Just hearing this name alone brings a lump to your throat. Auschwitz remains in people's minds for many years as an example of genocide that resulted in the death of an incredible number of people. Every year, hundreds of thousands of people come to Auschwitz, a city whose name is inextricably associated with the infamous Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz, to learn its history and honor the memory of those killed.
The Auschwitz concentration camp became one of the most effective elements of this conveyor belt of death. An excursion here and to the neighboring Birkenau camp leaves an unforgettable impression.
Auschwitz
Open: daily 8.00-19.00, admission free, www.auschwitz.org.pl
Above the camp gate are written the words: "Arbeit Macht Frei" (“Work will set you free”). The camp authorities, fleeing the advancing Soviet army, tried to destroy evidence of the genocide, but did not have time, so that about 30 camp blocks were preserved, some of them became part of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.
Up to 200,000 people could be held in the camp every day. There were 300 prison barracks, 5 huge gas chambers, each of which could accommodate 2,000 people, and a crematorium. It is impossible to forget this terrible place.
Auschwitz was originally a barracks for the Polish army. Jews from countries such as Norway, Greece, etc., were herded onto freight trains, where there was no water, no food, no toilets and almost no air to breathe, and were taken to concentration camps in Poland. The first 728 “prisoners of war,” most Poles and all from the city of Tarnow, were brought here in June 1940. Then whole streams of Jews and Soviet prisoners of war were sent to the camps. They turned into slaves; some died of starvation, others were executed, and many were sent to gas chambers, where mass murder was carried out using the poisonous gas "Cyclone-B".
Auschwitz was only partially destroyed by the retreating Nazis, so many buildings that bear witness to the atrocities that took place have been preserved. The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum is located in the ten surviving barracks (Tel.: 33 844 8100; www.auschwitz.org.pl; admission free; 08.00-19.00 June-August, 08.00-18.00 May and September, 08.00-17.00 April and October, 08.00-16.00 March and November, 08.00-15.00 December - February).In 2007, UNESCO, when adding the complex to the World Heritage List, gave it the name “Auschwitz-Birkenau - Nazi German Concentration Camp” (1940-45)”, to focus attention on Poland’s non-involvement in its creation and functioning.
A 15-minute documentary is shown every half hour in the visitor center cinema located at the entrance to the camp. (ticket for adults/discount 3.50/2.50zt) about the liberation of the camp by Soviet troops on January 27, 1945. It is shown in English, German and French throughout the day. Check the information desk for the schedule as soon as you arrive. The film is not recommended for viewing by children under 14 years of age. Documentary footage filmed after the camp was liberated by Soviet troops in 1945 will provide a useful introduction to those trying to comprehend what they are about to see. The visitor center also has a cafeteria, bookstores, and a currency exchange office. (kantor) and a storage room.
At the end of the war, the Nazis attempted to destroy the camp during their flight, but about 30 barracks survived, as well as guard towers and barbed wire. You can freely walk between barracks and enter those that are open. In one of them, glass cases contain piles of shoes, crooked glasses, piles of human hair and suitcases with the names and addresses of prisoners who were told they were simply being relocated to another city. Photographs of prisoners are hung in the corridors, some of which are decorated with flowers brought by surviving relatives. Next to block No. 11, the so-called “death block,” there is an execution wall, where prisoners were shot. Here the Nazis conducted their first experiments using the Zyklon-B. The barrack next door is dedicated to the “Trials of the Jewish People.” At the end of the exhibition of historical documents and photographs, the names of people killed in the concentration camps are listed to the piercing, sad melody of “Merciful God.”
General information is provided in Polish, English and Hebrew, but to better understand everything, purchase the small guide to Auschwitz-Birkenau (translated into 15 languages), available at the visitor center. From May to October, visitors arriving between 10.00 and 15.00 can only explore the museum as part of a guided tour. English-language excursions (price for adults/discounted 39/30zl, 3.5 hours) start daily at 10.00, 11.00, 13.00, 15.00, and they can also organize a tour for you if there is a group of ten people. Excursions in other languages, including Russian, must be booked in advance.
