Camp de concentration d'Auschwitz, Auschwitz camps

Concentration Camp of Auschwitz was the largest of the Nazi German extermination camps, along with a number of concentration camps, comprising three main camps and 40 to 50 sub-camps. Auschwitz is the German name for the nearby town of Oswiecim (pronounced oz vay chim), situated about 60 kilometers (37 miles) west of Kraków in southern Poland. Beginning in 1940, Nazi Germany built several concentration camps and an extermination camp in the area, which at the time was under German occupation. The Auschwitz camps were a major element in the perpetration of the Holocaust; at least 1.1 million people were killed there, of whom over 90% were Jews - Poland