AUSCHWITZ

A visit by Louise Archer

• This presentation is a photographic and
written account of Lo's unforgettable visit
to Auschwitz
• (My name is John C Moss and I would like to share Louis's story with
you all.) © December 12th 2006
 Arbeit macht frei

From my starting point at Kazimierz, the drive to

Auschwitz took approximately 90 minutes. Upon arrival,
our driver took us into an exhibition centre to book our
small party in and from there we were quickly ushered
through to the cinema where we viewed a twenty minute
black and white film showing, in the main, footage from
the liberation. There were actually three separate sites
housing prisoners in Auschwitz. KL Auschwitz consists
mainly of brick buildings that housed the Polish army
before the site was turned into a labour camp.
• After viewing the film, one exits the cinema through a set
of side doors onto a small courtyard. From here you catch
your first glimpse of the ominous looking entrance gates to
the far right. Above the gates are the words Arbeit Macht
Frei, which interprets vaguely as Hard work brings
freedom.
• From the courtyard you pick up an English-speaking tour
guide. There are both advantages and disadvantages to
hooking up with a guide. Obviously the advantages speak
for themselves, however there is much to see and so one is
somewhat herded along without having much time to
absorb one's surroundings or study the various
information boards. As tours run frequently, it is not
uncommon for them to overlap, making it difficult to
isolate your guides commentary from that of the others.
It's quite distracting at times.
Photography, you are told, is allowed only externally. It is
prohibited to photograph any of the buildings interiors.

About KL Auschwitz
In September of 1939, Germany invaded Poland. It took
them just two weeks to overthrow the Polish army. Polish
Jews were ordered to leave their homes and report to
various cities. Ten thousand Jews were arriving daily in
Krakow alone. For them, it was the start of a very long
journey which saw them gradually herded together in the
ghettos and from there, to their likely deaths in the camps.
But it was not only the Jews that were persecuted. An
estimated 1 million European gypsies were also sent to
such death camps. They were viewed as undesirables -
tramps, beggars, thieves and prostitutes. The statistics for
these gypsies have never been accurately determined due
to the nature of their travelling lifestyles.

Death camps were fast running out of space. Auschwitz

seemed the perfect solution because it was a relatively
small and quiet town but with an excellent railway system
and an army camp that could be exploited and built upon.
Once Auschwitz was ear-marked, it took just one month to
adapt before the first prisoners arrived.
Contrary to popular belief, KL Auschwitz was never destined
to house Jews. It wasn't just Jews that were being sent to
labour camps but also Polish war criminals among others.
The first intake were in fact just that - criminals. But as
more camps were required to house the vast number of
Jews, many ended up here and they were at the mercy not
just of the SS guards but also the criminal prisoners, who
were given special privileges by the German SS. Such
privileges were things like extra shoes, better quality
clothes and footwear. The criminals were in close
collaboration with the guards and would be encouraged to
beat and kill many Jewish prisoners in return for these
privileges...
Correction...criminals were given extra food as well as better
clothing and footwear

I put this photo in Sepia effect. The tour begins just here
outside the entrance gates. I think my friend took this one
actually. Lo
Part Two: The Start Of The Tour.

Upon entering the camp, there is a building to the left that is

purported to have been the centre of Joseph Mengeles
experiments involving young children and, in particular,
twins. Whether or not this was the building I am unsure but
regardless of it's precise location, it existed and many
unsuspecting children suffered at Mengele's hands. Mengele
was fascinated by twins and how they came about in terms of a
split ova where identical twins were concerned. He would seek
out child twins with a particular eye colour and have their eyes
removed for his warped research. But it was not only children
that were at his mercy. Many adults were the victims of his
macabre 'work'.
Progressing through the camp we are told that around 80 of
the blocks already existed and another 20 were built, largely
by the Jews themselves. More blocks were required to cater
for certain purposes such as administration or indeed
punishment. A proportion of these blocks have been preserved
in their original state and others have been converted into
exhibition rooms.

All of the non-photographic exhibits are contained behind

glass. For example, you can see smaller table-type exhibits of
documentation relative to the Jewish prisoners and larger
exhibitions behind glass walls. Nothing was ever wasted in the
labour camp - everything that was removable from a person
was by and large confiscated for the purpose of recycling.
Notable Exhibits.

(Please bear in mind that the many thousands of articles on

display are only a small proportion of what was recovered).
Spectacles
Shoes
Clothing
Baby clothing
Toothbrushes
Shoe polish
Shaving brushes
Hairbrushes
Marked Suitcases
Artificial Limbs.
Any person with an artificial limb, even if only a hand, was
deemed unfit for work and executed shortly after arrival.
Part Three

I mentioned some of the items that had been recovered but

nothing could have prepared us for one of the exhibitions -
human hair. For those who were spared execution, hair was
removed quite brutally and many a prisoner incurred severe
cuts to the scalp during this process. Those destined for the
gas chamber would have their hair removed post-mortem.
The hair was sold on to carpet-makers and mixed with other
materials to make basic carpets - an example of which was
shown. There was, behind a glass wall, literally a few tonnes
of hair tresses, including plaits that had been cut from the top.
Due to the time span, much of this hair has taken on a grey
appearance but I saw one mass of perfectly blonde hair which I
can only assume had been processed with bleaching
chemicals. All of the hair on display came from women - all of
them executed.
The Gas Chambers

We climbed yet more stairs and into a room with an exhibition

of the gas chambers, made with clay and in model form. We
were told of how the process took place. A queue of Jews
would be stood above the chambers on ground level. They
were told that there was plenty of work for everybody and that
they were going to take a shower and be disinfected (I will go
into more detail on another instalment). The model showed the
process of the Jews being ushered in to a building, removing
all of their clothes (males and females mixed together), then
entering the chamber right through to the bodies being carried
out to the crematorium.
We also saw some pictures in Auschwitz that depicted the
activity in nearby Birkenau. There was certainly a great deal
to take in.
Part Four: Elaboration of the gas chambers

In Auschwitz itself, the gas chamber you enter was probably at

one time underground but not below actual ground level - in
other words, the ground level was built up to render the
chamber quite concealed (Or so I imagine/logically conclude).

