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The German name for the Polish city Oświęcim, which was occupied by Germany in 1939, and site of a large complex of Nazi labor and concentration camps, including the largest Nazi killing center at Auschwitz-Birkenau. During the camp system’s operation between 1940 and 1945, an estimated 1.3 million people were deported to Auschwitz and some 1.1 million of them were murdered. The use of Zyklon B gas and crematoriums as a means of mass murder were developed at Auschwitz. Because of its proximity to Slovakia, Auschwitz, along with Lublin/Majdenek and Sobibor, were the primary camps to which Slovak and Hungarian Jews were deported between 1942-1945. More than 70,000 Jews were deported from Slovakia, of whom only approximately 10,000 survived. In the final year of the war, 437,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz in the period of three months (April-June 1944). Many members of Oscar Sladek’s extended family were taken to Auschwitz, including the Zinger family, who were arrested in Kassa shortly after Oscar left their care to return to his family in Slovakia. The majority of Hungarian Jews were murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau; miraculously, all four members of the Zinger family survived.

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On June 6, 1944, the Allies launched a massive invasion of continental Europe on the French coast of Normandy on the English Channel. More than 160,000 Allied troops were deployed on what is known as D-Day, which marks the beginning of the liberation of France and the Allied victory in the war.