Șimleu Silvaniei ( Romanian pronunciation: [ʃimˌle.u silˈvani.ej] ; Hungarian : Szilágysomlyó , German : Schomlenmarkt ) is a town in Sălaj County , Crișana , Romania with a population of 13,948 people (2021 census). It is located near the ancient Dacian fortress Dacidava .
137-463: Three villages are administered by the town: Bic ( Bükk ), Cehei ( Somlyócsehi ), and Pusta ( Csehipuszta ). Before the Roman conquest of Dacia , Șimleu was a political, social and administrative Dacian centre, of high importance. Seven Dacian fortresses , some with associated settlements, were arranged in an arc shape around the hills of Șimleu. They had a strategic role in supervising the trade along
274-917: A humid continental climate ( Cfb in the Köppen climate classification ). Dacia Dacia ( / ˈ d eɪ ʃ ə / , DAY -shə ; Latin: [ˈd̪aː.ki.a] ) was the land inhabited by the Dacians , its core in Transylvania , stretching to the Danube in the south, the Black Sea in the east, and the Tisza in the west. The Carpathian Mountains were located in the middle of Dacia. It thus roughly corresponds to present-day Romania , as well as parts of Moldova , Bulgaria , Serbia , Hungary , Slovakia , and Ukraine . A Dacian kingdom that united
411-578: A car with a Red Cross symbol that carried the Zyklon B, as well as an SS doctor in case officers were poisoned by mistake. Inmates arriving at night, or who were too weak to walk, were taken by truck. Work on a new railway line and ramp (right) between sectors BI and BII in Auschwitz II, was completed in May 1944 for the arrival of Hungarian Jews between May and early July 1944. The rails led directly to
548-689: A couple of Dacian toponyms in south Poland in the Upper Vistula (Polish: Wisla) river basin: Susudava and Setidava (with a manuscript variant Getidava ). This could have been an "echo" of Burebista's expansion. It seems that this northern expansion of the Dacian language, as far as the Vistula river, lasted until AD 170–180 when the migration of the Vandal Hasdingi pushed out this northern Dacian group. This Dacian group, possibly
685-515: A decisive victory over the Goths. Since at that time Romans were still occupying Roman Dacia it is assumed that the Goths didn't cross the Danube from the Roman province. The Goths who survived their defeat didn't even attempt to escape through Dacia, but through Thrace . At the boundaries of Roman Dacia , Carpi ( Free Dacians ) were still strong enough to sustain five battles in eight years against
822-565: A finger into the water of the washbasin. Under the first is written: " So bist du rein " (like this you are clean), and under the second, " So gehst du ein " (like this you come to a bad end); and lower down, in doubtful French but in Gothic script: " La propreté, c'est la santé " [cleanliness is health]. Prisoners received half a litre of coffee substitute or a herbal tea in the morning, but no food. A second gong heralded roll call, when inmates lined up outside in rows of ten to be counted. No matter
959-606: A gas chamber in bunker 2, and a tour of the building site of Auschwitz III, the new IG Farben plant being constructed at Monowitz . Use of bunkers I and 2 stopped in spring 1943 when the new crematoria were built, although bunker 2 became operational again in May 1944 for the murder of the Hungarian Jews. Bunker I was demolished in 1943 and bunker 2 in November 1944. Plans for crematoria II and III show that both had an oven room 30 by 11.24 m (98.4 by 36.9 ft) on
1096-409: A gassing facility; the windows had been bricked up and its four rooms converted into two insulated rooms, the doors of which said " Zur Desinfektion " ("to disinfection"). A second brick cottage, the "little white house" or bunker 2, was converted and operational by June 1942. When Himmler visited the camp on 17 and 18 July 1942, he was given a demonstration of a selection of Dutch Jews, a mass-murder in
1233-591: A group of Soviet prisoners of war—took place around August 1941. By the end of that year, during what most historians regard as the first phase of the Holocaust, 500,000–800,000 Soviet Jews had been murdered in mass shootings by a combination of German Einsatzgruppen , ordinary German soldiers, and local collaborators. At the Wannsee Conference in Berlin on 20 January 1942, Reinhard Heydrich outlined
1370-549: A group of male prisoners arrived to set up an infirmary in October 1942, their first task, according to researchers from the Auschwitz Museum, was to distinguish the corpses from the women who were still alive. Gisella Perl , a Romanian-Jewish gynecologist and inmate of the women's camp, wrote in 1948: There was one latrine for thirty to thirty-two thousand women and we were permitted to use it only at certain hours of
1507-572: A letter on 12 July 1940, Höss told Glücks that the local population was "fanatically Polish, ready to undertake any sort of operation against the hated SS men". By the end of 1940, the SS had confiscated land around the camp to create a 40-square-kilometer (15 sq mi) "zone of interest" ( Interessengebiet ) patrolled by the SS, Gestapo and local police. By March 1941, 10,900 were imprisoned in the camp, most of them Poles. An inmate's first encounter with Auschwitz, if they were registered and not sent straight to
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#17327907417831644-512: A new fort ( Constantiana Daphne ) was built, and ancient roads were repaired in Oltenia . The Lower Danube again became the empire's northern boundary in 369 at the latest, when Emperor Valens met Athanaric —the head of the Goths—in a boat in the middle of the river because the latter had taken an oath "never to set foot on Roman soil". Although Eastern Roman emperors made annual payments to
1781-550: A new women's camp ( Frauenkonzentrationslager or FKL) in Auschwitz II. This consisted at first of 15 brick and 15 wooden barracks in sector ( Bauabschnitt ) BIa; it was later extended into BIb, and by October 1943 it held 32,066 women. In 1943–1944, about 11,000 women were also housed in the Gypsy family camp , as were several thousand in the Theresienstadt family camp . Conditions in the women's camp were so poor that when
1918-693: A part of the mountains), afterwards broadens out towards the north as far as the Tyregetae ; but I cannot tell the precise boundaries″ On this basis, Lengyel and Radan (1980), Hoddinott (1981) and Mountain (1998) consider that the Geto-Dacians inhabited both sides of the Tisza river prior to the rise of the Celtic Boii . The hold of the Dacians between the Danube and the Tisza was tenuous. However,
2055-485: A railway station or at one of several dedicated trackside ramps, including one next to Auschwitz I. The Altejudenrampe (old Jewish ramp), part of the Oświęcim freight railway station, was used from 1942 to 1944 for Jewish transports. Located between Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II, arriving at this ramp meant a 2.5 km journey to Auschwitz II and the gas chambers. Most deportees were forced to walk, accompanied by SS men and
2192-492: A serial number, on their left breast for Soviet prisoners of war and on the left arm for civilians. Categories of prisoner were distinguishable by triangular pieces of cloth (German: Winkel ) sewn onto on their jackets below their prisoner number. Political prisoners (Schutzhäftlinge or Sch), mostly Poles, had a red triangle, while criminals ( Berufsverbrecher or BV) were mostly German and wore green. Asocial prisoners ( Asoziale or Aso), which included vagrants, prostitutes and
2329-519: A telegraph wire, so close together that we could not help soiling one another. Langefeld was succeeded as Lagerführerin in October 1942 by SS Oberaufseherin Maria Mandl , who developed a reputation for cruelty. Höss hired men to oversee the female supervisors, first SS Obersturmführer Paul Müller, then SS Hauptsturmführer Franz Hössler . Mandl and Hössler were executed after the war. Sterilisation experiments were carried out in barracks 30 by
