Poland - Auschwitz/Birkenau

Someone in Poland asked me about what happened to my family during the war and when I said that they were captured by the Russians and exiled to Siberia, the response was, "Wow - they were lucky." This seemed an odd response until I visited Auschwitz.

Auschwitz was created on May 20, 1940 for Polish political prisoners. It soon developed into a horrifying killing machine. By the time the camps were liberated in January 1945, at least 1,100,000 people had been killed.

Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II - Birkenau have been preserved as museums and monuments to those murdered.

Auschwitz I - death/work camp and administrative centre for network of over 40 camps
Auschwitz II - Birkenau - largest extermination camp

The famous entrance gate at Auschwitz I:

"Work Makes You Free"

The few prisoners used as forced labourers marched in and out of the camp to the tunes of a band to keep them in step and make it easier to count them. All who left were required to return, even if that meant carrying the dead back to camp in the evening after a twelve-hour work day. If anyone was missing, prisoners were required to stand in the main square waiting hour upon hour in the heat or cold as the numbers were checked and missing prisoners sought.

Camp marching band.

Two layers of barbed wire surrounded the complex with 6,000 volts of electricity. The fence was used as a suicide method by some prisoners.


At least seven hundred prisoners tried to escape. Three hundred were successful. Those who were recaptured and returned to camp were killed by hanging or starvation.


Travel to reach the camp took seven to ten days with people crammed eighty at a time into cattle cars with no food, water, or toilets.


Each block of buildings was labelled with a number. Block 11 was used as the prison and execution site for those condemned to death by shooting or starvation. The first Cyclone B poison experiment was carried out in the basement.

Door to a cell in the basement of Block 11.

When prisoners arrived at the camp, an SS doctor would point to the left or right to indicate whether the person was fit for work or would be sent to the gas chamber. A photo taken by the Germans and now displayed in the museum shows this life-or-death decision-making in progress - a simple outreach of the arm condemned people to death.

Seventy-five percent of the people brought through the gates were immediately sent to the gas chambers.

One of the buildings we walked through had a hallway lined with hundreds of mugshot style portraits of prisoners. A camp photographer captured their images upon admission, although this process didn't last long as the quantity of prisoners increased. Each portrait included the prisoner's number, arrival date, and death date. Many of the victims stared into the camera with vacant stares, some with anger, most with fear, one with a slight smirk. I looked at numerous portraits as we slowly made our way down the hall and the average time spent in the camp was two months. Some people only survived for one or two days, and some as long as one year.

Keyhole to gas chamber at Auschwitz I.

There were five gas chambers - one at Auschwitz I, four at Auschwitz II - Birkenau.

Cyclone B, a crystallized poison activated by the body heat of victims crammed into the gas chambers, brought death to a full chamber in twenty minutes.

Chamber 1 could contain seven hundred people.
Chamber 2 could contain two thousand people.
Chambers 3 and 4 could each contain one thousand, four hundred people.

Gas chamber at Auschwitz I.
The gas chambers at Auschwitz II - Birkenau were destroyed by the retreating Germans.

Male prisoners were forced to collect the bodies from the chambers, shaving hair for use in textile mills and pulling gold teeth to be melted and sent to Germany. These prisoners were killed every three months because they were considered a liability due to their knowledge of the process of the killing machine.


The camp hospital was used to carry out horrendous experiments on prisoners, particularly twins, triplets, or the handicapped. If a person was sent to the hospital it was considered a place to delay death as it wasn't a place of healing.

Auschwitz was the only camp to tattoo numbers on prisoners. Adults were tattooed on the arm and children tattooed on the arm or leg.

Confiscated belongings were stored in warehouses called Kanada I or Kanada II because Canada was seen as a land of wealth and prosperity.

Entrance gate to Auschwitz II - Birkenau.

Fences and watch-towers at Auschwitz II - Birkenau.

Prisoners were permitted thirty seconds on these toilets twice each day.

Barracks at Auschwitz II - Birkenau.

The wooden barracks were dismantled by nearby residents following the liberation of Auschwitz II - Birkenau. The remaining chimneys still bear testimony to the massive area the death camp covered.

This photo only shows a small portion of the camp.

Being at a place that bears witness to such overwhelming atrocities was an indescribable experience. I think it's impossible to fully absorb what you're seeing and hearing. As I walked around, I kept finding myself being drawn to the blank, brick walls of the barrack blocks at Auschwitz I. These bricks witnessed years of such horrifying devastation. If they could speak, I don't think we could handle the stories they'd tell.