Auschwitz#
Auschwitz (Oswiecim), town in Poland 50km west of Kraków; became part of Austria in 1772 (the full title of the Habsburgs included that of the Duke of Auschwitz and Zator), returned to Poland in 1918. In 1940 a concentration camp was constructed in A., then expanded to become an extermination camp for Jews in 1941/1942. By the time Soviet troops took the camp on January 27, 1945, 1.5 million people had died there, including tens of thousands of Austrian Jews.