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Auschwitz Concentration Camp wasn't just one camp, it consisted of Auschwitz I (the base camp), Auschwitz II-Birkenau (the extermination camp) and Auschwitz III-Monowitz (the labour camp) as well as 45 satellite camps. The Germans took over this part of Poland in 1939 and destroyed villages to make way for these camps. Our tour took us first of all through Auschwitz I and then through Auschwitz II-Birkenau.
Auschwitz I - The first thing I noticed about the camp was how much larger it was to Dachau. Block 11 in the camp was called the 'prison within the prison', if you broke the rules of the camp, you were sent to Block 11 with no chance of leaving. Within Block 11 were 'standing cells' where 4 prisoners were put in a 1.5 square metre area and forced to stand. Through the day they still had to work. In the basement were the starvation cells and dark cells. In the starvation cells prisoners were given no food or water until they died. In the 'dark cells' prisoners were left until they used up all the oxygen in the cell. This 'prison within the prison' was also where the first tests were done with Zyklon B - the poisonous gas used in the gas chambers. Other prisoners were hung up by their hands behind their backs, which dislocated their shoulders. They were then deemed unfit for work and if you couldn't work in the camp, you were sent to the gas chambers.
Next to Block 11 there was a brick wall known as the 'death wall'. This is where prisoners (mainly political prisoners) were stripped naked and shot dead. Statistics show one death warrant was signed every minute.
There was a medical facility at the camp where women were subjected to various medical experiments to make them infertile. They were also used as guinea pigs for new drugs and many ended up dying from the experimental drugs. Some didn't die but were killed instead and autopsies performed to see what affects the drugs had on them.
After being killed in the gas chambers, prisoners were stripped of all their personal items and their heads were shaved. On display in one of the blocks is a massive amount of human hair from prisoners of the camp. Also on display are personal items from the prisoners - hairbrushes and combs, glasses, shoes, suitcases etc.
Auschwitz II-Birkenau - This camp was constructed to ease the congestion in Auschwitz I. This is the camp you would recognise if you've seen any films or documentaries about the war. It's the one with the train lines running straight into it. When people arrived they were divided into those fit for work and those unfit for work. The people deemed fit for work were admitted straight to the camp, the unfit (mostly made up of children, women with young children and the elderly) were sent straight to the gas chambers. They were told they had to have a shower to get rid of any lice. So they all stripped off, walked into the chambers, thinking they were having a shower but were instead poisoned to death. Auschwitz - Birkenau was open for just under 5 years and it's believe in that time approximately 1.5 million people were murdered here.
Auschwitz II - Birkenau is larger again then Auschwitz I. Our tour took us to the gas chambers which are just ruins now - destroyed during the war. We walked along further to a surviving building that housed the children of the camp. There was no insulation in the building, it was one layer of brick on the walls, stone floors and a tile and timber roof - you could see the timber rafters - no ceiling or insulation. There were rows and rows of wooden bunks, 3 high with the stone floor being the bottom bunk. Through the winter, it was survival of the toughest, because the toughest kids fought the others to be on the top level where it was the warmest. The guards would sit in their room, just inside the doorway of the building and they would have a fire and cook up their meals of potatoes. The scent would waft through the whole building of starving and thirsty kids. How anyone could do this to another human being (especially children) is beyond me!
The next block up (now destroyed with a plaque in it's place) was another hospital where they performed medical experiments on twins - most dying from the drugs or being killed afterwards to once again see what affects the drugs had on the body.
Before we visited Auschwitz / Birkenau we were unsure how suitable it would be for Cara and after talking to a number of people who had been (some with small kids) we were reassured that it would be okay - there was nothing there that would scare her or distress her in anyway and she was completely unaware of where we were. The biggest problem was all of the walking we had to do and trying to keep her quiet. I must say she did so well, considering the tour went for over 3 hours. At Birkenau we were outside most of the time and there were 4 other kids in the group and the lot of them went crazy running around, up and down some stairs they found. They had done so well throughout the day they deserved a bit of fun!
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