2466-440: A thousand people were crammed into the superimposed compartments of each barracks. Unable to stretch out completely, they slept there both lengthwise and crosswise, with one man's feet on another's head, neck, or chest. Stripped of all human dignity, they pushed and shoved and bit and kicked each other in an effort to get a few more inches' space on which to sleep a little more comfortably. For they did not have long to sleep. Sunday
2603-733: A time, the Sonderkommando were able to burn some 8,000 bodies a day. This maximum capacity was rarely needed; the average between 1942 and 1944 was 1,000 bodies burned every day. After examining several sites for a new plant to manufacture Buna-N , a type of synthetic rubber essential to the war effort, the German chemical conglomerate IG Farben chose a site near the towns of Dwory and Monowice (Monowitz in German), about 7 km (4.3 mi) east of Auschwitz I. Tax exemptions were available to corporations prepared to develop industries in
2740-464: A total of 7,851 Jews sent to Auschwitz . Some 1,200 Sălaj Jews survived the Holocaust but later emigrated from Romania, so that by the 2000s, under fifty Jews remained in the county. At the 2021 census , Șimleu Silvaniei had a population of 13,948. According to the census from 2011 , there were 14,436 people living within the town; of those, 66.77% were ethnic Romanians , while 22.87% were ethnic Hungarians , 9.82% ethnic Romani , and 0.51% others. At
2877-476: A transport of Polish Jews from Silesia and Zagłębie Dąbrowskie was taken straight from the station to the Auschwitz II gas chamber, which had just come into operation. On 26 and 28 March, two transports of Slovakian Jews were registered as prisoners in the women's camp , where they were kept for slave labour; these were the first transports organized by Adolf Eichmann 's department IV B4 (the Jewish office) in
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#17327907417833014-533: A tribal confederacy, which was united only by charismatic leadership in both military-political and ideological-religious domains. At the beginning of the 2nd century BC, under the rule of Rubobostes , a Dacian king in present-day Transylvania , the Dacians' power in the Carpathian basin increased after they defeated the Celts , who previously held power in the region. A kingdom of Dacia also existed as early as
3151-626: A village in Thracia , of unknown location. Thermi-daua , a town in Dalmatia . Probably a Grecized form of *Germidava . Pulpu-deva , (Phillipopolis) today Plovdiv in Bulgaria . Geto-Dacians inhabited both sides of the Tisa river prior to the rise of the Celtic Boii and again after the latter were defeated by the Dacians under the king Burebista. It seems likely that the Dacian state arose as
3288-435: Is not drinkable; it has a revolting smell and often fails for many hours. The walls are covered by curious didactic frescoes : for example, there is the good Häftling [prisoner], portrayed stripped to the waist, about to diligently soap his sheared and rosy cranium, and the bad Häftling, with a strong Semitic nose and a greenish colour, bundled up in his ostentatiously stained clothes with a beret on his head, who cautiously dips
3425-508: Is to be rebuilt to hold approximately 30,000." Construction of Auschwitz II-Birkenau—called a Kriegsgefangenenlager (prisoner-of-war camp) on blueprints—began in October 1941 in Brzezinka , about three kilometers from Auschwitz I. The initial plan was that Auschwitz II would consist of four sectors (Bauabschnitte I–IV), each consisting of six subcamps (BIIa–BIIf) with their own gates and fences. The first two sectors were completed (sector BI
3562-606: The 1st Ukrainian Front of the Red Army . Several other German industrial enterprises, such as Krupp and Siemens-Schuckert , built factories with their own subcamps. There were around 28 camps near industrial plants, each camp holding hundreds or thousands of prisoners. Designated as Aussenlager (external camp), Nebenlager (extension camp), Arbeitslager (labor camp), or Aussenkommando (external work detail), camps were built at Blechhammer , Jawiszowice , Jaworzno , Lagisze , Mysłowice , Trzebinia , and as far afield as
3699-830: The Black Sea to the river Tisza . During that period, the Getae and Dacians conquered a wider territory and Dacia extended from the Middle Danube to the Black Sea littoral (between Apollonia and Pontic Olbia ) and from the Northern Carpathians to the Balkan Mountains. After the death of Burebista in 44 BCE, his Kingdom quickly unraveled, but the Dacians remained a significant enough force to frequently make incursions into Roman territory. Strabo, in his Geography written around AD 20, says: ″As for
3836-521: The Costoboci / Lipița culture , is associated by Gudmund Schütte with towns having the specific Dacian language ending " dava " i.e. Setidava . After the Marcomannic Wars (AD 166–180), Dacian groups from outside Roman Dacia had been set in motion. So too were the 12,000 Dacians "from the neighbourhood of Roman Dacia sent away from their own country". Their native country could have been
3973-568: The Dniester River . Constantine took the title Dacicus maximus in 336. Before 300, the Romans erected small forts at Dierna and in other places on the northern bank of the Danube in modern-day Banat. In their wider region, Roman coins from the period—mostly of bronze—have been found. The Huns destroyed Drobeta and Sucidava in the 440s, but the forts were restored under Emperor Justinian I (527–565). Eastern Roman coins from
4110-658: The Final Solution to the Jewish Question to senior Nazis, and from early 1942 freight trains delivered Jews from all over occupied Europe to German extermination camps in Poland: Auschwitz, Bełżec , Chełmno , Majdanek , Sobibór , and Treblinka . Most prisoners were gassed on arrival. A former World War I camp for transient workers and later a Polish army barracks, Auschwitz I was the main camp ( Stammlager ) and administrative headquarters of
4247-624: The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in Czechoslovakia. Industries with satellite camps included coal mines, foundries and other metal works, and chemical plants. Prisoners were also made to work in forestry and farming. For example, Wirtschaftshof Budy , in the Polish village of Budy near Brzeszcze , was a farming subcamp where prisoners worked 12-hour days in the fields, tending animals, and making compost by mixing human ashes from
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4384-739: The Reich Security Head Office (RSHA). On 30 March the first RHSA transport arrived from France. "Selection", where new arrivals were chosen for work or the gas chamber, began in April 1942 and was conducted regularly from July. Piper writes that this reflected Germany's increasing need for labour. Those selected as unfit for work were gassed without being registered as prisoners. There is also disagreement about how many were gassed in Auschwitz I. Perry Broad , an SS-Unterscharführer , wrote that "transport after transport vanished in
4521-935: The Reichstag passed the Nuremberg Laws . One, the Reich Citizenship Law , defined as citizens those of "German or related blood who demonstrate by their behaviour that they are willing and suitable to serve the German People and Reich faithfully", and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor prohibited marriage and extramarital relations between those with "German or related blood" and Jews. When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, triggering World War II, Hitler ordered that
4658-582: The Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg , Germany, to inspect it. Around 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) long and 400 metres (1,300 ft) wide, Auschwitz consisted at the time of 22 brick buildings, eight of them two-story. A second story was added to the others in 1943 and eight new blocks were built. Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler , head of the SS , approved the site in April 1940 on
