<P> The ideology of Nazism brought together elements of antisemitism, racial hygiene, and eugenics, and combined them with pan-Germanism and territorial expansionism with the goal of obtaining more Lebensraum (living space) for the Germanic people . Immediately after the Nazi seizure of power in Germany, acts of violence perpetrated against Jews became ubiquitous . The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, passed on 7 April 1933 excluded most Jews from the legal profession and the civil service . Similar legislation soon deprived Jewish members of other professions of the right to practise . Harassment and economic pressure were used by the regime to encourage Jews to leave the country voluntarily . Their businesses were denied access to markets, forbidden to advertise in newspapers, and deprived of government contracts . German Jews were subjected to violent attacks and boycotts . </P> <P> In September 1935, the Nuremberg Laws were enacted . These laws prohibited marriages between Jews and people of Germanic extraction, extramarital relations between Jews and Germans, and the employment of German women under the age of 45 as domestic servants in Jewish households . The Reich Citizenship Law stated that only those of Germanic or related blood were defined as citizens . Thus Jews and other minority groups were stripped of their German citizenship . The laws were expanded on 26 November 1935 to include Romani people and Afro - Germans . This supplementary decree defined Gypsies as "enemies of the race - based state", the same category as Jews . By the start of World War II in 1939, around 250,000 of Germany's 437,000 Jews had emigrated to the United States, Palestine, the United Kingdom, and other countries . </P> <P> Nazi Germany invaded Poland in September 1939 . German dictator Adolf Hitler ordered that the Polish leadership and intelligentsia be destroyed . Approximately 65,000 civilians, who were viewed as being inferior to the Aryan master race, were killed by the end of 1939 . In addition to leaders of Polish society, the Nazis killed Jews, prostitutes, Romani, and the mentally ill . SS - Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, then head of the Gestapo, ordered on 21 September that Polish Jews should be rounded up and concentrated into cities with good rail links . Initially the intention was to deport the Jews to points further east, or possibly to Madagascar . Two years later, in an attempt to obtain new territory, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, intending to deport or kill the Jews and Slavs living there . </P> <P> After this part of Poland was annexed by Nazi Germany, Oświęcim (Auschwitz) was located administratively in Germany, Province of Upper Silesia, Regierungsbezirk Kattowitz, Landkreis Bielitz . It was first suggested as a site for a concentration camp for Polish prisoners by SS - Oberführer Arpad Wigand, an aide to Higher SS and Police Leader for Silesia, Erich von dem Bach - Zelewski . Bach - Zelewski had been searching for a site to house prisoners in the Silesia region, as the local prisons were filled to capacity . Richard Glücks, head of the Concentration Camps Inspectorate, sent former Sachsenhausen concentration camp commandant Walter Eisfeld to inspect the site, which already held sixteen dilapidated one - story buildings that had once served as an Austrian and later Polish Army barracks and a camp for transient workers . Reichsführer - SS Heinrich Himmler, head of the Schutzstaffel (SS), approved the site in April 1940, intending to use the facility to house political prisoners . SS - Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel) Rudolf Höss oversaw the development of the camp and served as the first commandant . SS - Obersturmführer (senior lieutenant) Josef Kramer was appointed Höss's deputy . Auschwitz I, the original camp, became the administrative center for the whole complex . </P>

What was the significance of the liberation of auschwitz