Between January 26 and 27, 1945, survivors at the Auschwitz camp in Poland witnessed the arrival of Soviet troops who came to free them from the horrors of the Nazi regime. The camp, established in 1940 in Oswiecim, was part of the German occupation during World War II. The camp, consisting of three main parts – Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, and Auschwitz III-Monowitz, was where over 1.1 million people perished, with the majority being Jews.
The Red Army soldiers liberated the few thousand prisoners left behind by the Germans on January 27, 1945. According to the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial and museum, historians estimate that around 1 million Jews, 70 thousand Poles, 21 thousand Roma and Sinti, 15 thousand Soviet Prisoners of War, and 12 thousand prisoners of other ethnic backgrounds including Czechs, Belorussians, Yugoslavians, French, Germans, and Austrians perished in Auschwitz during its less than five years of existence.
The liberation of Auschwitz marked the end of one of the most tragic chapters of human history, where millions of innocent lives were lost to the cruelty and brutality of the Nazi regime. The survivors who witnessed the Soviet troops arriving at the camp were finally free from the horrifying conditions they endured, but the memory of those who perished in Auschwitz lives on as a poignant reminder of the atrocities committed during the Holocaust.
