzentrationslager Auschwitz, also KZ Auschwitz [kɔntsɛntʁaˈtsi̯oːnsˌlaːɡɐ ˈʔaʊʃvɪts]) was a network of German Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II. It consisted of Auschwitz I (the original camp), Auschwitz II–Birkenau (a combination concentration/extermination camp), Auschwitz III–Monowitz (a labor camp to staff an IG Farben factory), and 45 satellite camps.

Auschwitz I was first constructed to hold Polish political prisoners, who began to arrive in May 1940. The first extermination of prisoners took place in September 1941, and Auschwitz II–Birkenau went on to become a major site of the Nazi "Final Solution to the Jewish question". From early 1942 until late 1944, transport trains delivered Jews to the camp's gas chambers from all over German-occupied Europe, where they were killed with the pesticide Zyklon B. At least 1.1 million prisoners died at Auschwitz, around 90 percent of them Jewish; approximately 1 in 6 Jews killed in the Holocaust died at the camp. Others deported to Auschwitz included 150,000 Poles, 23,000 Romani and Sinti, 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war, 400 Jehovah's Witnesses, and tens of thousands of others of diverse nationalities, including an unknown number of homosexuals. Many of those not killed in the gas chambers died of starvation, forced labor, infectious diseases, individual executions, and medical experiments.

Auschwitz, in English, commonly refers to the Auschwitz concentration camp complex built by Nazi Germany during World War II.

Auschwitz may also refer to:

See also

Auschwitz is a 2011 German drama film directed by Uwe Boll.

Plot

The film attempts to depict the harsh reality of the process inside the Auschwitz concentration camp by using brutal imagery. Book-ended by documentary footage as well as interviews with German teenagers about what they know about the Holocaust, Boll's intention is to show viewers just how depraved and sadistic life in the camp was.

Cast

Production

Boll shot the film in 2010 from February to March in Zagreb, Croatia.Auschwitz was filmed on the set of BloodRayne: The Third Reich.

Release

The film premiered on 13 February 2011 in Berlin. A number of critics boycotted the release "for being 'too gruesome'".

Boll also filed a lawsuit against the Berlin International Film Festival (the Berlinale) in 2011 as he objected to paying the €125 entry fee, stating "I don't believe the Berlinale handles all films fairly. Kosslick has his deals with the major studios and invites his old pals from the Filmstiftung days. There isn't fair competition".