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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 center for political prisoners. However, it evolved into a network of camps where Jewish people and other perceived enemies of the Nazi state were exterminated, often in gas chambers, or used as slave labor. Some prisoners were also subjected to barbaric medical experiments led by Josef Mengele (1911-79). During World War II (1939-45), more than 1 million people, by some accounts, lost their lives at Auschwitz. In January 1945, with the...

Germany's Constitutional Court has ruled that a 96-year-old German must go to jail over his role in mass murders committed at the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz during World War Two, refusing to overturn a lower court ruling. Oskar Groening, known as the "bookkeeper of Auschwitz" for his job counting cash taken from the camp's victims, was sentenced to four years' jail in 2015, but wrangling over his health and age have delayed the start of his sentence. The Constitutional Court rejected the argument by Groening's lawyers that imprisonment at his advanced age would violate his right to life, adding...

Jewish groups have lashed out at 'unbelievably crass' selfies taken by young British tourists at a former Nazi death camp where over a million people were murdered. The photographs, which appeared on social media, show visitors smiling and posing at Auschwitz-Birkenau museum in Poland.

On October 23, 1943, the next train with the Jews – about 1,700 people -- arrived at the death camp (Konzentrationslager) Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Unlike all other trains arriving at Auschwitz, it was a real passenger train, not a cattle train. Also, none of their arriving Jews wore the yellow Star of David on their clothes. Arriving Jews were greeted warmly by the “representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Third Reich” Franz Hössler, who announced that this is their last stop before crossing the border with Switzerland, from where they would travel to different countries of South America....

Only 59 percent of German school children aged 14 or older know that Auschwitz-Birkenau was a Nazi death camp, a study released on Thursday shows. The study by the Körber Institute found that less than half (47 percent) of 14 to 16 year olds had heard of the death camp where over one million people were murdered between 1941-1945. Their peers aged 17 or over were more likely to have heard of Auschwitz, but three in ten still didn’t know what it was. In the population as a whole, 86 percent of Germans know what the camp's purpose was. “We...

Faces of Nazi guards who helped oversee the death of more than a million Jews at Auschwitz revealed as Poland publishes details of 10,000 of Adolf’s men The names of almost 10,000 Nazi SS commanders and guards who helped in the extermination of more than a million Jews at Auschwitz have been posted online for the first time. The huge searchable database, which includes hundreds of photographs, has been uploaded by Poland's Institute of National Remembrance (INR) in an attempt to dispel false claims that many of the guards were Polish. The list of 9,686 names are predominantly German and...

OSWIECIM, Poland (JTA) — I did a shameful thing on my first visit 20 years ago to the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. In a guestbook outside an Auschwitz museum exhibit featuring information on 70,000 Polish non-Jews who were murdered here, I downplayed the significance of their deaths by writing: “Your pain is no credential here, it’s just the shadow of my wound.” Those words — a quote from a Leonard Cohen song that I abused as a high school student from Israel while touring the camp that my grandmother had survived — resurfaced in my consciousness last month...

After Auschwitz, multiculturalism and moral relativism, are obscene -- Inclusive diversity is a weak substitute, and sometimes it takes a visit to Auschwitz to understand why In November of last year, Canada’s new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a speech in London England, setting out his view of Canada’s values: “Compassion, acceptance, and trust; diversity and inclusion—these are the things that have made Canada strong and free”, he noted, and continued: “We have a responsibility—to ourselves and to the world—to show that inclusive diversity is a strength, and a force that can vanquish intolerance, radicalism and hate.”

A Pennsylvania man who claimed for years to have escaped from Auschwitz, met track and field star Jesse Owens and Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, confessed on Friday that he had fabricated the entire story. “I am writing today to apologize publicly for harm caused to anyone because of my inserting myself into the descriptions of life in Auschwitz,” Joseph Hirt, 86, wrote in a letter sent to his local paper, LNP, this week. “I was not a prisoner there. I did not intend to lessen or overshadow the events which truly happened there by falsely claiming to have been personally...

The Israeli Left has a serious flag problem. Well, a problem with the Israeli flag to be precise. The one with the six-pointed blue star. Not the ISIS flag. The Left intensely dislikes people who wave Israeli flags, although I think it would be okay with those radical anti-Trump protesters waving Mexican and Iranian flags. At the Israeli Left's own rallies, like one widely reported recently, one sees oodles of Stalinist red flags, lots of PLO flags, and sometimes one may see Hamas flags, but no Israeli flags. In a few famous cases, the Left's contempt for the flag goes...

