2009-09-15 13:07

Number of visitors to Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum exceeds 1 mllion by mid-September

So far one million people visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and State Museum this year, Bartosz Bartyzel of the museum press office said Monday.

"Odds are that the record number of visitors will be exceeded. In 2007, the museum was visited by 1.22 million people. Last year, the millionth guest crossed the museum gate on October 8 with the total number of visitors exceeding 1.16 million. Of all Nazi extermination camps, the former Auschwitz death camp is the most frequently visited, Bartyzel said.

Museum data indicate that over the past seven years the number of visitors increased three-fold.

The camp was established by the Nazis in 1940, the Auschwitz 2-Birkenau death camp in 1942. It became the site of mass annihilation of Jews, Poles, Roma people, Soviet POWs. Of 1.3 million inmates 1.1 million were murdered. KM

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