today is an anniversary of setting free prisoners from the biggest concentration camp -Auschwitz-Birkenau... it's 60 years...I think we all should remember about this tragedy and can't make repetition of history.So many people have died in truly hell ,the only exit from this place was chimney in crematory... "Auschwitz is the name used for a group of German concentration camps, derived from the Germanized form of the nearby Polish town of Oœwiêcim, situated about 60 km southwest of Krakow. Beginning in 1940, Nazi Germany built several concentration camps and an extermination camp in the area, which at the time had been annexed by Germany. The camps were a major constituent of the Holocaust. There were three main camps, and thirty-nine subcamps. Entrance of Auschwitz IAuschwitz I served as the administrative center for the whole complex. It was founded on May 20, 1940, on the basis of old Polish brick army barracks. A group of 728 Polish political prisoners from Tarnów became the first residents of Auschwitz on June 14th that year. The camp was initially used for interning Polish intellectuals and resistance movement members, then also for Soviet Prisoners of War. Common German criminals, "anti-social elements" and homosexuals were also imprisoned there. Jews were sent to the camp as well, beginning with the very first shipment (from Tarnów). At any time, the camp held between 13 and 16 thousand inmates; in 1942 the number reached 20 thousand. The entrance to Auschwitz I was (and still is) marked with the cynical sign "Arbeit macht frei", "work liberates". The camp's prisoners who left the camp during the day for construction or farm labor were made to march through the gate at the sounds of an orchestra. Contrary to what is depicted in several films, however, the majority of the Jews were imprisoned in the Auschwitz II camp, and did not pass under this sign. The SS selected some prisoners, often German criminals, as specially privileged supervisors of the other inmates (so-called: kapo). The various classes of prisoners were distinguishable by special marks on their clothes; Jews were generally treated worst. All inmates had to work; except in the associated arms factories, Sundays were reserved for cleaning and showering and there were no work assignments. The harsh work requirements, combined with poor nutrition and hygiene, led to high death rates among the prisoners. Block 11 of Auschwitz I was the "prison within the prison", where violations of the numerous rules were punished. Some prisoners had to spend several days in tiny cells too small to sit down. Others were executed by shooting, hanging or starving. In September 1941, the SS conducted tests in block 11, killing 850 Poles and Russians using Zyklon B gas, a pesticide that had previously been used to kill lice. The tests deemed successful, a gas chamber and crematorium were constructed by converting a bunker. This gas chamber operated from 1941 to 1942 and was then converted into an air-raid shelter. Most people arrived at the camp by rail, often after horrifying trips in cattle wagons lasting several days. From 1944 railway tracks extended into the camp itself; before that, arriving prisoners were marched from the Auschwitz railway station to the camp. At times, the whole transport would be sent to its death immediately. At other times, the Nazis would perform "selections", often administered by Josef Mengele, to the end of choosing whom to kill right away and whom to imprison as labor force or use for medical experiments. Young children were taken from their mothers and placed with older women to be gassed, along with the sick, weak and old. irkenau concentration camp in 2001Those selected for extermination were sent to any of four massive gas chamber/crematorium complexes, all at the edge of the camp. Two of the crematoria (Krema II and Krema III) each had an underground undressing room and the underground gas chamber, capable of holding thousands of people. To avoid mass panic, the victims were told that they were going there for showering; to reinforce this impression, shower heads were fitted in the gas chamber, though never connected to a water supply. The victims were ordered to strip naked and leave their belongings in the undressing room in a location that they could subsequently remember, before being led to the adjacent gas chamber. Once the victims were sealed shut in the chamber, the toxic agent Zyklon B was discharged from openings in the ceiling. Gas chambers in crematoria IV and V were above ground and Zyklon B was poured through the special windows in the walls. An oven room, where selected camp prisoners called Sonderkommandos took out the dead bodies and burned them, was part of the same building. Germany invaded Hungary in March 1944. Between May and July 1944, about 438,000 Jews from Hungary were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and the majority were killed there. When the crematoria could not keep up, bodies were burned in open pits. Many Roma had been imprisoned in a special section of the camp, mostly in family units. They were gassed in July 1944. On October 10, eight hundred Roma children were systematically murdered at Birkenau."
I`m so ashamed about this part of history of my country and pray for all the innocent, poor humans that had to die from German hand.
I was just going to put a post up about this...Sun Angel you beat me to it I was listening to Eva Schloss ( could have spelt that wrong) on the radio this afternoon, she is in her seventies and an Auschwitz survivor, she is also the stepsister of Ann Frank. This lady was amazing, she has had such a sad life in many ways, but her spirit is so strong and she had so much to say that struck a chord with me. She was saying that we must all get to know each other better on this little planet, understand and appreciate each others cultures, for at the root of the atrocites committed by the Nazis was fear. And it made me think....look at the insular nature of the worst bits of American culture....their reaction to Islamic countries...a lot of it is based on fear. Sorry this is turning into a ramble...but on the same radio programme they quoted a statistic ...in the UK where I come from....60% of under 35s have no idea of what Auschwitz was. I guess its not surprising.....I am older and grew up with parents and grandparents whose lives were formed by the second world war......people under 35 probably don't have that same connection to the history...but we do need to tell our children about this....it is awful to have to think about....but it would be so much more awful to forget it.
That's what strikes me as amazing. I've read quite a few biographies written by Jewish who survived from the consentration camps and the majority of these people just seem to be so strong and they have carried on with their lives and, what is even more amazing is that they have such a positive outlook on life - even after all the horrible things they had to go through. It's just... well, amazing.
Read following link for Adolf Eichmanns (officer and executer of many thousand people during the Nazi regime) biography 1906-1962: http://www.pbs.org/eichmann/timeline.htm That was on the basis of his trial, Hannah Arendt concluded that evil origins of banality; mediocracy. Under a mental examination during the Nürnberg trial, a psychologist concluded that Eichman couldn't possible be more normal. After the Abu-Graibh scandal, the offenders were also described as "normal" and "social" by families and friends. Is "normalcy" a societal state invented by perverted systems and regimes to legalize their crimes? Is it easier to commit crimes against humanity if your social surroundings consider you "normal"? I think so, and unfortunately I think history will repeat itself again and again and again, untill we understand that tendencies towards "normalcy" is something that we must fight against in the name of diversity and tolerance. -wolf.
