built in october 1941
outfit ii birkenau was the largest of
more than 40 camps and subcamps
that made up the outfit complex in
poland
originally intended to house around a
hundred thousand prisoners of war
by 1942 the decision had been made to
annihilate the jewish people
so birkenau was repurposed as a
combination labor site
and extermination camp
possibly around ninety percent of the
people who died at outsvich
said to be around 1.3 million jews poles
gypsies and soviets died within birkenau
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90 wooden and 27 brick barracks were
constructed
to house and quarantine prisoners
the wooden bunkers were actually
prefabricated horse stables
and were easy to assemble and take down
each wooden barrack had three-tier
wooden bunks
designed for 15 prisoners holding 400
prisoners per barrack
they were heated by a chimney flu that
ran the length of the heart
in this row of quarantine hertz men and
women used the same latrines
these were holes in a concrete structure
set above the ground
there was no pit below and prisoners had
to clean out the latrines when they were
full
there was also no toilet paper available
around may 1944 freight trains that were
40 to 50 cars long
rolled through the gates at birkenau
carrying thousands of hungarian jews
they exited the trains and selection
would take place to decide who was fit
for work
and who would be sent to the gas
chambers
according to the ice fish museum 434
351 of these hungarian jews were not
even registered at birkenau
but instead immediately cast upon
arrival
during a 10-week period at the height of
the deportation of the hungarian jews
it's reported that up to 12 000 of them
were gassed and burned
every day
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the grove of birch trees at the western
end of outfit
ii was where prisoners were ordered to
strip and head to the gas chambers
nearby
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the gas chambers and crematorium is now
in ruins
destroyed by the ss before the camp was
liberated in 1945
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also destroyed was the underground gas
chambers and crematorium ii
here was the site where the infamous
joseph mengler
carried out horrific experiments in his
dissecting ward
anyone afflicted with physical
deformities would be killed for him on
arrival to birkenau
to provide new material for his studies
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at a place where so many were killed you
cannot escape the feeling of darkness in
every corner of the camp
walking the very tracks people would
have been transported along
gives a sense of dread that is
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indescribable
the eerie silence was occasionally
interrupted by distant sounds
assuming they were from a factory or
something nearby given the atmosphere
here
the sounds were very haunting
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with a war going on around them people
starving the smell of burning bodies
i cannot imagine what the people here
would have been experiencing not even a
hundred years ago
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in a 27 brick barracks each would house
700 prisoners per block
women who stayed here would be separated
from their children
who would be sent to block 16a there are
countless stories of them
sneaking out under the cover of night to
visit their children in their barracks
much like the wooden barracks on the
other side of the train track these
blocks were often overcrowded and filthy
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bathing was extremely limited and
sleeping conditions
would have been just as bad
although just one of the many
concentration camps used by the nazis
during world war ii
i'd switch to birkenau left a deep mark
on the world
and in particular poland there is an
overwhelming sense of that in the air
that is hard to explain
but very easy to feel the sensory
overload experienced within the camp
where such horror took place is one that
will be hard to forget
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you