4795-490: The Star of David , overlaid by a second triangle if they also belonged to a second category. The nationality of the inmate was indicated by a letter stitched onto the cloth. A racial hierarchy existed, with German prisoners at the top. Next were non-Jewish prisoners from other countries. Jewish prisoners were at the bottom. Deportees were brought to Auschwitz crammed in wretched conditions into goods or cattle wagons, arriving near
4932-475: The salt road coming from areas around Napoca , Potaissa , and modern Dej , and heading to Pannonia . The centre of an early Gepidia , on the plains northwest of the Meseș Mountains , appears to have been located around Șimleu Silvaniei, where early 5th-century precious objects of Roman provenance have been unearthed. The town was mentioned in 1258 as Wathasomlyowa. The name means "Wata's mountain";
5069-677: The southern part of Germany beyond the Albis , the portion which is just contiguous to that river is occupied by the Suevi ; then immediately adjoining this is the land of the Getae , which, though narrow at first, stretching as it does along the Ister [ Danube ] on its southern side and on the opposite side along the mountain-side of the Hercynian Forest (for the land of the Getae also embraces
5206-603: The " Jewish question ". Both during and immediately after the Nazi seizure of power in Germany in 1933, acts of violence against German Jews became ubiquitous, and legislation was passed excluding them from certain professions, including the civil service and the law. Harassment and economic pressure encouraged Jews to leave Germany ; their businesses were denied access to markets, forbidden from advertising in newspapers, and deprived of government contracts. On 15 September 1935,
5343-507: The 1910 census, out of 6,885 inhabitants, 6,030 were Hungarians (87,58%) and 759 were Romanians (11,02%). The Șimleu Silvaniei Council, elected in the 2012 local government election , is made up of 17 councilors, with the following party composition: 7- Democratic Party , 4- Social Democratic Party , 3- Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania , 2- National Liberal Party , and 1- People's Party – Dan Diaconescu . The mayor Septimiu Țurcaș
5480-763: The 270s. There is no evidence that they were invaded in the following decades. Towns, including Apulum and Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa , and the surrounding areas continued to be inhabited but the urban areas diminished. The existence of local Christian communities can be assumed in Porolissum , Potaissa and other settlements. On the other hand, evidence – mainly pottery with " Chi - rho " (Χ-Ρ) signs and other Christian symbols – is "shadowy and poorly understood", according to archaeologists Haynes and Hanson. Urns found in late 3rd-century cemeteries at Bezid , Mediaş , and in other Transylvanian settlements had clear analogies in sites east of
5617-725: The Auschwitz II Sonderkommando , who had been forced to dig up and burn the remains of that camp's mass graves, thought to hold over 100,000 corpses. After visiting Auschwitz I in March 1941, it appears that Himmler ordered that the camp be expanded, although Peter Hayes notes that, on 10 January 1941, the Polish underground told the Polish government-in-exile in London: "the Auschwitz concentration camp ...can accommodate approximately 7,000 prisoners at present, and
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5754-520: The Auschwitz [I] crematorium." In the view of Filip Müller , one of the Auschwitz I Sonderkommando , tens of thousands of Jews were murdered there from France, Holland, Slovakia, Upper Silesia, and Yugoslavia, and from the Theresienstadt , Ciechanow , and Grodno ghettos. Against this, Jean-Claude Pressac estimated that up to 10,000 people had been murdered in Auschwitz I. The last inmates gassed there, in December 1942, were around 400 members of
5891-689: The Carpathians, suggesting that the Carpians were the first new arrivals in the former province from the neighboring regions. Other Carpian groups, pressured by the Goths, also departed from their homeland and sought refuge in the Roman Empire around 300. Nevertheless, " Carpo-Dacians " were listed among the peoples "mixed with the Huns" as late as 379. The Sarmatians of the Banat were allies of
6028-683: The Carpi, who had then possessed themselves of Dacia and Moesia". Even so, the Germanic and Celtic kingdoms, particularly the Gothic tribes , slowly moved toward the Dacian borders, and within a generation were making assaults on the province. Ultimately, the Goths succeeded in dislodging the Romans and restoring the "independence" of Dacia following Emperor Aurelian 's withdrawal, in 275. In AD 268–269, at Naissus , Claudius II (Gothicus Maximus) obtained
6165-426: The Dacians and the Getae was formed under the rule of Burebista in 82 BC and lasted until the Roman conquest in AD 106. As a result of the wars with the Roman Empire , after the conquest of Dacia, the population was dispersed, and the capital city, Sarmizegetusa Regia , was destroyed by the Romans. However, the Romans built a settlement bearing the same name, Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetuza 40 km away, to serve as
6302-464: The Dacians became Romanised (see also Origin of Romanians ). In AD 183, war broke out in Dacia: few details are available, but it appears two future contenders for the throne of emperor Commodus , Clodius Albinus and Pescennius Niger , both distinguished themselves in the campaign. According to Lactantius , the Roman emperor Decius (AD 249–251) had to restore Roman Dacia from the Carpo-Dacians of Zosimus "having undertaken an expedition against
6439-416: The Dacians effectively independent. Decebalus was given the status of "king client to Rome", receiving military instructors, craftsmen and money from Rome. To Rome, Domitian brought Italian peasants in Dacian clothing because he couldn't take slaves in the war. To increase the glory of his reign, restore the finances of Rome, and end a treaty perceived as humiliating, Trajan resolved on the conquest of Dacia,
6576-439: The Danube and the Hercynian Forest as far as the winter quarters of Pannonia at Carnutum and the plains and level country of the German frontiers there are occupied by the Sarmatian Iazyges, while the Dacians whom they have driven out hold the mountains and forests as far as the river Theiss". Starting with AD 85, Dacia was once again reunified under King Decebalus . Following an incursion into Roman Moesia , which resulted in
6713-407: The Goths dearly: reportedly, nearly one hundred thousand died before they submitted to Rome. In celebration of this victory Constantine took the title Gothicus Maximus and claimed the subjugated territory as the new province of Gothia. In 334, after Sarmatian commoners had overthrown their leaders, Constantine led a campaign against the tribe. He won a victory in the war and extended his control over
6850-441: The Monowitz concentration camp, it was the first concentration camp to be financed and built by private industry. Measuring 270 m × 490 m (890 ft × 1,610 ft), the camp was larger than Auschwitz I. By the end of 1944, it housed 60 barracks measuring 17.5 m × 8 m (57 ft × 26 ft), each with a day room and a sleeping room containing 56 three-tiered wooden bunks. IG Farben paid
6987-424: The Polish leadership and intelligentsia be destroyed. The area around Auschwitz was annexed to the German Reich , as part of first Gau Silesia and from 1941 Gau Upper Silesia . The camp at Auschwitz was established in April 1940, at first as a quarantine camp for Polish political prisoners. On 22 June 1941, in an attempt to obtain new territory, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union . The first gassing at Auschwitz—of
