Europe Trip: Poland > Krakow -- Auschwitz Birkenau. German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp (25/05/07)

Auschwitz Birkenau. German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp (1940-1945)

The gate that marks the beginning of great sufferings for many in the past...and death gate to the thousands and millions people who perished here...one of the saddest place to be remembered in the history...

To make it more saddening, the sign at the camp wrote:

"PLEASE BEHAVE APPROPRIATELY, RESPECTING THE MEMORY OF THOSE WHO SUFFERED AND DIED HERE."

Througout the world, Auschwitz has become a symbol of terror, genocide, and the Holocaust. The German forces occupying Poland during the Second World War established a concentration camp, on the outskirts of the town of Oswiecim. In 1940, the Germans called the town Auschwitz and that is the name by which the camp was known. Over the next years it was expanded into three main camps: Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, and Auschwitz III-Monowitz and more than forty subcamps.

The first people to be brought to Auschwitz as prisoners and murdered here were Poles. They were followed by Soviet prisoners of war, Gypsies and deporters of many other nationalities. Beginning in 1942, however, Auschwitz became the settling for the most massive murder campaign in history, when the Nazis put into operation their plan to destroy the entire Jewish population of Europe. The great majority of Jews who were deported to Auschwitz - men, women, and children - were sent immediately upon arrival to death in the gas chambers of Birkenau.

When the SS realised that the end of war was near, they attempted to remove the evidence of the atrocities committed here. They dismantled the gas chambers, crematoria, and other buildings, burned documents, and evacuated all those prisoners who could walk to the interior of Germany. Those who were not evacuated were liberated by the Red Army on January 27, 1945.

On July 2, 1947, the Polish Parliament established the State Museum of Oswiecim - Brzezinka on the sites of the former camps at Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau. In 1979, these camps were formally recognized by UNESCO by their inclusion on its World Heritage List.

There is simply no way for escape as the electric fences comes in double, totally trapped inside...

This is where the camp Gestapo was located. Prisoners suspected of involvement in the camp's underground resistance movement or of preparing to escape were interrogated here. Many prisoners died as a result of being beaten or totured.Prisoners are transported here to be imprisoned while waiting to be judged which way to go: the gas chamber or the bunks for the slaves...Even if they were not chosen to go to the gas chamber, it does not mean they will survive either but probably a much slower death...

Just look at all these buildings. They are all built by the prisoners themselves...for the Germans to imprison them inside...how smart and cunning they are...The room of the lower ranking officers...at least it is neat and clean to live in...Many visitors came to pay their respect and tributes to those who have died here.Block 11, famously known as the Death Block, is used to house those prisoners who were being tortured inhumanly or waiting for their death penalty.

There are just too many ways that the German can come up with to murder their prisoners that normal person would never come to think of it. For examples, some suffered slow death or suffocations in the standing cells in the basement, while some were simply thrown outside of the house in winter where temperature falls below freezing point and the Germans poured water over them and let them stand there overnight to freeze to death -- naked.

I just can't believe how people can become till I was here...are they human???
Right beside Block 11 are 2 poles with hooks on top. I have no idea what they were used for but nonetheless it certainly is up to no good at all...
A watchhouse for the security guard to lookout for any prisoners who want to make their escapes...A statue inside the visitor centre...it is so true of the reality of the past...On our way to Birkenau which is very near to Auschwitz I, we can still see the abandoned railway along the road that used to transport prisoners from Auschwitz I to Auschwitz II-Birkenau...Saw these white, ghostly flowers in one of the resident's house. The colour is like being covered in snow...beautiful yet add a little ghostly sadness to the atmosphere...
Finally, the Auschwitz II-Birkenau Camp.In contrast to the camp, the field outside is covered with soft grass and looks so peaceful.

I wonder how many people actually made it to see it...Map of Birkenau

Although it is very much empty now with ruins all around, the site is still big and you can tell how the Germans used this place from here.Watch Tower of Birkenau and the railway that is connected to outside so as to transport the prisoners in from other camps.And this is the railway that connects to the gas chamber. Prisoners in the past will not know where they are heading to nor what will happen to them.

That's why we called it the Death Railway... Fence after fence, watch house after watch house...it's like the German are either afraid of the prisoners escaping or that their cruel acts here will be revealed to the outside world...First thing when the war ends, the Nazis immediately destroyed all the gas chambers in the camps, the very evidence to nail their crimes. Now, all we can see is the ruins that is left, to remind us of such brutal acts of them...Birkenau is really big but it is not too hard to identify what is used to be there IF the buildings or memorial is still around...Ruins of another gas chamberMemorial for those who have died here...see the number there? About one and a half million people died here within only a short period of 5 years! How terrible this is...especially this number is juz the official figure which probably still miss out many others whose deaths are not counted in officially... *shudder* :S

The gas chamber ruins where prisoners are all stripped naked and cramped in this small area while waiting to die...so inhuman...

Shower Room

Prisoners are stripped off their clothings while waiting to be examined to see if they are physically fit to be the slaves...or to the other world...The gate to the bunks always looks so gloomy. It's not easy to joke or smile around here...The bunks that house the prisoners that are waiting for their judgement to where they go.The interior of these bunks is nothing fanciful at all with only a small fireplace in the bunk.

Most of Birkenau now is only ruins and patches of used ground.

My heart is heavy as I come to this place. When I was at Auschwitz I, I cried as I read about the cruelty of the Nazis. They are really one bunch of dictative jerks, claiming that they want a pure generation of Germans...are they crazy or just too arrogant??? The thing I hate most about them is that they exterminate ALL Jews. And I mean every single one of them, including those innocents like children, elderly, toddlers who are simply helpless to fight back. Are they really proud of their own action, the bullying of people who are so much weaker than them???

Honestly, I was never into history and I have no idea what the Nazis did before coming to this camp. The only thing I know about them is that they are a group of extremists who are quite popular among the Germans but not to many others. I have to agree that if I were a German at that time, what the Nazis did is probably built on the benefits of the Germans, making them so-called a more superior breed. Yet, the killings of the innocents to reach their goals are certainly unforgivable...coz if you imagine what happens in the other way round, you will know that there will always be a payback time for you for what you have done...

Being able to come to visit this place is so far the best and most educational trip ever. This is certainly going to be something for me to bring back for life. The memories of the place, the history that I come to know face-to-face, the depressing scenes of the ruins of the camp will reminds me of the sufferings of those people, and how fortunate I am that I was not born in those period of wars...thank God for my life now...

Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards...Amen. :)