What is this place?
Its Auschwitz, a concentration camp.
It all started years and years ago, with Hitler.
You know, World War II.
This camp is in Poland, near Germany.
Buildings and parts of the country were taken over by Hitler
and some of them turned into camps like this one.
Jewish people in the country of Poland were brought here to be locked up.
Some of them stayed here for several years.
The most famous concentration camp is this one.
We'll go in and I'll share tidbits about this place, some stories...
We'll find out what is part of this place's history.
Auschwitz is the most well-known concentration camp because many people were held here
and it has the most deaths out of all the concentration camps
A lot of people have died here, the worst out of all the camps.
150,000 people including men, women, and children were imprisoned here.
Out of that, 75,000 of them died.
Why did the die?
From several causes... from illness to being executed.
Such a tragedy.
This area held about 10,000 people.
They were all forced to work.
and if they refused, they were put outside where they were strip naked and were left to freeze.
water and food was very minimal.
People froze as they were stuck outside, many of them ended up dying.
Information here states that 9,000 of them died in only a five month time span because of that.
Only five months? wow!
Here at Auschwitz, if one of them escaped. They might have thought they got away.
That isn't the case.
Soldiers would go and take family members of the escaped prisoner and place them in this camp.
These family members would be forced to hold a sign saying why they were there
The signs would say that a family member of theirs escaped which resulted in the being arrested.
Others would be dismayed at how selfish their family member was.
If the escapee returns, then the family members would be set free.
Wow, what?!
Germany soldiers (the Nazi) went to Poland with just had one goal in mind
What was that goal?
Demolish their nation, their culture, everything. Make it all gone.
Only way to do that was to starve them out.
My stomach has turned upside down as I learn more.
They show all the different ways that the Polish Jews were killed.
By an axe,
shot, set on fire,
hunger, from illness,
making them freeze.
All of them cruel and inhumane ways of killing them!
Definitely nauseating to read about.
It says so many people died.. 50 thousand... another one says 90 thousand
The more I read.. just unbelievable!
Its sad, it says here that polish jewish children, as well as adults,
were taken by scientists and had experiments done on them.
They were put in compression machines
injected with different things
They would end up dying
It didnt bother them because if they died - their body parts would be harvested
and then given to other people who needed an organ transplant.
Some of them do live through it, their bodies are permanently affected.
They could be crippled, lose use of their hands,
or their brain functions would be gone.
Just horrible.
It says here that 1.3 million were sent to this camp.
90% of these Jewish prisoners ended up dying here.
So that would be about 1.1 million Jewish that died here.
The largest number of deaths occurred here at this camp.
Wow, there are a lot of glasses here that were taken from the prisoners
people who were killed, all their glasses are piled up here.
Many shoes, glasses, and other personal belongings were taken from prisoners when they came here.
Prisoners were given tattoos of numbers
on their arms.
Why was that done?
Many people were sent here, a lot.
many of them died. Just a lot of people in the camp.
Too many to know their names so they were just
identified by numbers.
If they died, they would just look up the numbers and remove them from the list.
Different people had different colors sewn on their clothes
pink, purple, white, black triangles
These colored triangles on their clothes identified them for a variety of things
Like if they had a pink triangle, it meant they were gay.
If they had purple, it meant something else.
Some meant they were gypsies.
They were all identified by doing this.
See these people?
Have numbers on them, their names are also shown here.
They were labeled what their skills and professions were
It also shares information about them like their birth date and their date of death.
A lot of information about each person here, wow.
Germans (the nazi) took 232,000 children
and brought them to this camp
The Nazi told the soldiers that they (about 200,000 of them) had to be executed in the gas chamber.
These jewish children were executed in the gas chamber,
these who survived (about 22,000) were then put in the concentration camps.
When the holocaust ended, about only 50 of these children were still alive.
The rest of them had passed away over the years.
I'm about to show you what the gas chambers, where many Jews died, looks like.
When people died, they were then thrown into the fireplace here.
Burned into ashes and these ashes sent up and out of the chimney.
Other prisoners couldn't do anything but watch, knowing that their fellow prisoners have just been killed.
That is what happens in this room during that time.
This is how/where the prisoners live everyday
lumpy mattresses, sharing baths, sharing public toilets
No privacy for them at all.
See this wall here, what is it?
the Polish prisoners were lined up here
The soliders would open fire on them, executing them.
See the patterns here. I'm not sure exactly what caused it.
but, I would guess its to minimize the loudness of the bullets ricocheting off of the wall?
You can see a lot of holes here from the bullets.
You see this structure here?
This is where the hangings of the prisoners happened.
Breaks my heart seeing this here.
Seeing this place really is heart breaking.
You learn so much going into the many buildings here.
This experience is just overwhelming.
The history in this place is deep.
Its quite deep!
So many lives were devastated in this place.
The beauty of humanity in these people were destroyed.
So many people horribly murdered here.
In the year of 1945, the holocaust ended and these people were freed.
These people went on their own paths,
but the scars of their experiences here would live in them always.
Even though they may be traumatized, they had to remain positive and carry on with their lives somehow.
They all had to become stronger.
History, of course, needs to be remembered.
But, they need to also proceed with their lives.
The country of Poland did not fall, it remained its own country.
The Jewish community remained strong and carried on.
I would encourage all of you to visit this place
This camp is in Krakow.
That sign I just did, is for Krakow.
Its less than a two hour ride to this camp.