What an emotional journey is the one to Auschwitz-Birkenau. The
camps are maintained in a very authentic manner and you are not
allowed to take photos inside any of the huts. The frightening thing
- especially about Auschwitz - is how "normal" it is.
You could easily imagine it as a very peaceful, middle class housing
estate.
Birkenau is just wooden huts so it really looks like a concentration
camp
Auschwitz
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The initial view as you come from the museum and theatre
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The infamous gates - work will make you free
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Another view of the gate
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So much security for such innocent people
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More guard towers and more barbed wire
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Can't you imagine in summer, beautiful shady trees and solid,
pretty apartments. It was very surreal.
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If it weren't for the barbed wire and towers it could be
any "nice" apartment complex! Gives you the shivers!
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But it wasn't a "nice" apartment complex!
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The Wall of Death beside Block 11 (the punishment block),
where many prisoners were shot. Thousands of Poles dies here.
St Maximilian Kobe died in Block 11, he was starved to death,
as many were in Block 11
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It remains today as it did then
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One of the many guard towers
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Ashes from the crematorium
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The exterior of the Auschwitz gas chamber - it was very small
compared to the Birkenau complex.
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Thousands of pairs of glasses taken from prisoners. These
are just those that were left - most had already been sent
back to Germany for "recycling".
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The gallows where Rusolf Hess was executed. He was the Camp
Commandant
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The gates and main buildings.
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Birkenau
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From the infamous Railway siding - the entrance to Birkenau.
It is about 3 km from Auschwitz. The railway ran right up
to the gas chambers that were towards the very rear of the
camp.
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More barbed wire.
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The rail from the gas chambers back to the entrance gate
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Very desolate, bitterly cold and forbidding.
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The old wooden huts would not have given much protection
from the chill here.
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The remains of the gas chambers. They were blown up by the
Germans before they retreated.
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Row upon row of bleak, bare huts
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Winter must have been horrendous.
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The evocative memorial - just to the right of the gas chambers
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The memorial again
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The main statuary of theHolocost Memorial
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Same thing - different angle
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Ever let this place be a cry of dispair and a warning to
humanity, where the Nazis murdered about one and a half million
men, women and children, mainly Jews from various countries.
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Portrait of the Master??
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