Auschwitz played a central role in the " Final Solution," the Nazi plan to murder the Jews of Europe. The Nazis deported Jews from nearly every European country to the Auschwitz II (Birkenau) killing center in occupied Poland., Auschwitz, also known as Auschwitz-Birkenau, opened in 1940 and was the largest of the Nazi concentration and death camps. Located in southern Poland, Auschwitz initially served as a detention , Auschwitz was a concentration and extermination camp in German-occupied Poland operated by the Nazi SS from 1940 to 1945. Around 1.1 million people died at the Auschwitz complex from overwork, malnutrition, disease, and in the gas chambers., Auschwitz, Nazi Germany’s largest concentration camp and extermination camp. Located near the town of Oswiecim in southern Poland, Auschwitz was actually three camps in one: a prison camp, an extermination camp, and a slave-labor camp., On January 27, 1945, the Red Army entered the gates of Auschwitz in horrified awe of what they encountered. As they marched through the snow, they encountered stacks of frozen corpses and 7,000 frightened, exhausted prisoners in the barracks., The Auschwitz Concentration Camp ("Auschwitz" is the German spelling of "Oswiecim") quickly became the largest Nazi concentration and death camp. By the time of its liberation, Auschwitz had grown to include three large camps and 45 sub-camps..