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#17327907417837124-406: The Roma, wore black. Purple was for Jehovah's Witnesses ( Internationale Bibelforscher-Vereinigung or IBV)'s and pink for gay men, who were mostly German. An estimated 5,000–15,000 gay men prosecuted under German Penal Code Section 175 (proscribing sexual acts between men) were detained in concentration camps, of whom an unknown number were sent to Auschwitz. Jews wore a yellow badge , the shape of
7261-419: The Roman agenda since before the days of Julius Caesar when a Roman army had been beaten at the Battle of Histria . From AD 85 to 89, the Dacians under Decebalus were engaged in two wars with the Romans. In AD 85, the Dacians had swarmed over the Danube and pillaged Moesia. In AD 87, the Roman troops sent by the Emperor Domitian against them under Cornelius Fuscus , were defeated and Cornelius Fuscus
7398-437: The Roman border, fortifications were erected by the Romans on both banks of the Danube . In 328 the emperor Constantine the Great inaugurated the Constantine's Bridge (Danube) at Sucidava, (today Corabia in Romania) in hopes of reconquering Dacia , a province that had been abandoned under Aurelian. In the late winter of 332, Constantine campaigned with the Sarmatians against the Goths . The weather and lack of food cost
7535-456: The Romans from AD 301–308. Roman Dacia was left in AD 275 by the Romans, to the Carpi again, and not to the Goths. There were still Dacians in AD 336, against whom Constantine the Great fought. The province was abandoned by Roman troops, and, according to the Breviarium historiae Romanae by Eutropius , Roman citizens "from the towns and lands of Dacia" were resettled to the interior of Moesia. Under Diocletian , c. AD 296, in order to defend
7672-415: The Romans, from whom they obtained the right to settle in Oltenia . In 376, the region was conquered by Huns , who kept it until the death of Attila in 453. The Gepid tribe, ruled by Ardaric , used it as their base, until in 566, when it was destroyed by the Lombards . Lombards abandoned the country and the Avars (second half of the 6th century) dominated the region for 230 years, until their kingdom
7809-415: The Romans, though as yet they are not absolutely submissive, because of the hopes which they base on the Germans, who are enemies to the Romans." In fact, this occurred because Burebista 's empire split after his death into four and later five smaller states, as Strabo explains, "only recently, when Augustus Caesar sent an expedition against them, the number of parts into which the empire had been divided
7946-404: The SS ordered that the site be evacuated, sending 9,000 inmates, most of them Jews, on a death march to another Auschwitz subcamp at Gliwice . From Gliwice, prisoners were taken by rail in open freight wagons to the Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration camps. The 800 inmates who had been left behind in the Monowitz hospital were liberated along with the rest of the camp on 27 January 1945 by
8083-850: The SS personnel, were members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände ( death's head units). Other SS staff worked in the medical or political departments, or in the economic administration, which was responsible for clothing and other supplies, including the property of dead prisoners. The SS viewed Auschwitz as a comfortable posting; being there meant they had avoided the front and had access to the victims' property. Certain prisoners, at first non-Jewish Germans but later Jews and non-Jewish Poles, were assigned positions of authority as Funktionshäftlinge (functionaries), which gave them access to better housing and food. The Lagerprominenz (camp elite) included Blockschreiber (barracks clerk), Kapo (overseer), Stubendienst (barracks orderly), and Kommandierte (trusties). Wielding tremendous power over other prisoners,
8220-408: The SS three or four Reichsmark for nine- to eleven-hour shifts from each worker. In 1943–1944, about 35,000 inmates worked at the plant; 23,000 (32 a day on average) were killed through malnutrition, disease, and the workload. Within three to four months at the camp, Peter Hayes writes, the inmates were "reduced to walking skeletons". Deaths and transfers to the gas chambers at Auschwitz II reduced
8357-401: The Scythians and are armed in the same manner, being all mounted archers"). Some historians argue that Daxia (mentioned in 3rd century BC ) was the previous home of Indo-Iranian nomads who later came to form the Geto - Dacian people. The extent and location of Dacia varied in its three distinct historical periods (see below): The Dacia of King Burebista (82–44 BC) stretched from
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#17327907417838494-487: The Upper Tisa region, but other places cannot be excluded. The later Roman province Dacia Aureliana , was organized inside former Moesia Superior after the retreat of the Roman army from Dacia, during the reign of emperor Aurelian during AD 271–275. It was reorganized as Dacia Ripensis (as a military province) and Dacia Mediterranea (as a civil province). Ptolemy gives a list of 43 names of towns in Dacia, out of which arguably 33 were of Dacian origin. Most of
8631-464: The absentee was found or the reason for the absence discovered, even if it took hours. On 6 July 1940, roll call lasted 19 hours because a Polish prisoner, Tadeusz Wiejowski , had escaped; following an escape in 1941, a group of prisoners was picked out from the escapee's barracks and sent to block 11 to be starved to death. After roll call, prisoners retired to their blocks for the night and received their bread rations. Then they had some free time to use
8768-415: The ancient Kingdom of Dacia, a large remainder of the land remained outside of Roman Imperial authority. Additionally, the conquest changed the balance of power in the region and was the catalyst for a renewed alliance of Germanic and Celtic tribes and kingdoms against the Roman Empire. However, the material advantages of the Roman Imperial system was attractive to the surviving aristocracy. Afterwards, many of
8905-611: The annexation of most of Dacia and its reorganisation as a Roman Province , Dacia Felix . Written a few decades after Emperor Trajan 's Roman conquest of parts of Dacia in AD 105–106, Ptolemy's Geographia included the boundaries of Dacia. According to the scholars' interpretation of Ptolemy (Hrushevskyi 1997, Bunbury 1879, Mocsy 1974, Bărbulescu 2005) Dacia was the region between the rivers Tisza , Danube, upper Dniester, and Siret. Mainstream historians accept this interpretation: Avery (1972) Berenger (1994) Fol (1996) Mountain (1998), Waldman Mason (2006). Ptolemy also provided
9042-432: The archaeologist Parducz argued for a Dacian presence west of the Tisa dating from the time of Burebista. According to Tacitus (AD 56–117) Dacians bordered Germania in the south-east, while Sarmatians bordered it in the east. In the 1st century AD, the Iazyges settled West of Dacia, on the plain between the Danube and the Tisa rivers, according to the scholars' interpretation of Pliny 's text: "The higher parts between
9179-541: The area around the gas chambers. The day began at 4:30 am for the men (an hour later in winter), and earlier for the women, when the block supervisor sounded a gong and started beating inmates with sticks to make them wash and use the latrines quickly. There were few latrines and there was a lack of clean water. Each washhouse had to service thousands of prisoners. In sectors BIa and BIb in Auschwitz II, two buildings containing latrines and washrooms were installed in 1943. These contained troughs for washing and 90 faucets;
9316-495: The area in 1944. Since 1997, inside Bic Monastery , there is the wooden church from Stâna ; built in 1778 it has a rectangular plan with nave and pronave. The Cehei ghetto operated within the town's administrative area. The ghetto was one of the Nazi-era ghettos for European Jews during World War II. It was active in the spring of 1944, following Operation Margarethe . The deportations from Cehei took place in three transports: May 31 (3,106), June 3 (3,161) and June 6 (1,584), with
