Auschwitz-Birkenau
Auschwitz-Birkenau
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Birkenau, also known as Auschwitz II, was a Nazi concentration and extermination center located in Poland. Established in 1941. It consisted of a series of barracks, gas chambers, and crematoria, designed for mass murder and forced labor. It was part of the larger Auschwitz complex and played a central role in the genocide of approximately 1.1 million people, primarily Jews, but also Poles, Romani people, and others. Birkenau symbolizes the horrors of the Holocaust and serves as a somber reminder of the atrocities committed during World War II.
Auschwitz-Birkenau
Extermination Center
October 11 - 13, 2022
Arrival
After arrival, the men and women were separated. The SS doctor then chooses those who are fit for work and become prisoners of the concentration camp before they too are put to death, and those who are intended for immediate death in the gas chamber. They are told they need to "shower" and will then go to a work camp where they would be reunited with their families. Hot coffee will be waiting for them after they shower.
Road to Crematory II
Doctor Mengele directing the man to the left (gas chamber), as a young soldier pushes him with a stick.
Sonderkommandos
Sonderkommandos were prisoners, usually young Jewish men, selected from a transport and made to work in the crematorium. They were intimate with the act of killing. They observed the act of killing directly, closely, and over long periods of time. They were present with the condemned in their last moments when they entered the undressing room, when they lined up to go into the gas chamber, and they were with the corpses minutes after they were gassed when their bodies were removed from the chambers and were “processed”. Pulled teeth from the dead victims mouth, they searched hidden cavities for valuables, they removed rings from fingers, and clipped hair that was bundled and shipped. They burnt the corpse in open pits or in crematory ovens, they crushed the bones and disposed of the ashes.
Gas Chamber and Crematorium II
Here, several hundred thousand Jewish men, women, and children were murdered by gas and their bodies burned. The Crematorium was also used for the disposal of bodies of prisoners of the concentration camp, both Jews and non-Jews, who had died from other causes. The Gas Chamber and Crematorium II operated from March 1943 to November 1944.
On October 23, 1943, there was a revolt here by Jewessess brought from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp who resisted being herded into the gas chamber.
Towards the end of the war, the SS began to remove the evidence of the atrocities committed at Auschwitz, and in November 1944 the installation was dismantled. On January 20, 1945 dynamite was used to destroy what remained.
Stairway to underground undressing room
Underground Undressing Area
Ruins of underground undressing room and gas chamber.
Crematory II
Incinerators of Crematorium II, used for burning the corpses of the people murdered. (Photo taken by the SS, 1943)
Crematorium II (Photo taken by the SS, 1943)
Ash Pit
Block 25 - "Death Barrack"
This barrack, known as the “death Barrack”, was used to house female prisoners deemed unfit for further labour by the SS during selections in the camp and sentenced to detain the gas chambers. Often, they had to wait here for several days before being killed, receiving neither food nor water. As a result, many women died while waiting to be sent to the gas chamber. When this barrack was overcrowded, some of prisoners had to remain outside in the enclosed courtyard. (on site info)
In this barrack SS doctors and nurses murdered newborn babies and their mothers by phenol injections. (on site info)
Kanada
The confiscated property of a transport was taken to a storage facility reared by the prisoners as “Kanada” associated with riches. The looted items were then funneled from Auschwitz through an extensive distribution network that served many individuals and various economic branches of the Third Reich.
Luggage
Glasses
Children's Shoes
Prostetics
Human Hair
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