MY TIME IN POLAND / AUSCHWITZ

The Auschwitz concentration camp (Konzentrationslager Auschwitz) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschwitz I, the main camp (Stammlager) in Oświęcim; Auschwitz II–Birkenau, a concentration and extermination camp in Brzezinka three kilometers away; Auschwitz III–Monowitz, a labor camp in Monowice created to staff an IG Farben synthetic-rubber factory; and dozens of other subcamps.[2]

After Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, sparking World War II, the German Schutzstaffel (SS) converted Auschwitz I, an army barracks, to hold Polish political prisoners.[3] The first prisoners, German criminals brought to the camp as functionaries, arrived in May 1940,[4] and the first gassings—of Soviet and Polish prisoners—took place in block 11 of Auschwitz I in or around August 1941. Construction of Auschwitz II–Birkenau began the following month; the camp went on to become a major site of the Nazis' Final Solution to the Jewish Question. From early 1942 until late 1944, freight trains delivered Jews from all over German-occupied Europe to its gas chambers; of the 960,000 Jews who died there, 865,000 were gassed on arrival.[5] Overall, 1.3 million people were deported to the camp, and an estimated 1.1 million died.[6] The figures include 74,000 non-Jewish Poles, 21,000 Roma, 15,000 Soviet POWs, and up to 15,000 other Europeans.[7] Many of those not gassed died of starvation, exhaustion, disease, individual executions, or beatings. Others were killed during medical experiments.

At least 802 prisoners tried to escape, 144 successfully, and on 7 October 1944 two Sonderkommando units, consisting of prisoners assigned to staff the gas chambers, launched a brief but unsuccessful uprising. Only 789 of those who staffed the camp (no more than 15 percent) ever stood trial;[8] several, including camp commandant Rudolf Höss, were executed. The Allies failure to act on early reports of atrocities in the camp by bombing it or its railways remains controversial.

Poland (Polish: Polska [ˈpɔlska] (About this soundlisten)), officially the Republic of Poland (Polish: Rzeczpospolita Polska[c] [ʐɛt͡ʂpɔˈspɔlita ˈpɔlska] (About this soundlisten)), is a country located in Central Europe.[13] It is divided into 16 administrative subdivisions, covering an area of 312,696 square kilometres (120,733 sq mi), and has a largely temperate seasonal climate.[8] With a population of nearly 38.5 million people, Poland is the sixth most populous member state of the European Union.[8] Poland's capital and largest metropolis is Warsaw. Other major cities include Kraków, Łódź, Wrocław, Poznań, Gdańsk, and Szczecin.

Poland is bordered by the Baltic Sea, Lithuania, and Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast to the north, Belarus and Ukraine to the east, Slovakia and the Czech Republic to the south, and Germany to the west.

The history of human activity on Polish soil spans almost 500,000 years. Throughout the Iron Age the area became extensively diverse, with various cultures and tribes settling on the vast Central European Plain. However, it was the Western Polans who dominated the region and gave Poland its name. The establishment of the first Polish state can be traced to AD 966, when Mieszko I,[14] ruler of the realm coextensive with the territory of present-day Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented its longstanding political association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin. This union formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest (over 1,000,000 square kilometres - 400,000 square miles) and most populous countries of 16th and 17th century Europe, with a uniquely liberal political system[15][16] which adopted Europe's first written national constitution, the Constitution of 3 May 1791.

Poland has a developed market and is a regional power in Central Europe, with the largest stock exchange in the East-Central European zone.[20] It has the seventh largest economy by GDP (nominal) in the European Union[21] and the tenth largest in all of Europe.
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MUSIC:
Mid Summer - Broke In Summer
Sleeping At Night - Saturn

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