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.

Auschwitz 1 Photos

                                                                                                                                                                                    Photos of women prisoners taken before 1942 as means of identification. Records were kept of names, birth and death dates of each in accordance with the laws of the Third Reich. Later each prisoner was given a tatoo on her forearm as the method of identification. People selected for the gas chambers immediately on arrival were not registered in any fashion.

A group of Roma people being expelled from Occupied Poland soon after the beginning of the war.

The original crematorium  at Auschwitz 1 used for the disposal of people who died of diseases or who were executed. After the experiment of using Cyclon B to gas the prisoners held in "The Block of Death," the adjoining mortuary in this building was turned into the first of Auschwitz' eventual five gas chambers. It was considerably smaller than the other four which were later built at Auschwitz 2: Birkenau.

            The two ovens in the crematorium of Auschwitz 1.

      A group being  rounded up for transportation to Auschwitz.

Part of the square where prisoners were required to stand, sometimes for many hours and in all weathers for roll call. The wooden structure in the foreground was used for the public hanging of prisoners who were punished, for example, for trying to escape.

Crystals of Cyclon B, a pesticide for the extermination of lice, which was used in gas chambers after late 1941.

Sign now in one of the basement cells of the Block of Death where prisoners were tortured and sometimes deliberately starved to death.

Abandoned mugs and bowls found at Auschwitz when it was liberated by Soviet forces in 1945. Close to 100,000 prisoners had been hastily taken from the camp in a forced march from which few survived. These mugs and bowls had been used by prisoners to collect their food.

Shoes abandoned at Auschwitz, most of which were the shoes of people selected for immediate death on arrival. All of their clothes and belongings were sorted and sent to Germany for distribution.

Suitcase abandoned at Auschwitz. People gathered for transportation were told they could bring one suitcase each. Naturally people brought their most precious things. All were simply confiscated at the train ramp, sorted at a camp block commonly called "Canada" -- a place of good things. The valuables were taken for use by the SS.

           Leg braces and artificial limbs taken from prisoners.

     A boy arriving at Auschwitz with his family, awaiting selection.

Auschwitz 1

This blog is entirely dedicated to photos taken during our recent visit to sites of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe. All pictures in this post are taken at Auschwitz 1.

The entrance to all of the camps created by the Nazis were given this wrought iron ironic salute: Work Will Set You Free. This is the entrance gate to Auschwitz 1, established close to Krakow, Poland in 1940 to hold members of the Polish intelligentsia, people who could spark resistance to the Nazi conquerors. From that time it evolved into a sprawling camp of three main division, the primary setting for the Nazis' extermination project.

Below is a photo of the camp orchestra. Morning and evening it would be assembled to play the marches to which prisoners would leave and return from their work of the day. The SS paid close attention to the order and gait of all leaving and returning workers. Each line of five abreast was required to march in proper military form in time to the orchestra. Checking numbers of prisoners was facilitated by this procedure. Failure to march properly led to severe punishment and possible selection for the regular "weeding" out of the unfit for work, the death sentence.

Looking out from the entrance gate.

A watchtower behind the electrified fence. Prisoners were not allowed to come closer than two yards to the fence. Periodically a prisoner would rush the fence in order to commit suicide.

Prisoners triple-tiered bunks, most often shared due to overcrowding. Each had a thin straw mattress and two blankets. Kapos and their bosses, SS-men, were fanatical about the beds being left in perfect order each morning.

A Kapo's special space within the block. Most Kapos were criminals especially imported by the Nazis from prisons to be the first level bosses of the political, Jewish, Roma, and so on, groupings. Kapos had special privileges and food; they had rights of physical control over their charges and were, in fact, expected to be brutal.

                                 Camp latrines.

The building on the right was called The House of Death by the prisoners as all housed there were killed. Its inmates were generally politicals, Soviet prisoners of war, and regular prisoners who were suspected of sabotage in any form. This building was in use mainly before 1942 when Birkenau took over the main killing function of the camp. The courtyard seen between the building was the site of executions.

This room at the front main floor of The House of Death was used for the "trials" of prisoners held there once they had been subjected to various forms of torture in the basement cells. Each "trial" lasted on average one minute. This formality was an attempt on the part of the administration to conform to the laws passed by the Third Reich soon after its formation. When Birkenau was operational, all pretense of legality was abandoned.

This reconstructed Wall of Death was the place in the courtyard where each condemned prisoner would be shot in the back of the head. After being sentenced, he was taken to an adjoining room and made to completely undress. Then he was taken out a side door of the building to the courtyard and shot by the SS officer on duty. Within a minute the next condemned man was brought out. There were often over a hundred of these every day. It was in this building that the first experiments of gassing using Cyclon B, a pesticide, was used. Its success opened the way for the mass exterminations of 1942-5.