There were entire rooms full of belongings from prisoners. The people going to Auschwitz were not told it was a death camp but instead told they were going to start a new life in Eastern Europe. When they arrived at Auschwitz, they then had all their belongings were taken away from them. These items were put into warehouses the prisoners called the Canada Warehouses. They nicknamed these warehouses that because Canada was seen as a country of abundance. It was quite appalling to see how much the Nazis deceived those poor people, and it makes what happened there even more morbid.
The most disturbing part of the Auschwitz I saw was a room full of hair. This room of hair is from some of the victims of the camp. When people were sent to the gas chambers, they first were shaved clean and then sanitized in a shower. The hair from them was put on top of the furnaces, where the victims were being burned so that it would be dried out. It was then used to make various textile products such as pillowcases, bed sheets, shirts etc.
The absolute cold thought that was put into this is appalling. The fact someone was thinking about how to utilize parts bodies so that those bodies did not go to waste is disgusting. These were people and from what I can tell all the NAZIs saw were a sort of asset, not a person. In this part of the tour, no pictures were allowed out of respect for the victims.
The next stop was to look at the actual gas chambers. Most of the gas chambers were destroyed before the Soviets liberated the camp. Apparently, the NAZIs did understand that other people may find what is happening a horrible and may be upset with them. There was one gas chamber that was still intact because it was converted into a bomb shelter.
The guide explained how the people were 'herded' into the gas chambers and furnaces. They were guided into the gas chambers in such a way that people could not see those ahead of them heading into the chambers. This was done so that people would not panic. The guide did take us into the gas chamber that is still intact.
The guide asked everyone to stay quiet out of respect for the victims that died there. The guide pointed to the ceiling where there were holes, and that is where the gas was dropped from. It felt eery being where all those victims died. Thinking about how they did not know they were going to die and then imaging their thoughts when the gas fell from the ceiling.
Demolished Gas Chambers
The guide showed us where the longest-serving boss, Rudolf Höss, of Auschwitz lived. This house was very close to the camp, so it would make sense that the family and everyone there would have known roughly what was happening. This is not what Rudolf said though in his confession. He completely threw himself under the bus by admitting to everything; however, he did say that his family knew nothing about what was happening. The result was that he was an excellent witness for the allies and eventually was hanged, but his family faced no consequences.
We also saw the Barracks where prisoners stayed. There was a variety of barracks and the best was were the people how to monitor the other prisoners. These prisoners were very aggressive at times because they did not want to end up like regular prisoners. Most prisoners were put in a place where it would be more likely for pigs to live.
I think where the preferred prisoners lived.
Where regular prisoners lived
The guide also discussed how the Soviets were treated worse than all other prisoners. The Soviets were used as test guinea pigs for the NAZIs when they were testing there gas killing machine. The NAZIs put some Soviet prisoners in a room and then released gas. When they opened up the room and saw the Soviets were still alive, they put in more gas. This was how they learned the correct dosage to kill people. This is another example of how sick the people who created these methods were the cold calculation is morbid.
The medical experiments that were conducted at Auschwitz were also discussed (http://auschwitz .org/en/history/medical-experiments/). The guide mentioned how it was because of the prisoners who were working at the furnaces that the allies discovered what was happening (https://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Sonderkommando_photographs). The story about how prisoners escaped by stealing SS uniforms was also told (http://auschwitz.org/en/history/resistance/escapes-and-reports).
This was the most eye-opening experience I have had, and I am glad I did it even though it thoroughly creeped me out.
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