allyson and bryan

Facts About Auschwitz /


Bryan and I spent Friday at the former concentration camp of Auschwitz, located about one hour from Krakow. It was everything you’d expect: maddening, horrifying, heartbreaking, emotional, overwhelming. The museum has done an amazing job of keeping the complex preserved and adding moving, informative displays, complemented by thorough tours and a chilling movie, shot the day the camp was liberated. We spent about six hours there. I can’t really think of anything to write that does the experience of a visit justice, so instead I thought I’d share some of the harrowing facts I learned with you.

• Auschwitz was a concentration camp originally established by the Nazis in 1940 for Polish political prisoners.
• At its peak, “Auschwitz” was comprised of three major camps -- Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II: Birkenau, and Auschwitz III: Monowitz – along with 40 other smaller camps.
• Auschwitz Birkenau was the largest of all “mass extermination” camps, holding at one point 100,000 prisoners.
• Of the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust, 1.1 million died at Auschwitz.
• A total of 1.5 million people died at Auschwitz.
• Jews transported to Auschwitz were told they were being “resettled” elsewhere in Europe.
• When arriving at Auschwitz, prisoners were split into two groups. One went immediately to their deaths in the gas chamber, while the other was chosen for work. The second category made up approximately 5% of intakes.
• Death by gas chamber (via Cyclon B) occurred by suffocation, which took between 15 and 25 minutes.
• As many as 700 people at once fit into a single gas chamber, told that they were heading into showers.
• After their deaths, jewelry, gold fillings, and hair were removed for reuse or sale.
• Death was also handed out by starvation, overwork, disease, beating, hanging, gunpoint, and suffocation.
• The average number of calories consumed each day was 700.
• The average number of manual work hours per day was 12.
• The average life span of a prisoner was two months.
• The majority of children sent to the camps were killed immediately, except for those chosen for scientific experiments, e.g. twins.
• Those prisoners allowed to live at Birkenau slept 500 in a medium-sized barn structure, sharing with 50 horses. There were eight people to a bunk. There was no running water.
• The camps were liberated by the Russian Army on January 27, 1945. Seventy-five thousand people were freed.
• At the beginning of WWII, 3,500,000 Jews lived in Poland. Only 300,000 survived. Only about 100 Jews currently live in Krakow’s Jewish center, Kazimierz.

stars, they're just like allyson @ 11:45 PM  

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