First Polish transport to Auschwitz 77 yrs ago
June 14 marks the 77th anniversary of the first transport of Polish prisoners to the World War II Nazi-German Auschwitz death camp. The date of the Polish people arrival at Auschwitz is considered the beginning of the camp's operation.
On June 14, 1940 728 Polish political prisoners were transported to Auschwitz (see: NOTE) from a prison in Tarnow, south Poland. In the group were Polish soldiers caught while attempting to flee to Hungary, resistance members, students, school youth and several Polish Jews.
Two hundred and ninety-eight of the group survived the war, 272 died and 158 went missing. Today June 14 is Nazi-German Concentration Camp Victim National Memorial Day in Poland.
The Auschwitz Museum has launched an online exhibition devoted to the first Polish prisoners in Auschwitz. On display are official photographs of the prisoners taken before their departure to the camp, as well as the personal data of some of them.
In Poland June 14th marks the National Remembrance Day for Victims of the German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camps.
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NOTE: The Auschwitz concentration camp was built by the Nazis in 1940 as an incarceration site for Polish nationals, but soon began to receive transports of Jewish descendants from all over Europe. Enlarged by its Birkenau section in 1942, Auschwitz became the main site of the Jewish Holocaust. Nazi Germany killed at least 1.1 million people in the camp, including hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens, mainly of Jewish descent.
The camp's main gate with its prisoner-made Arbeit Macht Frei (work makes free) sign is one of the camp's most recognisable elements. (PAP)