I was personally quite surprised at the size of the chamber. It

was no longer nor higher than say, two average garages.
As I said before, Jews were told that they had nothing
whatsoever to fear - that they would all be given jobs and after
they had been showered and disinfected, would be provided
with clean clothes and a warming bowl of soup. Many of these
Jews had been travelling in freight trains for up to 8 days
without food and very little water. The prospect of a meal,
however watery, was enough to set them at ease.
Entering The Gas Chamber

After undressing, Jews huddled into the building with little

alarm. They had already lost their modesty when having to use
the train floors as a latrine during transit.

Above their heads were several cut-outs. The Jews were

packed in tightly and when the chamber was at full capacity,
the doors were slammed hard behind them and locked.
Naturally, people were looking upwards and waiting for the
water to appear. What they in fact saw were German SS
guards wearing gas masks.
In order to drown out the inevitable screams of panic and
hysteria, a guard would turn on a lorry engine so that the noise
below would be inaudible to the rest of the Jews awaiting their
'shower'

Through these holes, cans of crystallised Zyklon-B were

dropped. When Zyklon-B comes into contact with oxygen it
transforms into a deadly and poisonous gas. One can (about
the size of a small paint tin) was sufficient to kill 100 people.
Death would take up to ten minutes. After this the doors would
open and the building would evacuate all traces of the deadly
substance. Specially assigned prisoners would then remove
the bodies into the attached crematorium - but not before
removing hair, teeth and jewellery.

Bodies were then loaded onto the trolley and burnt about 3-4
at a time depending on their size. It took approximately 15-20
minutes to burn a human corpse.
The Auschwitz Gas Chamber
 Birkenau
A short drive from KL Auschwitz took us to nearby Birkenau.
Of the 200 wooden huts that once existed, only 20 remain.
Here is the infamous entrance:
This photograph I took was taken inside of the camp looking
outwards. In the film Schindler's List, the train arriving at
Auschwitz that was carrying the Schindler Jews - a train that
was carrying women and children that was not re-routed to
Schindler's factory/camp as it was supposed to - was actually
filmed coming out of the camp. No filming is permitted within
Birkenau so a set was built outside of these gates to depict the
camp.
 To the immediate left of this photograph is a segregated area
where the wooden huts are housed.

These huts were originally stables and were converted in the

main to house approximately 400 Jews per hut. Jews were
confined to three-tiered wooden beds.
Jews were not, as it may appear from this photograph, placed
three to a bed. They had to sleep along the width of the bed.
There could be up to 12 people occupying one bunk
Birkenau: Part Two

Some distance from the entrance gates there is a clearing.

When the Jews alighted from the trains, tired, hungry and
thirsty they would be required to congregate near this clearing.
Along with the SS guards, a doctor would be in attendance to
assess the prisoners on their suitability for work. In most
cases, this would be nothing more than a fleeting glance, after
which, prisoners were sent either to the left or to the right.
To the left was the work camp. To the right, the long path to
the gas chamber.
This picture shows Jews to the top right going off to the gas
chambers having no idea of their fate. The hut you see to the
top left of the picture is where this photo board is placed.
Once again, Jews were told that they had arrived at a labour
camp and that there was plenty of work for all but that they
first had to be showered and disinfected.
There was the occasional retaliation from prisoners. On one
occasion, a Jewish woman, in desperation, grappled an SS
guard's pistol and shot him dead before turning it on another
guard. She was executed for this of course. Incidents like this
were rare but they did happen.
The crematoriums that don't quite stand today in Birkenau
were detonated by the German's towards the end of the war in
a vain attempt to conceal their crimes. Crematorium 111 still
has a full chimney. Here is a pic of what's left of one of the
crematoriums:
Conclusion

Latrine Hut/Black Market

Below is an example of the basic latrines in Birkenau. There
were three of these rows in this block. Often, SS guards would
stand by and humiliate prisoners as they went about their
business, saying such things as, hey you, sit up straight, why
are you leaning forward that way?' and laughing amongst
themselves. The Jews had only a few minutes to use the
facilities before having to start another long and gruelling day
entailing hard labour.
The latrines were emptied with a mere bucket and so after a
time, the hut became obnoxious-smelling. In many ways this
proved to be of great advantage to the Jews for the SS guards
would avoid the latrine hut, unable or unwilling to expose
themselves to the stench. It therefore became the ideal hut for
black marketeers to do business of another kind - trade. An
example of a trade would be a very small bottle of water - the
cost of which would be two gold rings.
Although the rationing was deemed suitable, it may arguably
have just about sustained a person who was physically inactive
but prisoners were working 11 hour days. Typical rations were
a watery bowl of soup, a few slices of bread and a quantity of
coffee per day.
Men tended to outlive women, many of them perished within
weeks, if not days of their arrival......
I offer this account as a tribute to the thousands of Jews and
Gypsies that perished here at Auschwitz-Birkenau and other
camps, the worst of which was in fact Treblinka, Warsaw - a
camp that was destroyed in it's entirety. May this sort of
selective genocide never be allowed to happen again.
Thank you to those who have taken time to read my account
and offer your comments.
Lo.