See death at the Auschwitz Prison Camp, Krakow, Poland

*WS 82: see death at the Auschwitz Prison Camp, Krakow, Poland*

The Auschwitz Prison Camp, 60 km west of Krakow, was the largest Nazi concentration and death camp in the World. It was started in April 1940. Jews, gypsies, criminals and all those considered undesirable were gathered in Germany and the conquered territories and sent to Auschwitz. All children, the old and the weak and most women were immediately executed. Most young men and strong women were retained as prisoners for hard labour. Execution was by gas poisoning at the gas chambers. Auschwitz II had 4 main gas chambers, each could kill about 6,000 people a day. 

On January 27, 1945 the Russian entered Auschwitz and the camp was liberated. But most evidence of the Nazi’s atrocities at the camp has been destroyed by the Germans before they left. The exact numbers of casualty are unknown. It is estimated that 1.0 to 1.3 million Jews were killed, together with at least 100,000 people of other nationalities. 

The combined camp sites is now the Auschwitz Birkenau State Museum, created in 1947, covering 191 hectares. On the museum grounds stand several hundred buildings and ruins, including ruins of the gas chambers and crematoria. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We were on a group tour here in 2015.

The 2nd photo shows the main entrance with the slogan "Work Set You Free", a slogan to mislead the prisoners of course. Exhibits in the museum include many old photos, shoes and artificial limbs once belonged to the victims. The museum holds more than 100,000 pairs of shoes. The last photo is a collapsed crematorium.