Auschitz 2: Birkenau

                               Entrance to Auschwitz 2: Birkenau

  
   One of the many wooden huts that held hundreds of prisoners.

      Row of huts which would hold thousands of prisoners in total.

 Interior of a hut without its bunks. The rows of windows above were for ventilation and light but prevented any view of the outside.

                   A watchtower and the dividing barbed wires.

            Coming into Auschwitz 2: Birkenau by train.

The interior of a hut with bunks. Two or sometimes three people would share each bed.

"Resettlement" into ghettos was the first step toward planned elimination of Jewish populations in each country as the Germans took control. Next, groups of the ghettoized people would be transported to Auschwitz or another death camp for selection and murder.

Children's clothing and toys found at Auschwitz when the Soviets camp to the camp.

Overview of Auschwitz 1 and Auschwitz 2: Birkenau. Auschwitz 1 is only the small section in the left hand bottom corner. Just beyond it are facilities for light industry, the place workers were marched to each day. Above is the vastly larger Birkenau site. Each tiny stroke laid in precise rows is one of the huts pictured above. Some were made of brick. Above the rows of huts is the area where the four gas chambers and their crematoria were built, as well as the fire pits used to burn bodies when the crematoria were overloaded as was the case in the summer of 1944 when well over 400,000 Hungarian Jews were transported to Birkenau for their "liquidation." 

A view transported Jews just emerging from the cattle cars where they had spent sometimes many days in congested, unhygienic conditions. The goods that they are carrying would be left on the ramp to be picked up by a squad of prisoners, carried to the sorting warehouse and organized to be sent to Germany. 
The people would be told to separate the men from the women and to line up in groups of five to pass by a selection committee of one or more doctors.

A group of women and children who have been selected to be taken to the gas chambers.

The selection process led by SS doctors, sometimes by Dr Mengele.

   The selection ramp at Birkenau today. Above this site were the gas chambers and crematoria, all destroyed by the SS before the Soviets arrived in a vain attempt to destroy all evidence of atrocities.