Final answer:
Auschwitz was integral to the Holocaust as an extermination, forced labor, and medical experimentation camp where approximately 1.1 million people were killed. It was the Nazis' largest death camp, designed to efficiently carry out the genocide of Jews and others. As Soviet forces approached, attempts were made to destroy evidence of the horrors that occurred there.
Step-by-step explanation:
The importance of Auschwitz to the Nazis lies in its role as a central site of the Holocaust. Originally constructed to detain Polish political prisoners, it evolved into an extermination camp as well as a site of forced labor and medical experimentation. By 1941, Auschwitz had expanded with the construction of Auschwitz II, or Birkenau, specifically designed for the mass murder of Jews and others considered undesirable by the Nazi regime. Trainloads of people were brought from across Europe to be systematically killed at Auschwitz, primarily using poisonous gas, but also through shootings, beatings, and the brutal conditions of forced labor.
Historians estimate that approximately 1.1 million people were murdered at Auschwitz, of which nearly one million were Jewish. This number also includes Polish and Soviet prisoners, Roma people, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, and political dissidents. The use of Zyklon B gas made Auschwitz one of the most efficient killing centers during the Holocaust. As the Soviet army advanced in January 1945, the SS leader Heinrich Himmler ordered the camp to be closed and evacuated, prompting the Nazis to attempt to destroy evidence of the atrocities committed there.