In 1944 Auschwitz was liberated by the Russian Soviet Army, but not much was left to see. The Germans had burned down many of their buildings, factories, living quarters, and crematories. They also had taken 60,000 prisoners and sent them to other concentration camps throughout the area leavings behind the sick to die. They found piles of shoes, clothes, and hair from when the prisoners had been stripped of their belongings when they first arrived in Auschwitz. Auschwitz was one of the very first concentration camps to be liberated. The Nazi SS officers knew the time of liberation was drawing near. So they began killing prisoners by the thousands days before the liberation. The Soviet army was not scared of the things they saw in Auschwitz
