Auschwitz was the biggest and most notorious
concentration camp in the Nazi system.
Seeing the camp can be difficult.
But Auschwitz victims and their families
want tourists to come here, to experience the scale
and the monstrosity of the place in human terms,
in hope that the Holocaust will never be forgotten.
The Nazis turned this army base into a death camp.
They murdered over four million European Jews in Poland.
Over a million people, the vast majority of them Jews,
were systemically exterminated here at Auschwitz.
The notorious gate welcomed inmates with a cruel lie:
"Arbeit macht frei," work will set you free.
Former cell blocks tell the story.
People were told they'd be starting new lives
and to bring luggage, clearly labeled with their names.
After they were killed,
everything of value was sorted and warehoused.
Eyeglasses evoke how individuality was trashed.
Crutches and prosthetic limbs remind us
that the first people exterminated
were mentally and physically ill German citizens.
Children's clothing; The Nazis spared no one.
And a seemingly endless mountain of shoes.
It's hard to comprehend the numbers.
Halls are lined with photographs of victims,
each marked with the dates of arrival and dates of death.
Inmates rarely survived more than a couple of months.
The crematorium is marked by its chimney.
Up to 700 people at a time could be gassed,
but it required two days to burn that many bodies here.
The Nazis didn't like this inefficiency,
so they built a far bigger camp two miles away.
Auschwitz II, or Birkenau, was a vast factory of death,
holding 100,000 people.
A few buildings survive.
Train tracks led efficiently past the main building,
into the camp, and to the dividing platform.
A Nazi doctor stood here and evaluated each prisoner
as they stepped off the train.
If he pointed to the right, the prisoner marched
unknowingly directly to the gas chamber.
If he pointed to the left,
the person was judged strong enough to work
and would live a little longer.
It was here that families from all over Europe
were torn apart forever.
Up to a thousand were packed into each of these buildings.
Each inmate had an ID number,
a barrack number and a bed number.
Two chimneys connected by a brick duct
provided a little heat.
The bricks are worn smooth by countless inmates
who sat here to catch a little warmth
in the middle of a bitter Polish winter.
I can't imagine how cold they must have been,
wet, hungry and dressed in rags.
The Germans bombed the sprawling gassing
and cremation facilities as they retreated.
The ruins stand as a memorial.
The gas chambers, where the mass killing was done,
were disguised as showers.
People were given numbered hooks
to hang their clothes on,
conned into thinking they were coming back.
The Nazis didn't want a panic.
Then inmates were piled into the shower room.
At Birkenau, the Nazis gassed and cremated
over 4,000 people per day.
The camp monument represents gravestones
and the chimney of a crematorium.
Plaques, in each of the languages spoken
by camp victims, explained the purpose of this memorial.
The memorial reads,
"a cry of despair and a warning to humanity."
Since Liberation Day in 1945,
millions have visited this place.
Hopefully, they take away a determination
to learn from the Holocaust and never let it be repeated.