Auschwitz was the biggest and the most notorious concentration camp in the Nazi system. Seeing the camp can be difficult but Auschwitz victims and their families want tourist to come here, to experience the scale and the monstrosity of the place in human terms. In hope that the Holocaust will never be forgotten.
The Nazis turned an army base into a death camp, they murdered over four million European Jews in Poland, over a million people the vast majority of them Jews were systematically exterminated here at Auschwitz.
The notorious gate welcomed inmates – with the massage ‘’Work will set you free “. Former cell blocks tell the story- people were told that they will start a new lives and to bring luggage with their names on it. After they were killed everything of value was sorted . You can also see a prosthetic limb that remind us – the first people exterminated were mentally and physically ill German citizens, also a children’s clothing, and a seemingly endless mountains of shoes.
Halls are lined with photographs of victims each marked with the dates of arrival and dates of death. The crematorium is marked by its chimney- up to 700 people ate the times could be gassed, but it required two days to burn that many bodies. But the Nazis had also a bigger camp just two miles away. Auschwitz II or Birkenau. Birkenau was the factory of death holding a hundred thousand people.
A few building survive, train tracks that lead to the dividing platform. A Nazi doctor, evaluated each prisoner as they stepped out of the train.
Families from all over Europe were torn apart forever. Up to a thousand were packed into each of the buildings in Birkenau. The Germans bombed the sprawling gassing and cremation facilities as they retreated. The ruins stand there as a memorial.
At Birkenaus the Nazis gassed and cremated over 4.000 people per day. The camp monument represents gravestones. There is a guide that will explain the purpose of this memorial.
Today Auschwitz is the most poignant memorial anywhere to the victims of the Holocaust. It is a real experience to visit Auschwitz.
