Backgrounder: Auschwitz Concentration Camp: testimony to Holocaust

The Soviet army liberated the Auschwitz Concentration Camp 70 years ago, and the anniversary will be commemorated on Jan. 27.

The following is a brief introduction of the notorious concentration camp, where about 1.5 million people were brutally massacred in poisonous chambers.

The Auschwitz Concentration Camp was established by the German Nazis on April 27, 1940, in the suburbs of the Polish city of Oswiecim, 300 km from the capital Warsaw. Comprising over 40 camps and sub-camps, it was the biggest of the more than 1,000 concentration camps built by the Third Reich during World War II.

Historians estimated that between 1.1 million and 1.5 million people were deported from Europe to Auschwitz from 1940 to 1945, and the overwhelming majority of them died in the camp. The victims were mainly Jews from around Europe, Gypsies, Poles and Soviet prisoners of war.

At its peak, the camp was composed of three main parts.

Auschwitz I detained political prisoners, prisoners of war, Jews and Gypsies; Auschwitz II, where the majority of the victims were murdered, has the apparatus of mass extermination. Auschwitz III was a major producer of synthetic rubber and fuel gasoline for the Nazis. It also supervised coal mining and cement production in some other Auschwitz sub-camps.

Medical laboratories and clinic cells were built where experiments were carried out on living human beings. The Nazis also built large gas chambers, crematories and morgues. Around 6,000 corpses were burned everyday in the camp in 1944. Before the bodies were burned, their golden teeth were taken by the Nazis, who also stripped human skin to make lampshades and cut women's hair to weave blankets.

When the Soviet army liberated the camp on Jan. 27, 1945, they found about 7,000 survivors, including 130 children.

The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum was created on July 2, 1947, on the grounds of two extant parts of the Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau concentration camps.

The site of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp was listed as one of UNESCO world heritage sites in 1979.

In 1996, former German President Roman Herzog proclaimed Jan. 27 the Day of Remembrance for Victims of Nazism in an effort to stress the importance of vigilance toward intolerance and hate.

On Nov. 1, 2005, the United Nations adopted a resolution to designate Jan. 27 as the international Holocaust Memorial Day in memory of the victims of the Holocaust. Memorial events are held by the UN on the day annually. Endi