Auschwitz: A place filled with coldness and pain

By: Lisa Forsman

Auschwitz. A place that fills your heart with a quietness as you enter the gates. A place filled with coldness and pain. The warning signs and the barbed wire that covers the top of the fence, preventing people from escaping once.  

The words “Arbeit macht frei” which means “work gives freedom”.

Being the largest of the Nazi Germany’s concentration and extermination camps, Auschwitz kept about 1,3 million people during the year 1940 – 1945. It was a concentration – and extermination camp for mainly Jewish people, but also people from other nationalities. It was founded and built during the Second World War when Germany and Poland were led by the Nazi, who’d developed the idea of exterminating everyone who believed in the Jewish religion.
 

After continuously shutting the Jewish people out from the German society, the Nazi eventually came with the final solution to build extermination camps, which would differ from the already existing concentration camps. In 1940, the largest and most notorious death camp stood on its feet, with Rudolf Höss as its first leader.

The idea was that people would work in the camp without rest and
consuming food and water in an utterly small amount. Those who were unable to perform the duties that were required were assassinated and those who initially managed to escape assassination died from overwork, diseases or insufficient nutrition. Many people who entered the camp lived two or three months before dying or being killed. Arbitrary executions, torture and retribution occurred daily without discretion.

Auschwitz consists of three main camps: Auschwitz | Stammlager, Auschwitz || - Birkenau and Auschwitz ||| - Monowitz. Auschwitz | functioned as the administrative centrum of the camp, consisting of pale brick – coloured blocks with a gravel-road following the lead until the black fence appeared. The borders increased when room for more prisoners was necessary and Birkenau was then built, about 25 times bigger than Auschwitz | and this was the place where most people died, mainly in the gas-chambers. Auschwitz ||| functioned as mainly a labour camp as well.

The liberation of Auschwitz came year 1945 when the Red army entered, but thousands of prisoners had already then evacuated, performing death marches as the Nazi led them to Germany. The Nazi destroyed all the evidence that the extermination ever happened: destroyed the gas-chambers and burned files and before they escaped. All that’s left to this day are the ruins, covered with flowers and rocks shaped as hearts as a grieving reminder of all the lives that’s been lost. The blocks are either empty or filled with evidence that it took place: for example: human hair, shoes, bags and other belongings to the thousands of victims.

Bibliography

http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/auschwitz

http://auswitchtours.com/auswitch-concentration-camp-history-location.html