Auschwitz had up to twice as many staff as once thought

Poland says it has names of 9,500 employees of Nazi death camp; information to be used to locate war criminals

Main entrance to Auschwitz (CC BY-SA Tulio Bertorini)
Main entrance to Auschwitz (CC BY-SA Tulio Bertorini)

Polish officials said Friday they had drawn up a list of 9,500 staff members at the Nazi German death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, thousands more than previous estimates.

The individuals all worked at the notorious death camp in occupied Poland between 1940 and 1945, according to the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), which prosecutes Nazi and Stalinist-era war crimes.

“Until now, Nazi staff [at Auschwitz] had been estimated at between 4,000 and 6,500 people,” IPN prosecutor Lukasz Gramza told AFP.

A historian compiled the names for the IPN’s probe into the day-to-day operations of the camp in the southern city of Oswiecim.

The list could be published in about a year.

“I hope it doesn’t take years. We’re in the process of checking whether the individuals on the list are still alive and that’s why it has to remain under wraps for now,” Gramza said.

The IPN will share the list with the German office investigating Nazi war crimes.

About 1.1 million people, around 1 million of whom were European Jews, died at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp between 1940 and 1945.

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