Poland: A heartbreaking story about Nazi Death Camp

Poland, September 2011

Visiting Auschwitz Birkenau is definitely the most heartbreaking experience I've ever had during my trips around the world. Even now after 8 months, I still feel deeply sad when I review my shots from Auschwitz. It took so long for me to finish this post because the facts that I've learnt there was too cruel, I often lack of words to re-tell the story.

Auschwitz has become a symbol of terror, genocide, and the Holocaust. It was established by Germans in 1940, in the suburbs of Oswiecim, a Polish city then its name was changed to Auschwitz.

More than 1 million people were tortured and killed in this Nazi camp from 1940 to 1945.

entrance to the camp

row of barracks buildings

feeling devastated while listening to the audio guide

 the sickening facts !

9 out of 10 prisoners were Jews who were deported to Auschwitz in 148 trains. Upon arrival, the Nazi divided the mass into 2 groups. The SS were conducting the infamous "selections," in which incoming Jews were divided into those deemed able to work, who were sent to the "right" and admitted into the camp, and those who were sent to the "left" (children, babies, women, elderly and handicapped) will be immediately gassed.

SS officers would told the victims that they have to take a shower. The victims would undress in an outer chamber and walk into the gas chamber, which was disguised as a shower facility, complete with dummy shower heads. After the doors were shut, SS men would dump in the cyanide pellets via holes in the roof or windows on the side. When it was done, they would shave the victim's hair off and sent the corpses to be burnt in crematorium. In Auschwitz, more than 20 thousand people could be gassed and cremated each day.

Besides forced to work, some of those prisoners from the "right" group were put into pressure chambers, tested with drugs, went through some experimental surgeries without anaesthesia, frozen to death and exposed to various traumas.

this is how they deported the prisoners

some of the victims :(

model of the gas chamber & crematorium

During the tour, I entered some of the barracks which have been transformed into museum with glass display cases. In Block 5, there are displays devoted to the "Material Evidence of Crime". There were piles of shoes, clothes, suitcases, eyeglasses, and a lot more - belonged to the prisoners.

pile of more than 40 thousands pairs of shoes

 the prisoner's artificial limbs and crutches 

In Block 4, there was 1 room which is named "Exploiting The Corpse". Really.....I've got goosebumps all over my body when I was inside this room. Specially when I looked at an enormous glass display case filled with mounting pile of....

do you know what are those inside ?

Still no idea yet ???

OK, I'll show you a picture with closer look to explain what the huge pile about....

HUMAN HAIRS !!!

Those are more than 7 tons of human hairs, mostly from female prisoners. And mind you, those are not all the hairs that have discovered in this camp, just the left over. Because most of the hairs had been sent to another area to be processed into felt and thread. Hair was also used to make socks for submarine crews, ignition mechanisms in bombs, ropes and cords for ships, cloth and stuffing for mattresses.

It was even discovered that the Nazis had experimented using human skin for lampshades. Isn't that crazy ? :(

map of Auschwitz Birkenau

there's no way out....please release me

It was really an eye opener experience for me. I feel very grateful that I don't have to go through their desperate situation. My life is not perfectly happy but at least I still have the chance to live it and experience a lot of things. Unlike them........they were not given any options to live. They were forced to give up their life and were punished just because they were born as someone they didn't choose to be born as.
It makes me tear up every time I think about those cute and innocent kids queued in front of the gas chamber.
They had no idea that their life would be turned into nightmare soon. If only it was just a nightmare, and everything will be fine when they wake up in the morning. Unfortunately they will never wake up again......