Auschwitz Concentration Camps

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

This is without a doubt the saddest, most heartbreaking place I have ever been in my life. I still can’t comprehend what happened here. Instead of having a better understanding I have so many more questions. How did that many Nazi soldiers agree to carry out the work of a maniac? Were they scared? Were they also crazy? How were that many countries able to be taken over in a few short years? Where were all the other leaders?…

After WW2 it was the people who survived the Concentration Camps who wanted to make Auschwitz into a museum/memorial for people to visit. They want people to witness what happened here to ensure it never happens again.

Unfortunately I think history continues to repeat itself today in places like Syria. Instead of getting a crazy ruler out of power who is killing his own people with gas and mass hangings, we seem much more concerned with not wanting all the refugees in our countries. I have to imagine this unwanted feeling as you are trying to escape is a bit how the Jewish people felt in 1939-1945. Only history will tell.

I didn’t realize that there were 3 different Auschwitz camps. The first one was too small for the mass amounts of people that were being brought here, so they had to build more in the area that were significantly bigger. I also didn’t realize that all of these camps were in Poland.

We visited Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau. From 1940 when the first Polish transport truck arrived to the beginning of 1942 these concentration camps were a place of slow death- mainly from starvation. This is the gate every prisoner walked through in Auschwitz I.

From the beginning of 1942-1944, the concentration camps with forced labor continued to function, but they also had a new primary purpose: mass extermination. The camps held mainly Jewish, gypsies, and Polish people.

Auschwitz I was primarily a concentration camp. The first extermination of prisoners took place here in September of 1941 in these gas chambers. They would gas 700 prisoners at one time in these chambers.

It was other prisoners who were forced to gather the bodies when the gas chamber doors were opened. They were required to pull any gold teeth from the deceased to be melted and sent away. They were cremating 300+ bodies in a 24 hour period in these crematories.

The Nazi’s goal was to exterminate the entire Jewish population, so they opened Auschwitz II which was much larger. By 1944 they were able to exterminate 20,000 people per day with the gas chambers.

When the trains arrived to the camp, they had doctors deciding if the prisoners were strong enough to work based on their appearance. If they were not, which around 75% were categorized as, they were immediately sent to the gas chambers- mostly women, children, elderly, and the sick. If they were too weak to walk they were transported by trucks or had a bullet put in their head right there.

Keep in mind these trains were jam packed with people. This carts were intended for 20 people, but they would pack 80 people at a time in each cart.

They could be stuck in here for an entire week with no food, water, or anywhere to go to the bathroom. Many people didn’t even survive the train ride.

To keep the prisoners calm, they were told they were going to shower before heading to their new “home”. They were even told to remember where they hung their clothes to make it easier to find when they got out.

Once the prisoners were sent away, their belongings would immediately be sorted to gather valuables.

The buildings where the sorting was done was referred to as “Canada” since that was considered a “land of plenty.” Here are kitchen dishes that people had packed.

Hairbrushes were sorted.

And huge piles of shoes.

There were even piles this big of human hair. As well as glasses, crutches, casts, or anything else that would be considered a “handicap” and would cause you to go immediately to the gas chambers.

The SS officers at the camps enriched themselves with these belongings and sent the rest to Germany.

The only remains of the massive gas chambers in Auschwitz II- Birkenau are what you see below.The Nazi’s attempted to destroy evidence at the camps once they knew they were losing the war.

Even though the walls were built of thick cement, you could still hear screams of people from inside the chambers. There were so many people dying in these gas chambers that the crematories couldn’t keep up. So they started burning piles of bodies out in the open. The ashes were being buried, thrown in the river, and even used as fertilizer at farms.

The “lucky”people who were put to work at the camps lived in these buildings. There would be 800-1,000 people in each barrack.

The beds were wooden planks or bricks if you were on the bottom. There would be around 7-9 people sleeping in each bed. Keep in mind these were queen sized beds. Just picture trying to sleep with 10 people in a queen sized bed!

They would have role call each morning before work. The Nazi’s would require the prisoners to stand for hours until they could account for every person.

If it was discovered that someone from your barrack was missing, they would execute 7-10 other people either by hanging, shooting, or putting them in a dark room to starve to death.

If you tried to escape and were caught you would be put in a dark underground room with no food and water to either starve to death, or suffocate once the room ran out of oxygen. The officers would sometimes light a candle so the oxygen ran out faster. You might also be hung with your arms behind your back until your shoulder sockets popped out.

One of the most malicious doctors doing medical studies on the prisoners was named Josef Mangele and referred to as the Angel of Death. He was known for his cruel experiments on twins and dwarfs. He would inject one twin with a disease and when they died kill the other to compare autopsies. He was never caught and instead spent his final years living in Brazil, as a free man, until he died.

It is estimated that 1.3 million people came to these camps and 1.1 million of them died. There were 7,000 Nazi soldiers who ran these camps. Only 840 of them have ever been caught or convicted. Only 12 were sentenced to death. Most of them who received longer or life sentences were pardoned after a few years, allowing them to live as free people among us for the rest of their lives.