Auschwitz - sensitive material.
Discussion
Our recent visit to Auschwitz, needless to say it was quite upsetting, despair is the overriding emotion still very present & even with many visitors attending, there is a somber respectfull hushed silence about the place, here are a few images, sadly the new lens I had I was not used too so they are not too clear but I dont think that matters somehow 
These 1st images are from Auschwitz 1, the first camp built & where prisoners were taken initially, they were housed and made to work hard labour on a daily basis, 700 calories & 13 hour days, morning role call could sometimes be 4 hours sometimes 8 hours, then they had to go to work. The initial experiments on the best way of extermination were carried out here & it houses the first purpose built gas chamber still in tact (did not take pictures of this our of respect) also medical experiments were performed here & there was a prison within the prison, a court & execution wall.
the next three images are of personal belongings taken from the Jews when they arrived. They bought these belongings with them because they were lead to beleive by the Nazis that they were being given new lives & for this they they would need all there personal belongings. hence their names they personally added.
Half way up the 1st image you can see the built up shoe of someone who was crippled, I found this very difficult to stomach TBO, the next room (2nd image) almost bought me to my knees
these are the stairs within the living quarters, they are only 60 years old yet are worn in a different way.....
Courtyard area between dwellings
Staunch reminder
Personally drawn by a prisoner as a record of prisoners, the prisoner / artist who drew them managed to serve his entire time due to his job.
The wall where prisoners were shot on a daily basis, note the windows upper right which are bricked up to 3/4 height so as to stop prisoners seeing the executiions
One of the cell blocks in the prison where the disobedient where four people were forced into these tight spaces, this forced them to sleep standing until work the next day.
These images are from Auschwitz 2 Birkenau where the mass murders were carried out, to give an idea of its size, the perimeter of the camp was 20km & it contained 300 out buildings each housing 2-300 people, when a train arrived the strong were filtered into the buildings on the left & right of the centred train & made to work hard labour, the other 90% carried on the journey for about 1/2 km straight too the gas chambers, if the chambers were running at full capacity already then they were told to wait in the woods by the chambers to wait for their turn, they then had to watch their friends and family enter & never come out.
Best panorama I could achieve with the size of it
Some died on the camp from overworking, beatings, malnutrition, disease & -20 temperatures. This cart was used for the dead bodies & pulled by the working Jews too the chambers, the chambers were used for cremation as well as gassing .
Toilets within the huts
Sleeping bunks, although not looking too bad, there was no proper roof to the building & the outside temreture was -20 in the winter, they were allowed one small burner in the centre of the building that would struggle to heat a bathroom.
One of the sites near the Gas chambers where the Nazis dumped the ashes from the bodies.
One of the five Gas chambers, when the Nazis realized they had lost the war they tried to destroy evidence of the atrocities they had committed, all the chambers at Auschwitz 2 are the same, but where the roofs have been removed on some of them you can see the underground section & layout where they were lead in, stripped, Gassed & then burnt, it is quite literally sickening to see.
these are the stairs that they walked down, never to return.
This is where the train track ended
Says it all. RIP
These 1st images are from Auschwitz 1, the first camp built & where prisoners were taken initially, they were housed and made to work hard labour on a daily basis, 700 calories & 13 hour days, morning role call could sometimes be 4 hours sometimes 8 hours, then they had to go to work. The initial experiments on the best way of extermination were carried out here & it houses the first purpose built gas chamber still in tact (did not take pictures of this our of respect) also medical experiments were performed here & there was a prison within the prison, a court & execution wall.
the next three images are of personal belongings taken from the Jews when they arrived. They bought these belongings with them because they were lead to beleive by the Nazis that they were being given new lives & for this they they would need all there personal belongings. hence their names they personally added.
Half way up the 1st image you can see the built up shoe of someone who was crippled, I found this very difficult to stomach TBO, the next room (2nd image) almost bought me to my knees
these are the stairs within the living quarters, they are only 60 years old yet are worn in a different way.....
Courtyard area between dwellings
Staunch reminder
Personally drawn by a prisoner as a record of prisoners, the prisoner / artist who drew them managed to serve his entire time due to his job.
The wall where prisoners were shot on a daily basis, note the windows upper right which are bricked up to 3/4 height so as to stop prisoners seeing the executiions
One of the cell blocks in the prison where the disobedient where four people were forced into these tight spaces, this forced them to sleep standing until work the next day.
