Auschwitz.

Since middle school I have had a fascination for The Holocaust. War, suffering, all of it really. Not for any sick reason but beacuse I like to learn how people go through such hardships and suffering and then come out with a god attitude. It amazes me how people can do that and I am facinated to learn about their stories. I've read countless books about WWII and the Holocaust and have heard so much about Auschwitz and knew that one day I would go and walk those grounds. It always seemed a distant idea and today it happen. Today I walked where a million people were killed. That is so much to absorb. How does one even put that into perspective or into feelings.

Auschwitz 

3,000 visitors a day during off season- double in summer 

German name of the polish town Auschwitz 

Main gates work means freedom

700-1000 ppl slept in each building

Outside buildings are original 

Prisoners were counted every day to the beat of music to help them keep step 

People slept on the floor sometimes on wooden bunks 

6 million Jews from the ghettos were sent to the gas chambers when the final solution was announced 

1,100,000 died here 90% were Jews 

Urn contains human ash 

They used ash from victim as fertilizer 

Biggest mass murder in the history of mankind 

Many times half the prisoners were killed in transport 

70 people into each cattle wagon 3k per train 

German doctors were who decided who went were during selection. They picked out twins to experiment on to develop and new and better race 

Life=work

(25%) death=75% elderly, handicapped, and children 

Birkenau the second part of the camp is 30x bigger it's where the gas chamber is many of them were destroyed to hide the crimes of the nazis 

Went to underground room to undress then the second room to the gas ch with 2k people. From the chimney they dropped the poison.

After 20 minutes they were all killed. Then the bodies were sent to the crematorium by lift. Before that they would cut the hair, take off rings and remove gold teeth 

They could burn 1,400 bodies per day- the rest they burned outside 

In two years they used twenty tons of the poison 

They sold hair to the German textile factories 

There are mounds of it that we are looking at right now and I want to be sick and cry 

This is incredibly moving and emotional and wrong it makes me sad angry sick to my stomach frustrated it's a lot

Everything from the prisoners was confiscated and they went naked into the camps 

They built 31 houses near birk and 6 near aus

In the houses they took the most valuable possessions - diamonds, gold, 

They could only have 25 kilograms so they brought their most important things 

I'm looking at huge mounds of artificial limbs, glasses, combs, kitchen items.... Piles and piles and piles of them. I can't even describe to you what this is like 

My brain doesn't even know how to process 

200k children and babies were here and murdered only 700 were liberated and sent to orphanage 

In camps they had shoes made of wood and they couldn't hide things in them

We are looking at 70,000 pairs of shoes - people worse these they walked to their death in these - a million people...during my grandfathers time... How can something like this even happen 

You need to experience this 

I really want to be here alone to cry and process but we are in a hue group of people with a mean guide who sounds like a hoarse man who is chewing gum 

We are in a block right now with images of prisoners in their striped clothing first victims were photographed in three positions like prisoners but those were expensive so they just used tattoos and tattooed them on their forearm or chest and children on their legs bc there was enough skin for the long number 

New arrivals were marked with a colored triangle like political red gypsy black and Jews with two stars like Star of David 

Su for Soviet Union prisoner of war. Those went on the striped clothing   People worked ten to eleven hours during winter it was -25 degrees some survived only a few days 

During liberation  75 kilograms down to 25 kilograms 

60 kilograms down to 35 kilograms 

Everyone who survived was approx 25-30 kilos

These buildings were then used as hospitals 

5am they woke up 

One prisoner worked with nazi and had more food and better treatment they helped keep order in the camp 

Walked around 3km a day to build burk. Orchestra played each evening to keep the rhythm of the march

11pm to sleep on the floor 

Women survived sometimes a few days no longer than 3-4 months 

We are looking a pictures of children who were experimented on at the camp. The pictures are mangled and so think it's purely bones. You can't tell if they are male or female. It's literally like looking at a skeleton 

Building 11 all original 90% in this block were killed in front of the wall of death and there is a basement with cells a prison in the basement 

Bunks- 2 ppl in each bed or on the floor

Standing cells had these little tiny doors on the ground you had I crawl in and then just room to stand in a closed cement box 

The ppl shot in front of the wall were killed for napping or picking apples or working too slowly so they were shot in front of the wall the grey wall was called the wall of death the wall now has flowers and candles and stones. The Jews leave stones on the grave and this is a mass cemetery to them. 

Roll call could take 18 hours during main one bc there were 28 buildings 

They had gallows where they would hang victims with everyone watching during roll call

Has chamber here only 700 were killed at each time. And the second part of the building was a crematorium 

Had to be 1,000 degrees c to burn the bodies to ash 

I'm standing in a gas chamber where thousand of people were killed. It's cold and dark. On the ceiling are holes where the cyanide pellets were dropped and the nazi waited above for the people to be killed. Through the door we are at the ovens where the bodies were burned I don't know what kind of people could work in here and do this. It makes my stomach churn. It's so wrong I just don't understand it. To me it makes no sense. I can't judge but even if I was forced to do it I would rather die myself then kill others. Where does such a deep hatred come from? How can it develop and spread so many times to so many races and so many people? This type of thing happens over and over in history and to mass amount if people with this evil thinking that just overcomes them. 

As I walk now I think of the millions of people who walked these same steps and then were murdered for doing nothing wrong. I think of the families ripped apart, spouses separated, parents losing children, people alone, death, the end. 

Auschwitz- Birkenau 

Everything in the fence is original

Railway divides the camp into two parts one side is the women's camp and on the other side for men 240 wooden barracks only 19 survive the rest are only the chimneys that were made if brick- only part that survived. Would have held 100,000 people 

Original cattle wagon 

Where Jews were transported 

4 big gas chambers were built here 

New arrivals believed this would be better than the ghetto

Sometimes 30k Jews were brought each day sometimes only one train a week 

8 women slept on each of the wooden platforms 

Temp inside and outside was the same because there are holes all over building people here died very quickly