1940

Auschwitz concentration camp

First transport of Polish political prisoners arrives at Auschwitz

The 728 men received camp numbers 31 through 758 — numbers 1 through 30 had already been assigned to German prisoners the SS intended to use as functionaries.

14 June 1940: the transport from Tarnów

On 14 June 1940, German authorities transported 728 Polish political prisoners — a small number of them Polish Jews — from Tarnów prison to Auschwitz, the camp the SS had established in former Polish artillery barracks at Oświęcim. The train arrived at about 3:10 p.m., and the prisoners were registered with camp numbers 31 through 758.

The first Auschwitz roll call was held that day. The Auschwitz Memorial recognizes this transport's arrival as the beginning of the camp's operation — there was no single ceremonial opening: and thirty German prisoner functionaries had arrived from Sachsenhausen on 20 May, taking numbers 1 through 30.

Barracks not yet ready

The transport arrived in passenger cars, not the freight cars that later became an enduring image of deportation to Auschwitz. The main barracks were unfinished, so the new prisoners spent their initial quarantine in buildings of the former Polish Tobacco Monopoly near the camp.

The camp's immediate purpose was set by mass arrests: German-controlled prisons in Upper Silesia and the Dąbrowa Basin were overcrowded with Poles. Heinrich Himmler had ordered the camp established in April 1940, with Rudolf Höss overseeing construction and early operation as first commandant.

What June 1940 was, and was not

Auschwitz did not open in 1940 as an extermination center for European Jews. It initially operated chiefly as a concentration camp for Polish political prisoners; Birkenau's construction began only in October 1941, and the camp became a major Jewish killing center beginning in 1942.

The scale of what followed belongs to the camp's full history: historians estimate approximately 1.1 million people died across the Auschwitz complex, including about 1 million Jews. Of the 728 men in the first transport, the Memorial has identified 298 who survived the war, 272 who died, and 158 whose fate remains unknown.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 7 sources 3 audit passes Traditional date

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →

Traditional date. Conventionally dated here; the research places it at 1940-06-14.

What the sources leave uncertain

There was no single ceremonial opening. Himmler ordered the camp established in April, 30 German prisoner functionaries arrived on May 20, and the Auschwitz Memorial treats June 14—the arrival of the first large transport—as the start of operation.
Calling the 1940 installation “Auschwitz-Birkenau” is anachronistic: Auschwitz II-Birkenau was not begun until October 1941.