Beginnings of Auschwitz - Lecture of Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz, Research Center of Auschwitz Memorial

At the end of November or early December 1939, in the office of the Higher SS and Police Leader in Breslau (Wrocław), it was proposed that a "quarantine camp" (Quarantänelager) be created in the former Polish military barracks in Oświęcim (at that time the name was used alternately with its new Germanized version—Auschwitz). The camp was to be organized on the model of the state concentration camps (staatliche Konzentrationslager) and was to temporarily hold prisoners, political for the most part, from the Kattowitz District before they were transferred to the camps in Dachau, Sachsenhausen, or Buchenwald.

Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz, the head of the Research Center of the Auschwitz Memorial speaks about the beginnings of the German Nazi Auschwitz camp, first transports of Poles and gradual development of the camp complex.