International Holocaust Remembrance Day is marked every year on 27 January, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau in German-occupied Poland, where around 1.5 million people, most of them Jews, were murdered by the Nazis between 1940 and 1945.
Identification snapshots of Auschwitz prisoners that were found in the camp after its liberationYad Vashem Photo Archives
Set up in 1940 by occupying Nazi forces near the town of Oswiecim – in what is now southern Poland but was then German-occupied territory – as a labour camp for Poles, Auschwitz gradually became the centrepiece of Nazi Party dictator Adolf Hitler's "final solution" plan to exterminate the Jews.
Men, women and children – mostly Jewish but also Gypsies, Russians, Poles and gay people from all over Nazi-occupied Europe – were transported to Auschwitz in overcrowded cattle trains. Many died of hunger and suffocation during the journey which usually lasted days.
When they arrived at the camp, they faced a selection process. SS doctors decided which prisoners were suitable for labour and which should be killed immediately. The elderly and women with children were killed in the camp's gas chambers using the pesticide Zyklon B.
The scale of the industrialised killing at the camp, the cruelty of the guards and the pseudo-medical experiments conducted on prisoners by Nazi doctors have made Auschwitz synonymous with a coldly efficient genocide and total degradation of humanity.
Most of the following images come from the Auschwitz Album, the only surviving visual evidence of the process leading to the mass murder at Auschwitz-Birkenau. It is a unique document and was donated to Yad Vashem by Lilly Jacob-Zelmanovic Meier. The photos were taken at the end of May or beginning of June 1944, either by Ernst Hofmann or by Bernhard Walter, two SS men whose task was to take ID photos and fingerprints of the inmates (not of the Jews who were sent directly to the gas chambers). The photos in the album show the entire process except for the killing itself.
Men, women and children step out of the overcrowded train, traumatised and fearful after their horrendous journey. They have no clue that they have just been delivered to a death factory and that few of them will survive. From the top of the train, the photographers give a broad view of the platform. Along the horizon, on the left and right, we can see the buildings of Crematoria II and III with their chimneysFrom the Auschwitz Album, courtesy of Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance CentreA photo of the selection of Hungarian Jews on the ramp at Auschwitz-II in May or June 1944From the Auschwitz Album, courtesy of Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance CentreMen, women and children on the Birkenau arrival platform known as the "ramp". The Jews were removed from the deportation trains onto the ramp where they faced a selection process - most of them were sent immediately to their deaths, while others were sent to slave labour. The arriving Jews stand in front of the railroad cars, awaiting the Germans' orders. Some of them notice the photographer and look curiously into the cameraFrom the Auschwitz Album, courtesy of Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance CentreJewish women and children on the selection platformFrom the Auschwitz Album, courtesy of Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance CentreThe selection process carried out by SS doctors and wardens took place twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, as train after train unloaded its human cargo. Most Jews were sent immediately to their death. A SS physician is seen here "examining" the health of the Jew standing before him. The woman in the forefront has been named as Geza Lajtos from BudapestFrom the Auschwitz Album, courtesy of Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance CentreJewish women who had been selected for slave labourFrom the Auschwitz Album, courtesy of Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance CentreThe work of sorting the possessions that the Jews brought with them to Auschwitz was done by Jewish prisoners who were forced to collect the packages and sort the items that would then be sent to the Reich. By the time the sorting was completed, most of the previous owners were already dead.From the Auschwitz Album, courtesy of Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance CentreA view of the endless bags and suitcases being collected and sortedFrom the Auschwitz Album, courtesy of Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance CentreJewish mothers and children forced walk to the gas chambers, past the barracks and the electrified barbed wire. The undressing rooms of the gas chambers were not sufficient for the masses of Hungarian Jews who arrived daily in the summer of 1944. They therefore had to wait until the undressing rooms were ready to absorb them. The common waiting place was the grove closest to the crematorium.From the Auschwitz Album, courtesy of Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance CentreMay 1944: Children and an old woman are photographed on the way to the death barracks at Auschwitz-BirkenauFrom the Auschwitz Album, courtesy of Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance CentreJews who were classified as "not fit for work" waiting in a grove outside Crematorium IV before they were to be gassed. At this point, the Jews were exhausted and in a state of shock from the horrors of the journey and the selection process that they had just endured. The vast majority had no idea what fate awaited them. These were the last relatively peaceful moments together, before being driven into the gas chambers and murdered.From the Auschwitz Album, courtesy of Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance CentreJewish women walk towards the gas chambersFrom the Auschwitz Album, courtesy of Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance Centre
Bodies waiting to be burned in an outdoor fire pit. This is one of four blurred photographs taken secretly in August 1944 inside Auschwitz. The images were taken by an inmate usually named only as Alex, a Jewish prisoner from Greece who was a member of the Sonderkommando – inmates forced to work in and around the gas chambersPublic domain
Those who survived the selection process were stripped of their clothes, belongings and identity, and had a number tattooed on their arm. They were issued with striped uniforms and marched to rows of accommodation blocks to begin their lives in the camp.
Living in vastly overcrowded barracks, prisoners survived on extremely low food rations. "Buna-suppe" – a watery soup – was served as a minimal supplement to endure the intolerable working conditions. Prisoners performed various kinds of labour, inside and outside the camp boundaries, working 11 hours a day.
Jewish women prisoners in front of the barracksFrom the Auschwitz Album, courtesy of Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance CentreJewish women prisoners with shaved heads walk inside the women's camp, wearing the standard prison uniform. On the left, a SS man watches them.From the Auschwitz Album, courtesy of Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance CentreJewish men who had been selected for slave labour, with striped uniforms and shaved headsFrom the Auschwitz Album, courtesy of Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance Centre
A picture taken in April 1945 depicting the Auschwitz concentration-camp gate, with the inscription 'Arbeit macht frei'AFP
The Auschwitz II-Birkenau, as seen here in a breakdown and timeline, was built to ease congestion in the main camp
An aerial photo of Auschwitz I taken on 25 August 1944 showing a line of new arrivals being registered. It also shows the location of a gas chamber, crematorium and execution wallUS National Archives
In mid-January 1945, as Soviet forces approached the Auschwitz concentration camp complex, the SS units began to evacuate prisoners from the camp, in an attempt to delete the evidence. Nearly 60,000 prisoners were marched west from Auschwitz I, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Monowitz. In below freezing temperatures, prisoners, mostly wearing little more than thin uniforms and wooden clogs, were forced to make their way through several feet of snow. Anyone who lagged behind or collapsed was shot. As many as 15,000 prisoners died during the evacuation marches from execution, starvation or exposure.
Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviet Red Army on 27 January 1945. Around 200,000 inmates survived.
Children behind a barbed-wire fence at the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz as it is liberated by the Red ArmyKeystone/GettyChildren who survived Auschwitz showing their tattooed identification numbersReutersSoviet soldiers interviewing some of the prisoners they liberated in January 1945ReutersA picture taken in April 1945 at Dachau concentration camp showing a young man checking the numbers tattooed on the arms of Jewish prisoners coming from AuschwitzAFPPrisoners who survived the Auschwitz death camp in their barracks shortly after the camp was liberatedReutersSome of the prisoners who survived the Nazi Auschwitz death camp as they are being liberatedReuters
The body of a female prisoner lying in the snow when Auschwitz was liberated by the Russians in January 1945Reuters
Bodies of prisoners are seen lying in the Nazi Auschwitz death camp shortly after it was liberatedReuters
The 73rd anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp is commemorated every year on 27 January, as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
