Auschwitz was liberated in January 1945 by the red army After liberation, parts of Auschwitz I first served as a hospital for the liberated. Soviet and polish investigators worked in the initial months to document ss war crimes. In the two years that followed the Birkenau Barracks were looted by polish civilians. Area residents sifted the mass graves and ashes for gold. After the site became a museum in 1947, exhumation work lasted for more than a decade. Antoni Debrowolski, the oldest known survivor of Auschwitz, died aged 108 on October 21, 2012, in Debno Poland.