Auschwitz concentration camp was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschwitz I, the main camp in Oświęcim; Auschwitz II-Birkenau, a concentration and extermination camp with gas chambers; Auschwitz III-Monowitz, a labor camp for the chemical conglomerate IG Farben; and dozens of subcamps. The camps became a major site of the Nazis' Final Solution to the Jewish Question.
After Germany sparked World War II by invading Poland in September 1939, the Schutzstaffel converted Auschwitz I, an army barracks, into a prisoner-of-war camp.
The initial transport of political detainees to Auschwitz consisted nearly solely of Poles to whom the camp was initially established. The bulk of inmates were Polish for the first two years.
In May 1940, German criminals brought to the camp as functionaries, established the camp's reputation for sadism. Prisoners were beaten, tortured, and executed for the most trivial reasons. The first gassings—of Soviet and Polish prisoners—took place in block 11 of Auschwitz I around August 1941.