Honor Auschwitz Liberation Anniversary

1940, in the suburbs of Oswiecim, a Polish city that was annexed to the Third Reich by the Nazis; its name was changed to Auschwitz; and WHEREAS, The direct reason for the establishment of the camp was the fact that mass arrests of Poles were increasing beyond the capacity of existing local prisons; the first transport of Poles reached KL Auschwitz from Tarnow prison on June 14, 1940; and WHEREAS, Initially, Auschwitz was to be one more concentration camp of the type that the Nazis had been setting up since the early 1930s; it functioned in this role throughout its existence, even when, beginning in 1942, it also became the largest of the extermination centers where the Endlosung der Judenfrage, the final solution to the Jewish question - the Nazi plan to murder European Jews, was carried out; and WHEREAS, The first and oldest camp was the so-called main camp, later also known as Auschwitz I which was established on the grounds and in the buildings of pre-war Polish barracks; the number of prisoners fluctuated around 15,000, sometimes rising above 20,000; and WHEREAS, The second part was the Birkenau camp which held over

90,000 prisoners in 1944, also known as Auschwitz II; this was the largest part of the Auschwitz complex; and WHEREAS, The Nazis began building it in 1941 on the site of the Village of Brzezinka, three kilometers from Oswiecim; and WHEREAS, The Polish civilian population was evicted and their houses confiscated and demolished; the greater part of the apparatus of mass extermination was built in Birkenau; it was here the majority of the victims were murdered; and WHEREAS, More than 40 sub-camps, exploiting the prisoners as slave laborers, were founded, mainly at various sorts of German industrial plants and farms, between 1942 and 1944; and WHEREAS, The largest of them was called Buna/Monowitz, with 10,000 prisoners, and was opened by the camp administration in 1942 on the grounds of the Buna-Werke synthetic rubber and fuel plant six kilometers from the Auschwitz camp; and WHEREAS, In November of 1943, the Buna sub-camp became the seat of the commandant of the third part of the camp, Auschwitz III, to which some other Auschwitz sub-camps were subordinated; and WHEREAS, The Germans isolated all the camps and sub-camps from the outside world and surrounded them with barbed wire fencing; all contact with the outside world was forbidden; and WHEREAS, However, the area administered by the commandant and patrolled by the SS garrison went beyond the grounds enclosed by barbed wire; it included an additional area of approximately 40 square kilometers, known as Interessengebiet, the interest zone, which lay around the Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau camps; and WHEREAS, The local population, the Poles and Jews living near the newly-founded camp, were evicted in 1940-1941, and approximately 1,000 of their homes were demolished; and WHEREAS, Other buildings were assigned to officers and non-commissioned officers from the SS garrison, who sometimes came here with their whole families; and WHEREAS, The pre-war industrial facilities in the zone, taken over by Germans, were expanded in some cases and, in others, demolished to make way for new plants associated with the military requirements of the Third Reich; and WHEREAS, The camp administration used the zone around the camp for auxiliary camp technical support, workshops, storage, offices, and barracks for the SS; and WHEREAS, The people of New York must educate future generations to promote understanding of the dangers of intolerance in order to prevent similar injustices from happening again; now, therefore, be it RESOLVED, That this Legislative Body pause in its deliberations to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau on January 27, 2020; and be it further RESOLVED, That a copy of this Resolution, suitably engrossed, be transmitted to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Foundation in New York City.