Auschwitz-Birkenau has come to symbolize terror and murder for generations of people around the world, its single arch entrance marked with its iconic slogan Arbeit Macht Frei (work sets you free) being instantly recognisable by most.
The Holocaust should be taught in schools as part of history, cultural studies and philosophy classes as well as civics/political science classes.
The History of the Camp
Germans established the Camp in 1940 near Oswiecim, a Polish city annexed by Germany. Soon thereafter it became a center for terror and genocide as Nazis utilized it to kill Jewish people from all across Europe, as well as prisoners held elsewhere across Europe. For its time period alone it became the world’s largest concentration and extermination camp, killing an estimated 1.5 million individuals–primarily Jews–before becoming a symbol of horror that stands as an early warning against extreme ideologies which deny human dignity.
People entering Auschwitz were forced through its infamous gate with its slogan of “Arbeit Macht Frei” (“Work Will Set You Free”). Once inside they were stripped naked and tattooed with identification numbers before being organized into groups such as political prisoners, Roma (Gypsies), homosexuals or asocials etc. Life expectancy at Auschwitz averaged less than six months due to starvation, disease and long days of hard labor.
Escaping from the camp was virtually impossible due to electrically charged barbed wire fences that surrounded it and guards equipped with machine guns on watchtowers positioned throughout. Prisoners were under the supervision of their SS captors, who could at any moment subject them to torture and humiliating punishments.
Many prisoners were subjected to inhuman medical experiments conducted by Josef Mengele – particularly his notorious experiments which involved injecting serum into the eyes of children for studying eye color, or inserting chloroform into twin hearts so as to determine which would die first.
As Germany was on the verge of defeat and Auschwitz was no longer likely to play its part, Nazi commandants began clearing away evidence of its atrocities. Buildings were torn down or destroyed through explosives or fire; large sections were covered with plastic sheeting which wasn’t removed until 1960s.
After World War II, the few surviving wooden and masonry barracks were transformed into memorials by architect Leopold Zygmuntowicz into an intricate memorial complex with three outdoor gas chambers used for killing people with Zyklon B poisonous gas. A small monument now serves as its focal point, while Leopold’s design features three outdoor gas chambers bearing his inscription: Auschwitz Birkenau Treblinka Majdanczowska Gora (“Auschwitz Berkhezero Majdanczowska Gora”).
The Inmates
Auschwitz (Germanised as od) became one of the most infamous Nazi concentration camps when built on Himmler’s orders near Oswiecim in 1940. Comprised of several camps that combined forced labour with mass extermination, its iconic gate sign read “Arbeit Macht Frei”.
Auschwitz opened its doors for its inaugural prisoners on June 1940 from Tarnow prison, mostly Polish political prisoners but also including German criminals and Soviet POWs. By 27 January 1945 when it was liberated there were around 10,000 prisoners at Auschwitz.
Prisoners were made to work on agriculture and construction projects such as building roads, digging trenches, or creating railway lines. Others were subjected to medical experiments led by Josef Mengele’s barbaric research – conducting painful procedures like injecting eye serum into children or cutting off body parts as part of his experiments on prisoners.
Auschwitz was an environment where survival was an ongoing struggle. The brick barracks were overcrowded and filthy, while food rations were tragically meager: watery soup composed of decayed vegetables and meat, some bread with margarine spread on it, tea or bitter coffee as beverages for drinking, or sometimes neither. Many died either through starvation or disease.
Auschwitz prisoner endured severe living conditions as well as physical and psychological abuse, including being forced to sleep on wooden bunks that often housed five or six individuals per room; no insulation meant that barracks were cold in winter and hot in summer; lack of clean drinking water led to illness and disease outbreaks.
Even under its harsh regime, some prisoners rebelled against it. An uprising led by members of Sonderkommando working in gas chambers led to one chamber’s destruction; temporarily stopping the killing process but leading to all rebels eventually being shot dead and many more victims of overwork, starvation or infectious disease dying inside or dying elsewhere in camp.
The Experiments
Auschwitz was not only known for mass murder; it was also home to disturbing medical experimentation. Doctors at Auschwitz conducted numerous medical experiments including castration and sterilisation as well as testing how people responded to contagious diseases such as smallpox. One such physician was Dr Josef Mengele – known by some as ‘Angel of Death’ due to his interest in testing twins.
Kurt Heissmeyer conducted another renowned experiment when he administered live tubercle bacilli to prisoners at prisons around Poland. After injecting live TB bacteria, Heissmeyer tested which of them developed natural immunity to infection or succumbed, in hopes of ultimately developing a vaccine against it.
Doctors conducted additional experiments using drugs, using prisoners’ blood as subjects of these trials. Some were given polygal-10 to increase blood clotting; several prisoners later perished as a result of it. Others were exposed to extreme cold temperatures for tests aimed at seeing how long they could remain conscious before losing consciousness and passing out.
SS doctors conducted experiments on twins in order to more effectively propagate German bloodlines. Furthermore, they tested on children suffering from noma and those with different-colored eyes in the hope of altering them through surgery.
Even though most prisoners at Auschwitz were killed, many historic artefacts from Auschwitz-Birkenau survived and are now stored at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. Some items can be seen on display while others have been conserved and are in storage. Due to how the camp was designed as temporary structures that could be quickly destroyed by bombing raids and materials that quickly decompose quickly, historic buildings are rapidly decaying but efforts are made to preserve and strengthen them so as to strengthen their original fabric while simultaneously preserve and strengthen original fabric.
The Deaths
Auschwitz claimed the lives of an estimated 1.1 million individuals, most of them Jews but including members from other groups as well. It remains one of the greatest mass murders ever perpetrated; an unprecedented mechanized extermination that epitomized contemporary horror.
Camp Treblinka was an inaccessible prison, protected by barbed wire fences and guarded by armed SS men who could at any time decide on harsh punishments against its prisoners. Any attempt at escape would only result in imprisonment.
Life expectancy at Auschwitz was less than six months due to disease, starvation and hard physical labor. Prisoners were stripped of everything they owned and treated like animals; possessions were confiscated systematically before wearing striped uniforms with numbers tattooed onto them; they were classified according to origin, religion or race before wearing badges that indicated their position in the camp: higher up the ladder they went, better they fared.
As well as conducting cruel medical experiments (castration, sterilisation), the SS also experimented with ways of killing without physical labor. One officer named Karl Hocker had an idea to use Zyklon B, an insecticide usually employed against lice. Karl tested its release into a closed room before realising it also killed people – leading them to realise Zyklon B chambers would make ideal extermination chambers in camps.
Hocker was eventually executed for his involvement in the massacres at Auschwitz; before this occurred he collected many photographs documenting both its facilities and its workers; one such photo happened to depict Serge Klarsfeld – one of the leading Nazi hunters of that era!
This album now resides in a museum in Poland and its pictures have been widely published, leaving an indelible image of some of the world’s most notorious killers at work and looking unnaturally relaxed as they commit their acts of murder. Moises Kaufman spent 14 years writing a play about this album.