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Why were Jews the largest group of victims at Auschwitz?

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Auschwitz: entrance gates — Auschwitz The entrance gates to the Auschwitz concentration camp, near Kraków, Poland; the sign reads “Arbeit Macht Frei” (“Work Liberates”).

Jews were the largest group of victims at Auschwitz because their systematic annihilation was the primary objective of the Nazi Final Solution. Nazi ideology perceived Jewish people not merely as political opponents, but as a biological "cancer" that threatened the purity and survival of the German people. Consequently, the eradication of European Jewry became official party policy, and the Nazis sought to murder all Jewish men, women, and children.12

Auschwitz-Birkenau was specifically designated as a central killing center for this purpose. Its location at a major railway junction allowed the Nazis to efficiently transport Jewish populations from across Europe to the camp. While the Nazis also persecuted and murdered other groups—including Roma, Poles, political dissidents, and others—the destruction of the Jewish population remained paramount in the eyes of the Third Reich. As a result, approximately 90 percent of the 1.1 to 1.5 million people who died at Auschwitz were Jews.324