Auschwitz can be easily reached from Krakow. If you want to stay nearby, the Center for Dialogue and Prayer is 700 meters from the complex (Centrum Dialogu i Modlitwy w Oswiecimiu; Tel.: 33 843 1000; www. centrum-dialogu.oswiecim.pl; Kolbego street (ul. Kolbego), 1; camping place 25zl, single/double room 104/208zl). It is cozy and quiet, the price includes breakfast, and you can also be offered full board. Most rooms have private bathrooms.
Birkenau
Admission to Birkenau is free, open from 08.00-19.00 June - August; 08.00-18.00 May and September; 08.00-17.00 April and October; 08.00-16.00 March and November; 08.00-15.00 December - February.
Birkenau, also known as Auschwitz II, is located 3 km from Auschwitz. A short inscription in Birkenau reads: “Let this place be forever a cry of despair and a warning to humanity, where the Nazis exterminated about one and a half million men, women and children, mostly Jews, from various countries of Europe.”
Birkenau was built in 1941, when Hitler moved from isolating political prisoners to a program of mass extermination. Three hundred long barracks on an area of 175 hectares served as storage for the most brutal machine of Hitler’s “solution” to the Jewish question. Approximately 3/4 of the Jews brought to Birkenau were sent to the gas chambers immediately upon arrival.
Indeed, Birkenau was the epitome of a death camp: it had its own railway station for transporting prisoners, four huge gas chambers, each of which could kill 2,000 people at once, and a crematorium equipped with elevators for loading the ovens with the bodies of prisoners.
Visitors are given the opportunity to climb to the second floor of the main guard tower at the entrance, which offers views of the entire huge camp. Seemingly endless rows of barracks, towers and barbed wire - all this could accommodate up to 200 thousand prisoners at a time. At the back of the camp, behind a terrible pond where the ashes of the murdered people were poured, there is an unusual monument to the victims of the Holocaust with an inscription in 20 languages of those prisoners who were killed in Auschwitz and Birkenau.
While retreating, the Germans, although they destroyed most of the structures, just look at the area fenced with barbed wire to understand the scale of the crimes committed by the Nazis. A viewing platform at the entrance to the camp will allow you to look around a large area. In some ways, Birkenau is even more shocking than Auschwitz, and there are generally fewer tourists here. It is not necessary to visit the memorial as part of a tour group.
Road there and back
Typically a visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau takes place as a day trip from Krakow.
There are 12 daily flights from Krakow Main Station to Auschwitz (13zt, 1.5 hours) Even more trains depart from the Krakow-Plaszow station. A more convenient way to travel is the hourly bus service to Auschwitz from the bus station. (11zt, 1.5 hours) who are either passing by the museum or it is their final stop. For bus schedules in the opposite direction, see the information board at the Birkenau Visitor Center. From a stop near the street. Pavia near Galeria Krakowska there are numerous minibuses going in this direction.
From April 15 to October 31, from 11.30 to 16.30, buses run between Auschwitz and Birkenau every half hour. (from May to September traffic stops at 17.30, from June to August - at 18.30). You can also walk the 3 km between camps or take a taxi. There are buses from Auschwitz to the local train station (movement interval 30-40 minutes). Many Krakow travel agencies organize excursions to Auschwitz and Birkenau (from 90zt to 120zt per person). Find out in advance how much time you will be given to stay at museums, as some of them have a very busy schedule and you may not have time to see everything that interests you.
Next, we suggest going on a virtual tour of a terrible place - the German Majdanek death camp, which was built on Polish territory during the Second World War. Currently, there is a museum on the camp grounds.
From Warsaw to the museum at the site of the “death camp” (outskirts of Lublin) it takes two and a half hours by car. Admission is free, but few people want to visit. Only in the crematorium building, where five ovens turned prisoners into ashes every day, is a school field trip crowded with a Catholic priest. Preparing to celebrate Mass in memory of the Poles martyred in Majdanek, the priest lays a tablecloth on the prepared table, takes out the Bible and candles. Teenagers are clearly not interested here - they joke, smile, and go out to smoke. “Do you know who liberated this camp?” - I ask. There is confusion among young Poles. "English?" – the blonde girl says hesitantly. "No, Americans!" - a thin guy interrupts her. - “It seems there was a landing party here!” “Russians,” the priest says quietly. The schoolchildren are amazed - the news for them is like a bolt from the blue. On July 22, 1944, the Red Army was greeted in Lublin with flowers and tears of joy. Now we cannot wait for the liberation of the concentration camps, not even gratitude - just basic respect.
