Note: The Icon recently invited members of the Bluffton University Communication 105 class to submit material for publication. The following is the first of a four-part series of "opinion pieces" by Whitney Zumberger, a member of the class. We invite viewer comments on this series.

By Whitney Zumberger
The Auschwitz concentration camp complex was the largest of its kind established by the Nazi regime. It included three main camps, all of which held incarcerated prisoners of war at forced labor, or death.
Note: The Icon recently invited members of the Bluffton University Communication 105 class to submit material for publication. The following is the first of a four-part series of "opinion pieces" by Whitney Zumberger, a member of the class. We invite viewer comments on this series.

The Auschwitz concentration camp complex was subordinate to the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps. Until March 1942, the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps was an agency of the SS Main Office, and, from 1941, of the SS Operations Main Office.

From March 1942 until the liberation of Auschwitz, the Inspectorate was subordinate to the SS Economic-Administrative Main Office. Trains arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau frequently with transports of Jews from virtually every country in Europe occupied by or allied to Germany.

These transports arrived from 1942 to the end of summer 1944.
The breakdown of deportations from individual countries, given in approximate number from each places such as Hungary 426,000, Poland: 300,000, France: 69,000, Netherlands: 60,000, Greece: 55,000, Bohemia and Moravia: 46,000, Slovakia: 27,000, Belgium: 25,000, Yugoslavia: 10,000, Italy: 7,500, Norway: 690, and others 34,000.

On Oct. 7, 1944, several hundred prisoners assigned to Crematorium IV at Auschwitz-Birkenau rebelled after learning that they were going to be killed. During the uprising, the prisoners killed three guards and blew up the crematorium and adjacent gas chamber.