9453-409: The camp be established. Living with his wife and children in a two-story stucco house near the commandant's and administration building, he served as commandant until 11 November 1943, with Josef Kramer as his deputy. Succeeded as commandant by Arthur Liebehenschel , Höss joined the SS Business and Administration Head Office in Oranienburg as director of Amt DI, a post that made him deputy of
9590-520: The camp became a dominant symbol of the Holocaust. In 1947, Poland founded the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum on the site of Auschwitz I and II, and in 1979 it was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO . Auschwitz is the site of the largest mass murder in a single location in history. The ideology of Nazism combined elements of " racial hygiene ", eugenics , antisemitism , pan-Germanism , and territorial expansionism, Richard J. Evans writes. Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party became obsessed by
9727-439: The camp complex. Fifty kilometres (31 mi) southwest of Kraków , the site was first suggested in February 1940 as a quarantine camp for Polish prisoners by Arpad Wigand , the inspector of the Sicherheitspolizei (security police) and deputy of Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski , the Higher SS and Police Leader for Silesia. Richard Glücks , head of the Concentration Camps Inspectorate , sent Walter Eisfeld , former commandant of
9864-442: The camp was initially established). For the first two years, the majority of inmates were Polish. In May 1940, German criminals brought to the camp as functionaries established the camp's reputation for sadism. Prisoners were beaten, tortured, and executed for the most trivial of reasons. The first gassings —of Soviet and Polish prisoners—took place in block 11 of Auschwitz I around August 1941. Construction of Auschwitz II began
10001-459: The camp, including with the SS. Nevertheless, their life expectancy was short; they were regularly murdered and replaced. About 100 survived to the camp's liquidation. They were forced on a death march and by train to the camp at Mauthausen , where three days later they were asked to step forward during roll call. No one did, and because the SS did not have their records, several of them survived. Uniquely at Auschwitz, prisoners were tattooed with
10138-536: The camp. Only two Jewish calendars made in Auschwitz survived to the end of the war. Prisoners kept track of the days in other ways, such as obtaining information from newcomers. About 30 percent of the registered inmates were female. The first mass transport of women, 999 non-Jewish German women from the Ravensbrück concentration camp , arrived on 26 March 1942. Classified as criminal, asocial and political, they were brought to Auschwitz as founder functionaries of
10275-502: The camps inspectorate. Richard Baer became commandant of Auschwitz I on 11 May 1944 and Fritz Hartjenstein of Auschwitz II from 22 November 1943, followed by Josef Kramer from 15 May 1944 until the camp's liquidation in January 1945. Heinrich Schwarz was commandant of Auschwitz III from the point at which it became an autonomous camp in November 1943 until its liquidation. Höss returned to Auschwitz between 8 May and 29 July 1944 as
10412-715: The capital of the new Roman province of Dacia . A group of " Free Dacians ", may have remained outside the Roman Empire in the territory of modern-day Northern Romania until the start of the Migration Period . The Dacians are first mentioned in the writings of the Ancient Greeks , in Herodotus ( Histories Book IV XCIII: "[Getae] the noblest as well as the most just of all the Thracian tribes") and Thucydides ( Peloponnesian Wars , Book II: "[Getae] border on
10549-493: The capture of the famous Treasure of Decebalus, and control over the Dacian gold mines of Transylvania . The result of his first campaign (101–102) was the siege of the Dacian capital Sarmizegethusa and the occupation of part of the country. Emperor Trajan recommenced hostilities against Dacia and, following an uncertain number of battles, and with Trajan's troops pressing towards the Dacian capital Sarmizegethusa , Decebalus once more sought terms. Decebalus rebuilt his power over
10686-460: The ceiling to resemble showerheads. The daily capacity of the crematoria (how many bodies could be burned in a 24-hour period) was 340 corpses in crematorium I; 1,440 each in crematoria II and III; and 768 each in IV and V. By June 1943 all four crematoria were operational, but crematorium I was not used after July 1943. This made the total daily capacity 4,416, although by loading three to five corpses at
10823-506: The ceiling. Historians have disagreed about the date the all-Jewish transports began arriving in Auschwitz. At the Wannsee Conference in Berlin on 20 January 1942, the Nazi leadership outlined, in euphemistic language, its plans for the Final Solution . According to Franciszek Piper , the Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss offered inconsistent accounts after the war, suggesting the extermination began in December 1941, January 1942, or before
10960-601: The chemical conglomerate IG Farben ; and dozens of subcamps . The camps became a major site of the Nazis' Final Solution to the Jewish question . After Germany initiated World War II by invading Poland in September 1939, the Schutzstaffel (SS) converted Auschwitz I, an army barracks, into a prisoner-of-war camp . The initial transport of political detainees to Auschwitz consisted almost solely of Poles (for whom
11097-477: The crematoria with sod and manure. Incidents of sabotage to decrease production took place in several subcamps, including Charlottengrube, Gleiwitz II , and Rajsko . Living conditions in some of the camps were so poor that they were regarded as punishment subcamps. Rudolf Höss , born in Baden-Baden in 1900, was named the first commandant of Auschwitz when Heinrich Himmler ordered on 27 April 1940 that
11234-465: The day. We stood in line to get in to this tiny building, knee-deep in human excrement. As we all suffered from dysentry, we could barely wait until our turn came, and soiled our ragged clothes, which never came off our bodies, thus adding to the horror of our existence by the terrible smell that surrounded us like a cloud. The latrine consisted of a deep ditch with planks thrown across it at certain intervals. We squatted on those planks like birds perched on
11371-456: The death of its governor, Gaius Oppius Sabinus , a series of conflicts between the Romans and Dacians ensued. Although the Romans gained a major strategic victory at Tapae in AD 88, Emperor Domitian offered the Dacians favourable terms, in exchange for which Roman suzerainty was recognised. However, Emperor Trajan restarted the conflicts in AD 101-102 and then again in AD 105–106, which ended with
11508-519: The east. His conquests brought the Roman Empire to its greatest extent. Rome's borders in the east were governed indirectly in this period, through a system of client states , which led to less direct campaigning than in the west. Some of the history of the war is given by Cassius Dio . Trajan erected the Column of Trajan in Rome to commemorate his victory. Although the Romans conquered and destroyed
11645-500: The empire, demonstrated by a Roman invasion in 332 against the Goths, their enemies. Sarmatians were admitted into the empire in 379, but other Sarmatian groups remained in the Tisa plains up until the 460s. The Victohali , Taifals , and Thervingians are tribes mentioned for inhabiting Dacia in 350, after the Romans left. Archeological evidence suggests that Gepids were disputing Transylvania with Taifals and Tervingians. Taifals, once independent from Gothia, became federati of
11782-499: The end of June or beginning of July 1940. Initially intended not for mass murder but for prisoners who had been executed or had otherwise died in the camp, the crematorium was in operation from August 1940 until July 1943, by which time the crematoria at Auschwitz II had taken over. By May 1942 three ovens had been installed in crematorium I, which together could burn 340 bodies in 24 hours. The first experimental gassing took place around August 1941, when Lagerführer Karl Fritzsch , at
