Auschwitz, The Final Solution Part 1

This past weekend I decided to travel to Krakow one last time before going back home to South Africa. I'd been once before but this time I wanted to go for two reasons besides seeing the beautiful city.

1. Say goodbye to my dear friend Amanda who taught with me in Radom

2. Visit Auschwitz

"Work brings Freedom"

Auschwitz was the biggest concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland for Poles, political prisoners and European Jews. From 1940 to 1945, it was the centre of mass extermination of the Jewish race. An estimated 1,5 million victims died there.

The camp was walled off by double electric barbed wire

Not only did death come via gas chamber, but also through deliberate starvation, work exhaustion, criminal experiments, shooting and hanging.

Auschwitz was chosen as the site for the eradication of Jews because it was "easily isolated and camouflaged." The camp is situated in the south of Poland and surrounded by forest.

The camps were based around the town Oswiecim

Auschwitz is made up of three big camps named I, II (Auschwitz - Berkenau) and III (Auschwitz - Monowice). There are a few kilometres between them. I and II are now museums open to the public.

Suitcases brought with families

Most Jews that arrived were convinced that they were being resettled in Eastern Europe. Promise of land and honest work made people bring their most prized belongings with them. Jewelry was usually hidden or sewn into their clothes but was always found by soldiers. Thousands of glasses, shoes, clothes, cups and pots; anything you can think of, was brought and sorted through to be taken back to Germany.





Hair was shaven off every prisoner and collected to be made into cloth for clothes and blankets in Germany. 7 tons of hair was found in the camp the day it was liberated.

To be continued in Part 2

The railway line to Berkenau that transported the prisoners