Auschwitz...The Whole Story

This has been one of those stories that I have been dying to tell...but I wanted to wait...wanted to let the experience sink in before I wrote about it.

This is the story of a place they call Auschwitz...to many...this was a living hell during World War II.

When you think of Auschwitz, I am sure you think of it as a Jewish concentration camp, and you are correct in that thinking...but there is so much more to this place than that. The Jews were the largest population of the concentration camp, but they were not the only population.

Auschwitz I was created originally for Polish political prisoners...the high ups of society. As the war began to progress, the phrase "political prisoner" became a very broad term...meaning that anybody who was Polish could be brought to the camp.

Auschwitz began to then expand, and more and more prisoners began to arrive. This is when the Jewish population became so large at Auschwitz.

Auschwitz II (Birkenauf) was established about five kilometers from Auschwitz I. This camp was approximately six times the size of Auschwitz I. Much bigger scale, much more destruction...death...crulity...fear.

The way the Auschwitz camps (three in all) worked was very disturbing. Jews would arrive, they would be sorted. The strong and able to work in one group, all others in another. Those who had the ability to work were taken off...never to see their families again. The rest were hearded into a gas chamber, where they were experienced a slow and painful death. Their bodies were taken then to the crematories, where they were burnt...never to be seen again.

The master minds behind Auschwitz were pure geniuses...in a very disturbing way. They had one of the greatest cover ups of all time for these Jewish people. Many of the Jews thought they were stepping off the train into a better life. They thought when they walked into the gas chamber they were going to get showers. They even had some of the Jews pay for their train tickets to Auschwitz. They paid to die...

What you have just read will probably disturb you...it should. The lives of these people were changed for ever...many lost their lives. For those who survived, I dedicate this post to them...to survive hell-and-back...yet that is exactly what these people did.

All of the pictures you will see from Auschwitz will be from the outside. Photography was not aloud inside, but we managed to capture some video footage, which I will hopefully have up later this week.

Real life stories...

By Alex H.