11919-404: The end of the war, the SS sent most of the camp's population west on a death march to camps inside Germany and Austria. Soviet troops entered the camp on 27 January 1945, a day commemorated since 2005 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day . In the decades after the war, survivors such as Primo Levi , Viktor Frankl , Elie Wiesel , and Edith Eger wrote memoirs of their experiences, and
12056-422: The establishment of the women's camp in March 1942. In Kommandant in Auschwitz , he wrote: "In the spring of 1942 the first transports of Jews, all earmarked for extermination, arrived from Upper Silesia." On 15 February 1942, according to Danuta Czech , a transport of Jews from Beuthen, Upper Silesia ( Bytom , Poland), arrived at Auschwitz I and was sent straight to the gas chamber. In 1998 an eyewitness said
12193-477: The factory; and that Auschwitz prisoners be used in the construction work. Auschwitz inmates began working at the plant, known as Buna Werke and IG-Auschwitz, in April 1941, demolishing houses in Monowitz to make way for it. By May, because of a shortage of trucks, several hundred of them were rising at 3 am to walk there twice a day from Auschwitz I. Because a long line of exhausted inmates walking through
12330-516: The first half of the 2nd century BC under King Oroles . Conflicts with the Bastarnae and the Romans (112–109 BC, 74 BC), against whom they had assisted the Scordisci and Dardani , greatly weakened the resources of the Dacians. Burebista (Boerebista), a contemporary of Julius Caesar , ruled Geto-Dacian tribes between 82 BC and 44 BC. He thoroughly reorganised the army and attempted to raise
12467-539: The first half of the 6th century suggest a significant military presence in Oltenia —a region also characterized by the predominance of pottery with shapes of Roman tradition. The territory between the Lower Danube and the Black Sea (today Dobrogea in Romania) remained a fully integrated part of the Roman Empire, even after the abandonment of Trajan's Dacia. It was transformed into a separate province under
12604-714: The following month, and from 1942 until late 1944 freight trains delivered Jews from all over German-occupied Europe to its gas chambers. Of the 1.3 million people sent to Auschwitz, 1.1 million were murdered. The number of victims includes 960,000 Jews (865,000 of whom were gassed on arrival), 74,000 non-Jewish Poles , 21,000 Romani , 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war , and up to 15,000 others. Those not gassed were murdered via starvation, exhaustion, disease, individual executions, or beatings. Others were killed during medical experiments . At least 802 prisoners tried to escape, 144 successfully, and on 7 October 1944 , two Sonderkommando units, consisting of prisoners who operated
12741-558: The following years and attacked Roman garrisons again in AD 105. In response Trajan again marched into Dacia, attacking the Dacian capital in the Siege of Sarmizegethusa , and razing it to the ground; the defeated Dacian king Decebalus committed suicide to avoid capture. With part of Dacia quelled as the Roman province Dacia Traiana . Trajan subsequently invaded the Parthian empire to
12878-509: The frontier regions under the Eastern Fiscal Assistance Law, passed in December 1940. In addition to its proximity to the concentration camp, a source of cheap labour, the site had good railway connections and access to raw materials. In February 1941, Himmler ordered that the Jewish population of Oświęcim be expelled to make way for skilled laborers; that all Poles able to work remain in the town and work on building
13015-419: The frozen Danube during the winter and ravaging the Roman cities in the province of Moesia , which was under Roman occupation. Strabo testified: "although the Getae and Daci once attained to very great power, so that they actually could send forth an expedition of two hundred thousand men, they now find themselves reduced to as few as forty thousand, and they have come close to the point of yielding obedience to
13152-524: The functionaries developed a reputation as sadists. Very few were prosecuted after the war, because of the difficulty of determining which atrocities had been performed by order of the SS. Although the SS oversaw the murders at each gas chamber, the forced labor portion of the work was done by prisoners known from 1942 as the Sonderkommando (special squad). These were mostly Jews but they included groups such as Soviet POWs. In 1940–1941 when there
13289-620: The gas chamber, was at the prisoner reception centre near the gate with the Arbeit macht frei sign, where they were tattooed, shaved, disinfected, and given a striped prison uniform. Built between 1942 and 1944, the center contained a bathhouse, laundry, and 19 gas chambers for delousing clothing. The prisoner reception center of Auschwitz I became the visitor reception center of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum . Construction of crematorium I began at Auschwitz I at
13426-480: The gas chambers, launched an unsuccessful uprising. After the Holocaust ended, only 789 Schutzstaffel personnel (no more than 15 percent) ever stood trial. Several were executed, including camp commandant Rudolf Höss . The Allies ' failure to act on early reports of mass murder by bombing the camp or its railways remains controversial. As the Soviet Red Army approached Auschwitz in January 1945, toward
13563-434: The ground floor, and an underground dressing room 49.43 by 7.93 m (162.2 by 26.0 ft) and gas chamber 30 by 7 m (98 by 23 ft). The dressing rooms had wooden benches along the walls and numbered pegs for clothing. Victims would be led from these rooms to a five-yard-long narrow corridor, which in turn led to a space from which the gas chamber door opened. The chambers were white inside, and nozzles were fixed to
13700-574: The higher number is probably attributable to the logistics of evacuating the camp. Female guards were known as SS supervisors ( SS-Aufseherinnen ). Most of the staff were from Germany or Austria, but as the war progressed, increasing numbers of Volksdeutsche from other countries, including Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, and the Baltic states, joined the SS at Auschwitz. Not all were ethnically German. Guards were also recruited from Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. Camp guards, around three quarters of
13837-416: The instruction of Rudolf Höss, murdered a group of Soviet prisoners of war by throwing Zyklon B crystals into their basement cell in block 11 of Auschwitz I. A second group of 600 Soviet prisoners of war and around 250 sick Polish prisoners were gassed on 3–5 September. The morgue was later converted to a gas chamber able to hold at least 700–800 people. Zyklon B was dropped into the room through slits in
13974-428: The latter included the added suffix "dava" (meaning settlement, village). But, other Dacian names from his list lack the suffix (e.g. Zarmisegethusa regia = Zermizirga). In addition, nine other names of Dacian origin seem to have been Latinised. The cities of the Dacians were known as -dava , -deva , -δαυα ("-dawa" or "-dava", Anc. Gk. ), -δεβα ("-deva", Byz. Gk. ) or -δαβα ("-dava", Byz. Gk. ), etc. . Gil-doba ,
14111-697: The local SS garrison commander ( Standortältester ) to oversee the arrival of Hungary's Jews, which made him the superior officer of all the commandants of the Auschwitz camps. According to Aleksander Lasik , about 6,335 people (6,161 of them men) worked for the SS at Auschwitz over the course of the camp's existence; 4.2 percent were officers, 26.1 percent non-commissioned officers, and 69.7 percent rank and file. In March 1941, there were 700 SS guards; in June 1942, 2,000; and in August 1944, 3,342. At its peak in January 1945, 4,480 SS men and 71 SS women worked in Auschwitz;
