When it comes to the Holocaust, and its attendant concentration and extermination camps, the names most commonly resonating in our minds are those such as; Auschwitz-Birkenau, Buchenwald, Dachau, or Treblinka.
That said, there were many other camps that played a crucial role in the mass murder of millions of human beings. Many times their role in the Nazi camp system is often overlooked, but they were no less important in terms of perpetrating one of history's greatest crimes against humanity.
Polish authorities have ordered a new investigation into the crimes against humanity committed at the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. The Germans murdered an estimated 1.5 million people at Auschwitz, located near Krakow, until the Red Army libereated the camp late in January 1945.
The crimes committed at Auschwitz were central to Nazi Germany's plans to create lebensraum in Eastern Europe - to be done mostly at the expense of the Slavic and Jewish people, though hundreds of thousands of Roma and other peoples characterized as "sub-human" were also murdered.
