Auschwitz (owsh vihtz) the death camp complex built in May 1940, south of the Vistula River a mile from the town of Oswiecim, Poland. Auschwitz I, the original concentration camp, annihilated two million victims with Zyklon B, a hydrocyanic vapor spread through shower heads on unsuspecting victims, then disposed of their remains in crematories. Added to the original buildings was Birkenau, or Auschwitz II, a selection and disposal center at the Auschwitz depot, and the Monowitz labor camp, or Auschwitz III, which lay south of the I. G. Farben synthetic oil and rubber factory, called Buna.
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