Dzien Dobry!
We were four of the 1.3 million yearly visitors to the Auschwitz and Birkenau Concentration Camp Museum’s. This is the location of history’s most extensive experiment in genocide. We came here to learn about this infamous Nazi camp’s history and pay our respects to the dead. We were led on the tour by a Polish woman whose family had perished in similar camps and who even interviewed some of the survivors from the Auschwitz and Birkenau camps. We were lead through barbed wire and into several brick barracks, originally used for the containment and punishment of jews, gypsys, political prisioners and criminals, now used as a museum to document the story of this camp. We passed photos, documents, personal effects and all that was left of what the Germans did not have time to destroy before liberation.
We learnt a lot about how victims were tricked into coming to these places, some dying within an hour of arriving at the camp and others having to work 11 hours a day with very little food and near no sanitation. We were also shocked to find out that the Nazi’s had also set up factories to support these camps. They would strip their victims of all possessions, including coins, jewellery, clothing, shoes, they would even shave their heads and pull out their gold teeth. The gold items would then be smelted and sold or used for the ‘war effort’ and the hair would be sold to be used in carpets and other linens. These are only just some of the atrocious things that we learnt about and that will be seared into our minds forever. It was a terrifying but eye-opening experience for all of us.
The gas chambers and cremetorium, destroyed by the germans before liberation.
EJnRHE xx
EJnRHE xx
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