These images are from Auschwitz 2 Birkenau where the mass murders were carried out, to give an idea of its size, the perimeter of the camp was 20km & it contained 300 out buildings each housing 2-300 people, when a train arrived the strong were filtered into the buildings on the left & right of the centred train & made to work hard labour, the other 90% carried on the journey for about 1/2 km straight too the gas chambers, if the chambers were running at full capacity already then they were told to wait in the woods by the chambers to wait for their turn, they then had to watch their friends and family enter & never come out.
Best panorama I could achieve with the size of it
Some died on the camp from overworking, beatings, malnutrition, disease & -20 temperatures. This cart was used for the dead bodies & pulled by the working Jews too the chambers, the chambers were used for cremation as well as gassing .
Toilets within the huts
Sleeping bunks, although not looking too bad, there was no proper roof to the building & the outside temreture was -20 in the winter, they were allowed one small burner in the centre of the building that would struggle to heat a bathroom.
One of the sites near the Gas chambers where the Nazis dumped the ashes from the bodies.
One of the five Gas chambers, when the Nazis realized they had lost the war they tried to destroy evidence of the atrocities they had committed, all the chambers at Auschwitz 2 are the same, but where the roofs have been removed on some of them you can see the underground section & layout where they were lead in, stripped, Gassed & then burnt, it is quite literally sickening to see.
these are the stairs that they walked down, never to return.
This is where the train track ended
Says it all. RIP
Edited by Pvapour on Saturday 1st August 09:06
Simpo Two said:
jetskidia said:
Its a place everyone should be made to visit I believe!
Made to?I think the more people that see it & understand it the better chance mankind has of it never happening again, I know some of you believe it will & some of you that it already has but awareness is our best chance of it not happening on this scale again, they murdered over 600 jews every day for 6 years, the amount of shoes & prosthetic limbs in the first images represent ONE days worth of new arrivals!
As for the comment 'made to' Simpo, I know it's a little misplaced considering the topic but I do not think it was meant in that way, although to be honest this topic evokes such strong emotion it makes you feel a bit that way.
I'm still finding it hard to understand how it happened, posting the pictures & trying to write about it took me straight back there, hence the description being a little scrambled, I hope the impact it has had on me never leaves, & by the sound of it, it never will, which is a good thing.
I'd like to thank you all for your receptive comments (as I was unsure) & do hope some of you who haven't been make the effort to go, if you do, then please let us know your thoughts.
miniman said:
Something that makes it all the more unpleasant for me is the obvious quality of the building work. This place wasn't thrown together in a hurry. It was built to last. Presumably to "process" many more victims than it did. Horrifying, to imagine the mindset behind it.
the buildings were originally single storey, Polish army barracks, the building part was making them 2 storey, this was the first forced work the Germans made the Jews carry out.when we first entered Auschwitz 1 there was something that didn't quite fit with what we were expecting , then we realised, it was how new it all looked, this then bought it home how recently it had all taken place, my Grandads war stories were suddenly a little more real
On your point of longevity, there was a field alongside Auschwitz 2 that was half as big again, they found blue prints later in the Nazi head hunt that detailed 150 further building destined for this field, clear evidence they were planning on expanding.
urban_alchemist said:
Pvapour said:
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when we first entered Auschwitz 1 there was something that didn't quite fit with what we were expecting , then we realised, it was how new it all looked, this then bought it home how recently it had all taken place, my Grandads war stories were suddenly a little more real
I find this whole sentiment very prescient - I'm only thirty, but as I get older, I realise more and more how 'short' history is. In a way I grew up with its consequences (I'm Jewish - my grandfather was a German refugee in Shanghai/Japan during WWII and after; much of his family were killed in the Holocaust), but it still seemed ancient history. There was I, young, naive, thinking that this great blackness in the human heart had been long excised -replaced instead with enlightened liberalism that was immovable, unbreakable.when we first entered Auschwitz 1 there was something that didn't quite fit with what we were expecting , then we realised, it was how new it all looked, this then bought it home how recently it had all taken place, my Grandads war stories were suddenly a little more real
I now feel I know better. Auschwitz is a necessary reminder of that blackness that still lurks: I would love to say that I don't believe we (collectively, as humanity) are any longer capable of this kind of attrocity, but the truth is otherwise. I would not be in the slightest bit surprised to see a repeat today, tomorrow, or at any time in the future, anywhere in the world (not just Africa or the Balkans).
It is in humanity's nature to hate, and in his means to kill.
Edited by urban_alchemist on Saturday 29th August 09:07
Thanks for keeping this thread going everyone & your comments, it all helps!
Marcus - glad you having fun with it
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