Almost everything has been preserved in Majdanek. Double fencing with barbed wire, SS guard towers and blackened crematorium ovens. On the barracks with the gas chamber there is a sign screwed on - “Washing and disinfection.” Fifty people were brought here at a time, supposedly “to go to the bathhouse” - they were given soap and asked to fold their clothes carefully. Victims entered the cement shower room, the door was locked and gas was leaking from holes in the ceiling. The peephole in the door is amazing - some bastard from the SS calmly watched people die in agony. Rare visitors speak quietly, as if in a cemetery. A girl from Israel cries, burying her face in her boyfriend's shoulder. A museum employee reports: 80,000 people died in the camp. "Like this? – I’m surprised. “After all, at the Nuremberg trials the figure of 300 thousand appeared, a third of them were Poles.” It turns out that after 1991, the number of victims has been constantly decreasing - at first it was decided that 200 thousand people were tortured in Majdanek, and recently they “knocked it down” to eighty: they say, more precisely, they recounted it.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if in ten years the Polish authorities begin to claim with such standards that no one died at Majdanek, the concentration camp was an exemplary sanatorium-resort where prisoners underwent health procedures,” says Maciej Wisniewski, editor-in-chief of the Strajk Internet portal, indignantly. - My father, who was a partisan during the war, said: “Yes, the Russians brought us a regime that we did not want. But the main thing is that the gas chambers and ovens stopped working in the SS concentration camps.” In Poland, state propaganda at all levels is trying to silence the merits of Soviet soldiers in saving tens of millions of lives. After all, if it were not for the Red Army, the Majdanek crematorium would continue to smoke every day.
It only takes a minute to walk from the gas chamber - you find yourself in a barracks filled to the brim with old, half-rotten shoes. I look at her for a long time. Expensive shoes of fashionistas (one even made of snakeskin), men's boots, children's boots. There are more of them - but in 2010, one museum barrack burned down for unknown reasons (possibly from arson): 7,000 pairs of shoes were lost in the fire. On November 3, 1943, as part of the so-called “Operation Erntedankfest” (harvest festival), the SS shot 18,400 Jews in Majdanek, including many citizens of the USSR. People were forced to lie down in ditches on top of each other, “in a layer,” and then were shot in the back of the head. 611 people then spent a week sorting the property of the executed, including these very shoes. The sorters were also destroyed - the men were shot, the women were sent to the gas chamber. In the room nearby there is a memorial to nameless prisoners whose identities could not be established: rows of light bulbs shrouded in balls of barbed wire are burning. An audio recording is played - in Polish, Russian, Yiddish, people ask God to save their lives.
The current museum occupies only a quarter of the actual territory of Majdanek: founded on October 1, 1941, it was a concentration camp city with “districts” where women, Jews, and Polish rebels were kept separately. The first inhabitants of the “SS special zone” were 2,000 Soviet prisoners of war; after just a month and a half (!), three quarters of them died from unbearable conditions of detention. The museum's exhibition does not focus on this fact. By January 1942, all the remaining prisoners had died - the camp stood empty until March, when 50,000 new prisoners were brought in. They were destroyed so quickly that one crematorium could not cope with the burning of bodies - a second one had to be built.
The towers above the camp darkened with time, the wood became coal black. 73 years ago, two SS guards stood on each one, watching Majdanek - often, in despair, the prisoners themselves walked into the bullets just to end their torment. The ashes of thousands of prisoners were buried in a huge mausoleum built next to the crematorium - the Red Army soldiers who liberated Majdanek discovered boxes of ashes, which the guards prepared for disposal. The crematorium ovens are smoked by fire; it is impossible to clean them from the remains of hundreds of thousands of people soaked into the metal. One of the prisoners who ended up in Majdanek at the age of six (!), a native of the Vitebsk region, Alexander Petrov, said that Jewish preschool children were burned alive in these ovens. Survivors in the camp testify that the Germans did not show much hatred towards them. They boredly tried to kill as many people as possible while doing their job. Of all the trees in the camp, only one survived. On the rest, the prisoners, dying of terrible hunger, ate the bark and chewed off the roots.
