Approximately 1.1 million people were murdered at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp complex during the Holocaust.
Auschwitz was the largest Nazi concentration and extermination camp complex. It operated in German-occupied Poland from 1940 until its liberation in January 1945. Historians estimate that about 1.1 million people were killed there, including approximately one million Jews, along with Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war, and others.
Most victims were murdered in gas chambers using Zyklon B, while others died from forced labor, starvation, disease, shootings, and brutal living conditions. Auschwitz-Birkenau was both a concentration-camp system and a major killing center; Auschwitz I served as the original camp, while Auschwitz II-Birkenau became the principal extermination site.
A common mix-up is treating the Auschwitz figure as the total number of Holocaust victims. The approximately 1.1 million figure applies specifically to the Auschwitz complex, whereas historians estimate that about six million Jews were murdered across Nazi-occupied Europe.