On 27 January 1945, the Soviet army entered Auschwitz concentration camp and liberated around 7,000 prisoners still alive in the Main Camp, Birkenau, and Monowitz. For years, this complex had served as a killing center for Nazi Germany, where over 1.1 million people had been murdered, mostly Jews. The prisoners who were mostly ill and dying greeted them as true liberators. This historic moment marked the end of the deadliest phase of the Holocaust, which saw millions of Jews and others brutally killed by Nazi Germany between 1940 and 1945.

By January 1945, with the approaching Red Army, the SS began evacuating Auschwitz, forcing nearly 60,000 prisoners to march west. Thousands had already been killed in the days before the death marches began. Before and soon after 27 January, Soviet soldiers also liberated about 500 prisoners in the Auschwitz sub-camps, including Stara Kuźnia, Blachownia Śląska, Świętochłowice, Wesoła, Libiąż, Jawiszowice, and Jaworzno. However, it was in the Main Camp, Birkenau, and Monowitz, that the most significant liberation took place.

The Soviet army obtained detailed information about Auschwitz only after the liberation of Cracow, hence the delay in reaching the gates of Auschwitz until 27 January 1945. Over 230 Soviet soldiers, including the commander of the 472nd regiment, Col. Siemen Lvovich Besprozvanny, died in combat while liberating the Main Camp, Birkenau, Monowitz, and the town of Oświęcim. They are buried at the municipal cemetery in Oświęcim.

When the Soviet soldiers arrived at Auschwitz, what they witnessed was unimaginable. The camp authorities had murdered over 1.1 million people, almost all of them Jews, and housed them in inhumane conditions. Soviet soldiers discovered the corpses of about 600 prisoners who had been shot by the withdrawing SS or who had succumbed to exhaustion in the Main Camp and Birkenau.

The survivors were mainly middle-aged adults or children younger than 15. Soviet soldiers also found 370,000 men's suits, 837,000 articles of women's clothing, and seven tons of human hair. The discoveries were a poignant reminder of the atrocities that had taken place within the camp walls.

Additionally, at Monowitz camp, there were about 800 survivors, who were also liberated on 27 January 1945, by the Soviet 60th Army, part of the 1st Ukrainian Front. Battle-hardened Russian soldiers, who were used to seeing death in battle, were shocked by the Nazi's treatment of prisoners at Auschwitz. Red Army general Vasily Petrenko remarked, "I, who saw people dying every day, was shocked by the Nazis' indescribable hatred toward the inmates who had turned into living skeletons."

Top photo: Wearing adult-size prisoner jackets, child survivors of Auschwitz are led by relief workers and Soviet soldiers through a narrow passage between two barbed-wire fences. Standing next to the nurse are Miriam and Eva Mozes. Behind them (wearing white hats) are Judy and Lea Csenghery. Both sets of sisters are twins. From the Soviet film of the liberation of Auschwitz, taken by the film unit of the First Ukrainian Front. Photo Source: Wytwornia Filmow Dokumentalnych i Fabularnych. Copyright: Public Domain.

Center photo: Inmates at the gate to the Auschwitz concentration camp, January 1945. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park. National Archives and Records Administration, College Park. Copyright: Public Domain. Click to enlarge.

Bottom photo: Auschwitz today. Source: War History Network license. Click to enlarge.

As soon as the Soviet Army arrived, assisted by the Polish Red Cross, they immediately began offering help to the survivors by organizing medical care and food. Red Army hospitals cared for 4,500 survivors. The Soviet army also made efforts to document the camp, preserving evidence of the atrocities that had taken place within the walls. The liberating forces, assisted by the Polish Red Cross, worked tirelessly to help survivors, and Red Army hospitals cared for 4,500 of them. As late as June 1945, there were still 300 survivors at the camp who were too weak to be moved.

Red Army soldiers discovered that over 230 of their comrades had died in combat while liberating the Main Camp, Birkenau, Monowitz, and the surrounding towns. Among them was Col. Siemen Lvovich Besprozvanny, the commander of the 472nd regiment. The majority of the fallen soldiers were buried at the municipal cemetery in Oświęcim. Monowitz camp, where about 800 survivors were found, was also liberated by the Soviet 60th Army, part of the 1st Ukrainian Front.

Elie Wiesel, a distinguished survivor of the Holocaust, was a literary luminary, a professor, a political activist, and a Nobel laureate. Wiesel authored an impressive collection of 57 books, primarily written in French and English. His hallmark work, Night, eloquently depicts the atrocities and anguish he experienced as a Jewish prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps during the Holocaust. Wiesel's account serves as a poignant reminder of the immense suffering that millions of people endured during one of the world's most heinous crimes against humanity. His literary legacy has not only earned him critical acclaim but also enabled greater understanding of the Holocaust and its impacts on the world.

Wiesel's experiences in Auschwitz concentration camp and his subsequent memoir, Night, have been widely recognized as some of the most powerful accounts of the Holocaust. Born and raised in a small Romanian town, Wiesel and his family were rounded up and deported to Auschwitz in May 1944, where they were immediately separated and sent to different ends of the camp. Wiesel was just 15 years old.

Despite being subjected to the most unimaginable horrors, Wiesel and his father managed to stay alive for several months, working as slave laborers. However, as the war drew to a close and Allied forces drew nearer, the Nazis stepped up their campaign of murder, and Wiesel's father died of dysentery and exhaustion just weeks before the camp was liberated.

Night recounts Wiesel's experiences in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, where he was sent after being transferred from Auschwitz. The book is characterized by its sparse, fragmented prose, which reflects Wiesel's increasing detachment from the world around him as his faith in humanity is shattered. Wiesel's experiences in the camps were marked by brutality, starvation, disease, and the constant threat of execution.

Despite the harrowing nature of his experiences, Wiesel's book is not just a catalogue of horror. Instead, it is a deeply philosophical work that explores the nature of faith, memory, and survival. Wiesel himself has spoken of his struggle to reconcile the atrocities he witnessed with his belief in God and has said that his experiences in the camps have left him with a sense of moral responsibility to bear witness to the events of the Holocaust. Night has been widely praised for its literary merit and its contribution to the canon of Holocaust literature. 

Bibliography

Dwork, Deborah, Robert J. Pelt, and Robert J. Pelt. Auschwitz Updated Edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2002.

Gilbert, Martin. The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War. London: Henry Holt and Company, 1987.

Rees, Laurence. Auschwitz: A New History. New York: PublicAffairs, 2005.

Wachsmann, Nikolaus. KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015.

Wiesel, Elie. Night. London: Macmillan, 2006.

Video: The Liberation of Auschwitz: Bringing Freedom to the Death Camp  (more YouTube results)  |  Key website: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum  |  Photo album by Staff member Erwin Leydekkers: Auschwitz modern day