14248-627: The minimum space needed to exist". The prisoners were forced to live in the barracks as they were building them; in addition to working, they faced long roll calls at night. As a result, most prisoners in BIb (the men's camp) in the early months died of hypothermia , starvation or exhaustion within a few weeks. Some 10,000 Soviet prisoners of war arrived at Auschwitz I between 7 and 25 October 1941, but by 1 March 1942 only 945 were still registered; they were transferred to Auschwitz II, where most of them had died by May. The first gas chamber at Auschwitz II
14385-516: The moral standard and obedience of the people by persuading them to cut their vines and give up drinking wine. During his reign, the Dacian Kingdom expanded to its maximum extent. The Bastarnae and Boii were conquered, and even the Greek towns of Olbia and Apollonia on the Black Sea ( Pontus Euxinus ) recognized Burebista 's authority. In 53 BC, Caesar stated that the Dacian territory
14522-548: The name Wata is of Old Turkish origin, while somlyowa is an archaic Hungarian word for mountain(side). The town belonged to the Báthory family , whose ancestral castle stood here. The castle was built by Miklós , voivode of Transylvania in the early 13th century and was first mentioned in 1319. After the Báthory family built a mansion in the town in 1592, the castle became deserted and today lies in ruins. The Catholic church
14659-525: The name of Scythia Minor around 293. The existence of Christian communities in Scythia Minor became evident under Emperor Diocletian (284–305). He and his co-emperors ordered the persecution of Christians throughout the empire, causing the death of many between 303 and 313. Under Emperor Constantine the Great (306–337), a bridge across the Danube was constructed at Sucidava ,
14796-513: The neighboring peoples in an attempt to keep the peace in the Balkans, the Avars regularly invaded Scythia Minor from the 580s. The Romans abandoned Sucidava in 596 or 597, but Tomis , which was the last town in Scythia Minor to resist the invaders, only fell in 704. Transylvania and northern Banat, which belonged to Dacia before Trajan conquest, had no direct contact with the Roman Empire from
14933-459: The population by nearly a fifth each month. Site managers constantly threatened inmates with the gas chambers, and the smell from the crematoria at Auschwitz I and II hung heavy over the camp. Although the factory had been expected to begin production in 1943, shortages of labour and raw materials meant start-up was postponed repeatedly. The Allies bombed the plant in 1944 on 20 August, 13 September, 18 December, and 26 December. On 19 January 1945,
15070-517: The recommendation of SS- Obersturmbannführer Rudolf Höss of the camps inspectorate. Höss oversaw the development of the camp and served as its first commandant. The first 30 prisoners arrived on 20 May 1940 from the Sachsenhausen camp. German "career criminals" ( Berufsverbrecher ), the men were known as "greens" ( Grünen ) after the green triangles on their prison clothing. Brought to the camp as functionaries, this group did much to establish
15207-599: The region, as remains of camps and fortifications in the region indicate. Constantine resettled some Sarmatian exiles as farmers in Illyrian and Roman districts, and conscripted the rest into the army. The new frontier in Dacia was along the Brazda lui Novac line supported by Castra of Hinova , Rusidava and Castra of Pietroasele . The limes passed to the north of Castra of Tirighina-Bărboși and ended at Sasyk Lagoon near
15344-514: The sadism of early camp life, which was directed particularly at Polish inmates, until the political prisoners took over their roles. Bruno Brodniewicz , the first prisoner (who was given serial number 1), became Lagerälteste (camp elder). The others were given positions such as kapo and block supervisor. The first mass transport—of 728 Polish male political prisoners, including Catholic priests and Jews—arrived on 14 June 1940 from Tarnów , Poland. They were given serial numbers 31 to 758. In
15481-594: The same day. According to Danuta Czech , this was the first registered transport sent to Auschwitz by the Reich Security Head Office (RSHA) office IV B4, known as the Jewish Office, led by SS Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann . (Office IV was the Gestapo .) A third transport of 798 Jewish women from Bratislava , Slovakia, followed on 28 March. Women were at first held in blocks 1–10 of Auschwitz I, but from 6 August 1942, 13,000 inmates were transferred to
15618-622: The same year, Burebista was murdered, and the kingdom was divided into four (later five) parts under separate rulers. One of these entities was Cotiso 's state, to whom Augustus betrothed his own five-year-old daughter Julia. He is well known from the line in Horace ( Occidit Daci Cotisonis agmen , Odes, III. 8. 18). The Dacians are often mentioned under Augustus, according to whom they were compelled to recognize Roman supremacy. However they were by no means subdued, and in later times to maintain their independence they seized every opportunity to cross
15755-474: The sound of " Arbeitskommandos formieren " ("form work details"), prisoners walked to their place of work, five abreast, to begin a working day that was normally 11 hours long—longer in summer and shorter in winter. A prison orchestra, such as the Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz , was forced to play cheerful music as the workers left the camp. Kapos were responsible for the prisoners' behaviour while they worked, as
15892-526: The toilet facilities were "sewage channels" covered by concrete with 58 holes for seating. There were three barracks with washing facilities or toilets to serve 16 residential barracks in BIIa, and six washrooms/latrines for 32 barracks in BIIb, BIIc, BIId, and BIIe. Primo Levi described a 1944 Auschwitz III washroom: It is badly lighted, full of draughts, with the brick floor covered by a layer of mud. The water
16029-464: The town of Oświęcim might harm German-Polish relations, the inmates were told to shave daily, make sure they were clean, and sing as they walked. From late July they were taken to the factory by train on freight wagons. Given the difficulty of moving them, including during the winter, IG Farben decided to build a camp at the plant. The first inmates moved there on 30 October 1942. Known as KL Auschwitz III–Aussenlager (Auschwitz III subcamp), and later as
16166-650: The train contained "the women of Beuthen". Saul Friedländer wrote that the Beuthen Jews were from the Organization Schmelt labor camps and had been deemed unfit for work. According to Christopher Browning , transports of Jews unfit for work were sent to the gas chamber at Auschwitz from autumn 1941. The evidence for this and the February 1942 transport was contested in 2015 by Nikolaus Wachsmann . Around 20 March 1942, according to Danuta Czech,
16303-485: The washrooms and receive their mail, unless they were Jews: Jews were not allowed to receive mail. Curfew ("nighttime quiet") was marked by a gong at nine o'clock. Inmates slept in long rows of brick or wooden bunks, or on the floor, lying in and on their clothes and shoes to prevent them from being stolen. The wooden bunks had blankets and paper mattresses filled with wood shavings; in the brick barracks, inmates lay on straw. According to Miklós Nyiszli : Eight hundred to
16440-469: The weather, they had to wait for the SS to arrive for the count; how long they stood there depended on the officers' mood, and whether there had been escapes or other events attracting punishment. Guards might force the prisoners to squat for an hour with their hands above their heads or hand out beatings or detention for infractions such as having a missing button or an improperly cleaned food bowl. The inmates were counted and re-counted. After roll call, to
