photo #8963408

"On 27 January 1945, soldiers of the Soviet Red Army liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau in occupied Poland, uncovering the largest and most lethal extermination camp created by Nazi Germany. By the time of its liberation, more than one million people—overwhelmingly Jews, along with Roma, Polish prisoners, and others—had been murdered there through gassing, starvation, forced labor, medical experiments, and execution. In the days before the Soviet advance, SS authorities evacuated approximately 60,000 prisoners on brutal death marches toward camps inside Germany. Those left behind were the sick, the exhausted, and children—people too weak to walk. When Soviet troops entered the camp, they found about 7,000 survivors in a state of extreme physical collapse. Many were skeletal, suffering from frostbite, disease, and severe malnutrition. Some could not stand, speak, or even comprehend that they had been freed. The liberators encountered unmistakable evidence of mass murder. Gas chambers and crematoria lay partially destroyed, as the SS had attempted to erase traces of their crimes. Warehouses were filled with personal belongings seized from victims: hundreds of thousands of shoes, piles of eyeglasses, suitcases labeled with names, and bales of human hair. These objects bore silent witness to the scale and industrial nature of the killing. Soviet medical teams and local volunteers immediately began emergency relief efforts. Field hospitals were established, food was distributed carefully, and survivors were given shelter and medical treatment. Despite these efforts, many died in the weeks following liberation due to irreversible damage caused by prolonged starvation and abuse. Never Forget . Holocaust Remembrance Day