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A Holocaust survivor displaying his arm tattoo. Identification of inmates in Nazi concentration camps was performed mostly with identification numbers marked on clothing, or later, tattooed on the skin. More specialized identification in Nazi concentration camps was done with badges on clothing and armbands .
The Auschwitz camp complex was the only institution to systematically tattoo inmates with their prison numbers, to facilitate their identification after death from starvation, disease or brutality in the camp. Incoming prisoners were assigned a camp serial number, which was also sewn to their prison uniforms. By the end of the war, the camp ...
The Auschwitz Concentration Camp Complex (including Auschwitz 1, AuschwitzBirkenau, and Monowitz) was the only location in which prisoners were systematically tattooed during the Holocaust. Prior to tattooing, several means of identifying prisoners, both by number and by category, had been implemented; serial numbers were the main method.
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The Auschwitz camp complex was the only location that issued identifying tattoos during the Holocaust. Only prisoners selected for forced labor were assigned serial numbers. Prisoners who were sent directly to the gas chambers were not registered or tattooed. More than 400,000 serial numbers were assigned at Auschwitz.
The tattoos’ designs aside, tattooing in general is considered taboo among many Jews for religious and cultural reasons. Some waited until their survivor parent or grandparent had died.
Serial number tattoos with symbols, shapes or letters were first introduced for prisoners in the Auschwitz concentration camp complex in October 1941. More than 400,000 people would be tattooed there.
