More from Poland

While in Poland, we visited the Auschwitz I, and Auschwitz - Birkenau concentration and death camps.  Over 1.1 million people lost their lives in the Auschwitz camps during World War II, 90% being jews, but also including Poles, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, and thousands of other people of diverse nationalities.  

I often feel like we are desensitized to the reality of the events that took place throughout the World War.  It feels like it was such a long time ago and it's difficult to understand how people could be so brainwashed and so evil.  This camp was closed only 9 years before my father was born.  This didn't happen very long ago.  And although the proof is blinding, there are still people who can't, or don't, believe that these things happened.   

Auschwitz I was formerly Polish Army baracks.  The buildings you see here are the original buildings.

At the enterance of Auschwitz I there is a sign "Arbeit Macht Frei", which translates to "Work will make you free"

Auschwitz I was surrounded by two rows of electric fences, making it almost impossible to escape.  Those who were allowed to work would leave the camp in the day and return at night.  If anyone tried to escape, there were different forms of punishment, one being a standing cell.  In this cell, the prisoners would crawl through a 2ft x 2ft door on the ground.  Up to four prisoners would be forced into the cell (about the size of a phone booth), where they would have to stand all night. 

In one room at Auschwitz I is 7 tons of human hair.  The guards would shave everyones head when they arrived.  The hair was then sold to make textiles, rugs, and net. 

The baracks were overcrowded and unsanitary.  All prisoners were made to wear a grey and blue striped uniform.  They were told when they could use the bathroom, and were fed meals that only consisted of one piece of molded bread, or stew made from rotten potatoes. 

In one of the barracks hangs the pictures of some of the people who died in Auschwitz I.  When the camp began getting overcrowded the SS stopped keeping track of the prisoners by photographs, instead tattooing numbers on their forearm for identification.  However, thousands of Jews and prisoners are totally unaccounted for because they were sent to the gas chambers immediately upon arrival to the camp.   

Auschwitz-Birkenau was built when the main camp became too crowded.  It was to function as a death camp, in preparation of "The Final Solution of the Jewish Question", or the extermination of the Jews. 

The train tracks in this photo are the original tracks used to transport prisoners to the camps.  Once they got off the trains, they were separated into two groups: men, and women & children.  Those groups were the separated into groups of people who were either fit, or unfit to work.  Those considered unfit (children under the age of 15, older people, people with handicaps) were immediately sent to the gas chambers. 

The second set of barracks at Auschwitz-Birkenau were built of wood.  Some were destroyed by the SS before the camp was liberated in January of 1945.  Others were torn down and used for supplies by the Soviet troops.  Now, all that stands are the brick chimneys. 

There were two crematoriums at Auschwitz-Birkenau.  The prisoners would enter an underground changing room, where they were told to undress.  They would then enter a gas chamber (also underground), equipped with fake shower heads, where they thought they would be taking showers.  Upon death, the bodies were immediately taken to the crematoriums to be burned. 

 When open, Auschwitz-Birkneau had no grass.  The entire area often flooded and was covered with dirt and mud, creating even more unsanitary living conditions in the camp.

There is now a memorial at Auschwitz-Birkneau.  In several different languages a plaque reads: "For ever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity where the Nazis murdered about one and a half million men, women, and children, many Jews from various countries of Eruope.  Auschwitz-Birkenau 1940-1945".