16577-438: The women's camp. Rudolf Höss wrote of them: "It was easy to predict that these beasts would mistreat the women over whom they exercised power ... Spiritual suffering was completely alien to them." They were given serial numbers 1–999. The women's guard from Ravensbrück, Johanna Langefeld , became the first Auschwitz women's camp Lagerführerin . A second mass transport of women, 999 Jews from Poprad , Slovakia, arrived on
16714-436: Was 300 grams of bread, often moldy, part of which the inmates were expected to keep for breakfast the next day, with a tablespoon of cheese or marmalade, or 25 grams of margarine or sausage. Prisoners engaged in hard labour were given extra rations. A second roll call took place at seven in the evening, in the course of which prisoners might be hanged or flogged. If a prisoner was missing, the others had to remain standing until
16851-458: Was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust . It consisted of Auschwitz I , the main camp ( Stammlager ) in Oświęcim ; Auschwitz II-Birkenau , a concentration and extermination camp with gas chambers ; Auschwitz III-Monowitz , a labour camp for
16988-461: Was an SS escort. Much of the work took place outdoors at construction sites, gravel pits, and lumber yards. No rest periods were allowed. One prisoner was assigned to the latrines to measure the time the workers took to empty their bladders and bowels. Lunch was three-quarters of a litre of watery soup at midday, reportedly foul-tasting, with meat in the soup four times a week and vegetables (mostly potatoes and rutabaga ) three times. The evening meal
17125-494: Was built in 1534 by Transylvania's voivode Báthory István and his wife Telegdy Katalin with the occasion of their son's birth. Holy Trinity Statue was built in 1772. The Reformed church was rebuilt between 1729 and 1736. The synagogue was built in 1876. The mansion was occupied by Giorgio Basta from Zsigmond Báthory in 1600. It was occupied by the Ottomans in 1660 and was part of Varat Eyalet until 1692. In 1703 it
17262-599: Was destroyed by Charlemagne in 791. At the same time, Slavic people arrived. S.C. Automobile Dacia S.A. , also known as Dacia, is a Romanian car manufacturer that takes its name from the historical kingdom. It is Romania's largest company by revenue, and sells its products mainly in Europe and North Africa. Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( German : Konzentrationslager Auschwitz , pronounced [kɔntsɛntʁaˈtsi̯oːnsˌlaːɡɐ ˈʔaʊʃvɪts] ; also KL Auschwitz or KZ Auschwitz )
17399-659: Was destroyed by a storm in 1866. Notre Dame Church was built between 1871 and 1873. In 1919, the Simion Bărnuțiu National College , the first Romanian language high school in Sălaj County was founded here, and today the town is home to three high schools. In 1940, Șimleu Silvaniei, along with the rest of Northern Transylvania , was given to Hungary through the Second Vienna Award imposed by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ; Romania regained
17536-500: Was elected in the second round of 2008 local government election . The mayor Septimiu Țurcaș was elected for the first time in 2004 local government election as a member of the Democratic Liberal Party and re-elected in 2008 and 2012. Cehei Pond Nature Reserve is a protected area with aquatic vegetation and fauna within the town's administrative area. Șimleu Silvaniei is twinned with: Șimleu Silvaniei has
17673-579: Was five, though at the time of the insurrection it had been four. Such divisions, to be sure, are only temporary and vary with the times". Decebalus ruled the Dacians between AD 87 and 106. The frontiers of Decebal's Dacia were marked by the Tisa River to the west, by the trans-Carpathians to the north and by the Dniester River to the east. His name translates into " strong as ten men ". When Trajan turned his attention to Dacia, it had been on
17810-825: Was initially a quarantine camp), but the construction of BIII began in 1943 and stopped in April 1944, and the plan for BIV was abandoned. SS-Sturmbannführer Karl Bischoff , an architect, was the chief of construction. Based on an initial budget of RM 8.9 million, his plans called for each barracks to hold 550 prisoners, but he later changed this to 744 per barracks, which meant the camp could hold 125,000, rather than 97,000. There were 174 barracks, each measuring 35.4 by 11.0 m (116 by 36 ft), divided into 62 bays of 4 m (43 sq ft). The bays were divided into "roosts", initially for three inmates and later for four. With personal space of 1 m (11 sq ft) to sleep and place whatever belongings they had, inmates were deprived, Robert-Jan van Pelt wrote, "of
17947-524: Was killed by the Dacians by authority of their ruler, Diurpaneus. After this victory, Diurpaneus took the name of Decebalus , but the Romans were victorious in the Battle of Tapae in AD 88 and a truce was drawn up. The next year, AD 88, new Roman troops under Tettius Julianus , gained a significant advantage, but were obligated to make peace following the defeat of Domitian by the Marcomanni , leaving
18084-484: Was not a workday, but prisoners had to clean the barracks and take their weekly shower, and were allowed to write (in German) to their families, although the SS censored the mail. Inmates who did not speak German would trade bread for help. Observant Jews tried to keep track of the Hebrew calendar and Jewish holidays , including Shabbat , and the weekly Torah portion . No watches, calendars, or clocks were permitted in
18221-755: Was occupied by Kurucs . From 1876 to 1920, Șimleu Silvaniei was part of the Szilágy County of the Kingdom of Hungary . The Greek Catholic Vicariate of Șimleu Silvaniei was formed in 1910 and in 1817 the vicariate opened its own school. George Tatu (1810-1824), Georgiu Abraham (1824-1828), Isidor Alpini (1828-1835), Alexandru Sterca-Șuluțiu (1836-1850), Demetriu Coroianu (1850-1873), Alimpiu Barboloviciu (1873-1914), Alexandru Ghetie (1914-1922), Emil Bran (1926-1932), Petru Cupcea (1932-1940), Cornel Darabant (1940-1945), Gheorghe Țurcaș (2004-2009) served as vicars of Șimleu Silvaniei. The old Greek Catholic church
18358-562: Was on the eastern border of the Hercynian Forest . Burebista suppressed the indigenous minting of coinages by four major tribal groups, adopting imported or copied Roman denarii as a monetary standard. During his reign, Burebista transferred Geto-Dacians capital from Argedava to Sarmizegetusa Regia . For at least one and a half centuries, Sarmizegetusa was the Dacians' capital and reached its peak under King Decebalus . The Dacians appeared so formidable that Caesar contemplated an expedition against them, which his death in 44 BC prevented. In
18495-467: Was one gas chamber, there were 20 such prisoners, in late 1943 there were 400, and by 1944 during the Holocaust in Hungary the number had risen to 874. The Sonderkommando removed goods and corpses from the incoming trains, guided victims to the dressing rooms and gas chambers, removed their bodies afterwards, and took their jewelry, hair, dental work, and any precious metals from their teeth, all of which
18632-514: Was operational by March 1942. On or around 20 March, a transport of Polish Jews sent by the Gestapo from Silesia and Zagłębie Dąbrowskie was taken straight from the Oświęcim freight station to the Auschwitz II gas chamber, then buried in a nearby meadow. The gas chamber was located in what prisoners called the "little red house" (known as bunker 1 by the SS), a brick cottage that had been turned into
18769-420: Was sent to Germany. Once the bodies were stripped of anything valuable, the Sonderkommando burned them in the crematoria. Because they were witnesses to the mass murder, the Sonderkommando lived separately from the other prisoners, although this rule was not applied to the non-Jews among them. Their quality of life was further improved by their access to the property of new arrivals, which they traded within
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