August 19: Auschwitz/Birkenau

Today was a difficult day. We went to the Auschwitz/Birkenau Concentration Camp. It is a huge camp constisting of 3 seperate parts. We went to the first two. Just the size of it alone is heartwrenching. It is also known as a death camp because many people were lead straight to the gas chamber when they got there. The train tracks were literally a few feet away from the gas chamber and crematorium for easy access. Over 1 million people died there: over 90% were Jews, but also Gypsies, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, etc. Most people have heard the statistics, but it is really hard to get a grasp on the horrors. Auschwitz is a little different because it is more personalized. It is the only concentration camp that kept records of the prisoners, so we got to hear the stories and see the pictures of the actual people.

Here are some pictures we took at the camp. Some of these are very difficult to look at, but I think is is very important to be aware of what our fellow man has suffered.


The toilettes the prisoners used.




The gas chamber.




The window the poisonous gas was dropped through.


The crematorium.


The ash pit where the ashes were thrown after the bodies were cremated. It is the size of a small swimming pool.



Children who were being experimented on.


Wall of people who did not survive.


Four people would be made to stand in these boxes for days on end. They were the size of a small telephone boxes.


The yard that victims were shot. It was close to all the other buildings, so when someone was executed, all the other prisoners could hear it.


Combs and brushes taken from the victims.


Dolls and children´s clothes.


Children´s shoes.


This only shows a portion of shoes taken from the prisoners.


Cooking pots taken from the prisoners.


Eye glasses taken from the victims.


This was unbelievable! This is hair taken from women to be later made into fabric. The wall of hair was about 8 feet high, 8 feet deep, and at least 40 feet long.

Gas canisters used in the gas chambers.



The gate entering the camp. The words above say "Work Makes You Free". No one was ever set free, but some of the time, if the Nazis could use you for slave labor, you weren´t killed, at the time.