
WARSAW – Poland is preparing an extensive list of the personnel who served in the Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz, where according to new data, more than 8,700 people worked, nearly double the previous figure.
The initiative could lead to new war crime charges being brought up against the few dozens of the workers still living.
An investigation by the Institute of National Remembrance, or IPN, a public body which is responsible for investigating Nazi and communist war crimes against Polish citizens brought the new information to light.
Media reports on Tuesday specified that the updated list of people who served in the camp includes more than 8,700 names, including 186 women.
Older documents calculated between 4,000 and 5,000 staff members, of which only about 770 were convicted in the aftermath of World War II.
The largest extermination launched by the Nazis occurred at Auschwitz, where from 1940 and 1945, 1.1 million people were killed, 90 percent of who were Jewish, but also included thousands of Poles, Romas and Soviet prisoners of war.
The camp was liberated by the Soviet Army on Jan. 27, 1945.
Auschwitz concentration camp was declared a World Heritage Site by the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 1979, and remains one of the most identifiable vestiges of the Holocaust genocide worldwide.