Auschwitz


The Oswiecim (Auschwitz in Polish) train station where we were dropped off. It was basically deserted and I know I felt like we just got dropped off in the middle of nowhere.	We were walking down the street that Auschwitz is on. As we are passing by it looks just like a normal neighborhood; houses and dogs barking.	Outside the Visitor's Entrance to the Camp Museum in a park, there was this memorial.	The sign on the memorial declared that the Russian Army freed the camp in 1945.	In back of the memorial there was a small garden with some tall trees (visible two pictures back) and this is where a mass grave is.

The Visitor's Entrance basically.	Church at the front of Visitor's Entrance.	Walking up to the Main Entrance.	Passing by barracks inside the camp on the way.	Sculpture inside the Main Building Entrance. It depicts a man stuck in the barbed wire, probably trying to escape the camp.

Before the tour begins there is a 30 minute documentary on the camp and the freeing of it by the Russian Army and what they found.	Looking at the camp from Main Visitor's Building.	Walking up the gate.	The official entrance to Auschwitz and the writing says "work makes freedom."	The fence surrounding the camp perimeter with the barracks behind them.

Close-up of fence. There were actually two layers of fence made of barbed wire and both were electrified.	SS Guard house and Office of the Camp Supervisor. Other "office" buildings down the way.	Another view of fence.	This spot was right in front of the main gate. Auschwitz had a camp band that played ridiculous music whenever new prisoners came in. They also played joyous music whenever there was an execution. The prisoners were the ones made to play. Just an example of the mental torture they put people through.	Down a row of barracks.

Down another row of barracks.	Sign as you are entering one of the museums. All museums are housed in former camp buildings and they have many exibitions.	This map shows the wide-range effect of Nazi terror. These were all the main train routes that they brought prisoners to Auschwitz from. Even as far away as Rome and Greece. Some of the "lucky" prisoner's never survived the train ride, the train from Greece lasted up to 17 days in length. There was no bathroom, food, water, etc. Most of the people were coaxed on the train by a plot of the Nazi's. They told all of these people they would be moving to a new home and they forged all the documents for selling them real estate and such. So all of these people had all of their most important belongings with them on the train.	Memorial.	Model of the gas chamber at Auschwitz. Starting of the left hand side, all of the prisoners were made to undress in front of each other. Then they were moved into the showers where they were gassed and it usually took them 10 minutes or so to die. Then make-shift elevators all manned by other Auschwitz prisoners hauled up all the dead bodies and put them in the incinerators. It was something like 70% of all people that came to Auschwitz were gassed immediately upon their arrival. Of course, they just thought they were getting a shower.

same	Cyclon B was what the Nazi's used in the gas chambers and upon camp liberation thousands and thousands of these empty cans still remained, even after the Nazis feverishly tried to rid of all the evidence.	Hair	The Nazis used everything they could, even the hair. They would make bags and cloths out of it, like what is shown above.	Pictures of Auschwitz and Birkenau. The colored outlines of buildings are the warehouses they used to store all the belongings of the prisoners.

The outside of the museum building we just toured, the Extermination Museum.	The building we are about to go into, the Material Evidence of Crimes Museum.	Glasses.	People's dishes, remember that most of them thought they were being "relocated" to a new home.	Artificial limbs.

Close-up of a leg.	Shoes.	Luggage.	Toothbrushes, hairbrushes, etc.	Everyday Life of the Prisoner Museum

The entrance of this a some other buildings were lines with thousands of prisoner's pictures.	The code they used for marking prisoner's for why they were at the camp. The camp had two purposes: to keep political prisoners (people anti-Nazi), and to exterminate Jews and Poles.	Real uniforms that someone was wearing during camp liberation.	More pictures.	The children's room. Children were treated the same way as adults at the camp and therefore had a much shorter life expectancy. Later the Nazis did testing on twins. The pictures were the first form of identification. The took a profile, portrait, and then one with a hat/scarf. They did this until 1943 and after that they tatooed the numbers on people.

All the art in the museums were done by former prisoners of the camp. It was their way of expressing and dealing with what they went through. This is an emancipated mother and son.	What they did to women prisoners.	What they did at the very feared Block 11.	Courtyard and the wall is straight back where all the executions took place.	Down the row of barracks.

More about Block 11.	Nazi post and fence.	Inside Block 11.	Supervisor for the building, all furniture was as found.	same room


Across the hall was a conference room where the SS would discuss the rulings of the Gestapo Court (in Katowice where we stayed) for the punishments of the prisoners.	Sample barracks.	This is where they made the women undress, so they could execute them in the Courtyard completely naked.	Yup, that's where they hung some people.	Artist depicting the camp prisoner's hauling off bodies from the gas chambers.

Executions in Courtyard.	Women waiting for execution.	Look how worn down these stairs are. These led to holding cells in the cellar.	Entering cells.	Down the hall.

For bad prisoners they would put them in the holes (squares at bottom of picture) and lay bricks over them to give them the fell of being burried alive.	This plaque is describing the cell in the next picture.	The priest mentioned in last plaque was named the Patron Saint of Auschwitz because he sacrificed his life for another prisoner to survive.	same	This cell was where they suffocated people. The only ventilation was that small hole up on top. Beyond that is a wall with 5 or so small holes the diameter of a pencil.

More buildings.	more	more	This is where they publicly hung prisoners.	Guard post.
				T
In between the fences.	The gas chamber.	Where they hung some prisoners and an SS Officer after camp liberation.	Explains previous picture.	A side doorway leading down to gas chamber.

Just outside the gas chamber.	...	Inside the showers.	Incinerators.	more

Front of gas chambers.	Looking back at the camp.	Address.	In between buildings.	Looking out at perimeter of camp.

Living and Sanitary Conditions Museum	For the first year of the camp they were still constructing most of it, so before barracks it was laying down on straw.	More Pictures.	more	Bathroom

Sinks.	About the barracks.	Brick barracks	more	Bunks.

More bunks	A prisoner would get special treatment, like the room in this picture to himself, if and only if he turned against the other prisoners and acted as an SS Officer.	One of the lists of prisoners at Auschwitz.	Jessica's relative's name.