The National Bank of Poland commemorates the 65th anniversary of the liberation of KL Auschwitz-Birkenau with this 2010 silver proof coin featuring a bust of Witold Pilecki, in striped prison uniform, against the background of a stylized image of the fence of the concentration camp and a fragment of a watchtower, with the inscriptions: KL Auschwitz 4859, and TWÓRCA ZWI¥ZKU ORGANIZACJI WOJSKOWEJ (the founder of the Union of Military Organization). The obverse shows the inscription over the entrance gate to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp: ARBEIT MACHT FREI (work makes you free), a fragment of a fence post and barbed wire, the face value, and the inscriptions: 65. ROCZNICA (65th anniversary) and OSWOBODZENIA KL AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU (of the liberation of KL Auschwitz-Birkenau).

 

The Auschwitz concentration camp was established in mid-1940 as the number of detained Poles in German-occupied country kept rising. The oldest part of the camp, the so-called mother camp (Auschwitz I) was established at the site of old military barracks. In the autumn of 1941 in the nearby Birkenau (Brzezinka) village, the Germans started the construction of the second part of the camp. It was called Auschwitz II (or Birkenau). At a given point in time it accommodated almost 100,000 inmates. This was where the majority of the extermination infrastructure was built – including gas chambers and crematoria. Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated on 27 January 1945 by the soldiers of the Red Army.