Croatia's Jews will boycott the country's official ceremony honoring the victims of the pro-Nazi regime of World War II, accusing the current government of doing little against what they say is a resurgence of neo-Naziism. The main Jewish agency says it will hold its own commemoration "in line with the Jewish tradition." ... Every April, Croatia honors the victims of the Jasenovac death camp, operated by the pro-Nazi Ustasha regime of World War II. The camp is known as Croatia's own Auschwitz. Historians still debate the exact number of people murdered in the camp, with some saying the total is...

A 94-year-old former SS sergeant admitted in court Friday that he had served as an Auschwitz death camp guard, apologizing to Nazi Holocaust survivors looking on in a German courtroom that even though he was aware Jews were being gassed and their corpses burned, he did nothing to try to stop it. Reinhold Hanning told the Detmould state court that he had never spoken about his service in Auschwitz from January 1942 to June 1944, even to his family, but wanted to use his trial as an opportunity to set the record straight. "I want to say that it disturbs...

A former Auschwitz guard has died days before his trial in Germany -- dashing the hopes of survivors who wanted to see justice for their dead parents. Ernst Tremmel, who was 93, was a guard at the notorious Nazi concentration camp during the Second World War. He was accused of 1,075 counts of accessory to murder, covering the time he worked at the camp from November 1942 to June 1943.

A man carrying a Donald Trump campaign poster shouted abuse at protesters while he was leaving a rally in Cleveland on Saturday, 12 March. While walking past a group of protesters who were filming at the time the man slowed down and shouted: “Go to Auschwitz, go to f---ing Auschwitz”. Anti-Trump protesters and Trump supporters yelled at one another as supporters left Cleveland’s International Exposition Center after the Republican frontrunner’s rally had finished. At a rally earlier Saturday outside Dayton, Trump was briefly surrounded by Secret Service agents when a man tried to breach the security buffer. He was stopped...

On this date (January 27) in 1945, the Soviet Army liberated Auschwitz. 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 center for political prisoners. However, it evolved into a network of camps where Jewish people and other perceived enemies of the Nazi state were exterminated, often in gas chambers, or used as slave labor. Some prisoners were also subjected to barbaric medical experiments led by Josef Mengele (1911-79). During World War II (1939-45), more than 1 million people, by...

A 95-year-old man who worked as a paramedic at Auschwitz will stand trial next month as an accessory to the murder of 3,681 death camp inmates, a German court announced Monday. Hubert Zafke, accused by prosecutors of serving as an SS sergeant in Hitler’s killing machine, is set to face justice Feb. 29 in Neubrandenburg state court. Zafke was stationed at Auschwitz in 1943 and 1944 and would have been on duty at the notorious death camp when diarist Anne Frank and her family were sent there on Sept. 5, 1944, authorities have said.

Muslim settlers are Europe's New Nazis. They have far higher rates of anti-Semitic views than the native population. And much higher rates of anti-Semitic violence. In fact the flood of "Syrian refugees" can be thought of as a new Nazi invasion of Europe. And while Jews are sometimes the first to suffer in line with the Muslim saying, "First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people", they certainly aren't the last. Here's what the new Nazis are doing to Jews in Holland. Samuel (87) and Diana (86) Blug, two elderly Holocaust survivors, fell victim to a vicious and violent...

<p>Operators of the historical Auschwitz concentration camp site set up misting showers outside prison gates, angering Israeli tourists who were shocked by the insensitivity.</p> <p>Nazis used showers to kill millions of Jewish prisoners during the Holocaust, so modern-day tourists were taken aback when they saw an outdoor sprinkler shower system — installed to cool down summer visitors – on the solemn grounds in Poland, according to the news Web site Ynet.</p>

Auschwitz commandant outraged over Mengele video Rudolph Hoess, family man and commandant of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, has been desperately trying to restore the camp's reputation after some damaging remarks by one of its doctors, Joseph Mengele, were caught on tape and posted online. Dr. Mengele, who oversees medical services at the camp, was recorded casually speaking of a girl who was suffering complications as a result of HitlerCare. The girl, Eva Mozes Kor, complained of fever, trembling, and swollen limbs that resulted from a series of five free government-funded injections. Mengele is seen on the tape laughing off the...

SCENE LAST NIGHT: Less than a mile or so from Chabad Lubavitch's HQ at 770 Eastern Parkway, around 80 Hillary for America supporters gathered at the home of former White House Jewish Liaison Jarrod Bernstein and Hildy Kuryk, currently communications director at Vogue, to hear from the Clinton campaign's senior advisors including manager Robby Mook, vice chairwoman Huma Abedin and finance director Dennis Chang. SPOTTED: Recent Chairman of the Conference of Presidents Bob Sugarman, Obama mega-bundler Sarah Kovner, Tusk Ventures' Seth London, Anya Hoerburger of Intermedia Partners, Samantha Maltzman, Jill Strauss, Samantha Vinograd of Goldman Sachs and formerly at office...