Looking at this camp even now makes me feel uneasy. And people lived there for almost 3 years. The photo shows Majdanek itself, the gas chamber, barracks, and crematorium.
The camps included labor and forced labor camps, extermination camps, transit camps, and prisoner of war camps. As war events progressed, the distinction between concentration camps and labor camps became increasingly blurred, as hard labor was also used in concentration camps.
Concentration camps in Nazi Germany were created after the Nazis came to power in order to isolate and repress opponents of the Nazi regime. The first concentration camp in Germany was established near Dachau in March 1933.
By the beginning of World War II, there were 300 thousand German, Austrian and Czech anti-fascists in prisons and concentration camps in Germany. In subsequent years, Hitler's Germany created a gigantic network of concentration camps on the territory of the European countries it occupied, turning them into places for the organized systematic murder of millions of people.
Fascist concentration camps were intended for the physical destruction of entire peoples, primarily Slavic ones; total extermination of Jews and Gypsies. For this purpose, they were equipped with gas chambers, gas chambers and other means of mass extermination of people, crematoria.
(Military encyclopedia. Chairman of the Main Editorial Commission S.B. Ivanov. Military Publishing House. Moscow. in 8 volumes - 2004. ISBN 5 - 203 01875 - 8)
There were even special death (extermination) camps, where the liquidation of prisoners proceeded at a continuous and accelerated pace. These camps were designed and built not as places of detention, but as death factories. It was assumed that people doomed to death were supposed to spend literally several hours in these camps. In such camps, a well-functioning conveyor belt was built that turned several thousand people a day into ashes. These include Majdanek, Auschwitz, Treblinka and others.
Concentration camp prisoners were deprived of freedom and the ability to make decisions. The SS strictly controlled every aspect of their lives. Violators of the peace were severely punished, subjected to beatings, solitary confinement, food deprivation and other forms of punishment. Prisoners were classified according to their place of birth and reasons for imprisonment.
Initially, prisoners in the camps were divided into four groups: political opponents of the regime, representatives of the “inferior races,” criminals and “unreliable elements.” The second group, including Gypsies and Jews, were subject to unconditional physical extermination and were kept in separate barracks.
They were subjected to the most cruel treatment by the SS guards, they were starved, they were sent to the most grueling works. Among the political prisoners were members of anti-Nazi parties, primarily communists and social democrats, members of the Nazi party accused of serious crimes, listeners of foreign radio, and members of various religious sects. Among the “unreliable” were homosexuals, alarmists, dissatisfied people, etc.
There were also criminals in the concentration camps, whom the administration used as overseers of political prisoners.
All concentration camp prisoners were required to wear distinctive insignia on their clothing, including a serial number and a colored triangle (“Winkel”) on the left side of the chest and right knee. (In Auschwitz, the serial number was tattooed on the left forearm.) All political prisoners wore a red triangle, criminals - green, “unreliable” - black, homosexuals - pink, gypsies - brown.
In addition to the classification triangle, Jews also wore yellow, as well as a six-pointed “Star of David”. A Jew who violated racial laws ("racial desecrator") was required to wear a black border around a green or yellow triangle.
Foreigners also had their own distinctive signs (the French wore the sewn letter “F”, the Poles - “P”, etc.). The letter "K" denoted a war criminal (Kriegsverbrecher), the letter "A" - a violator of labor discipline (from German Arbeit - "work"). The weak-minded wore the Blid badge - “fool”. Prisoners who participated or were suspected of escaping were required to wear a red and white target on their chest and back.
The total number of concentration camps, their branches, prisons, ghettos in the occupied countries of Europe and in Germany itself, where people were kept in the most difficult conditions and destroyed by various methods and means, is 14,033 points.
Of the 18 million citizens of European countries who passed through camps for various purposes, including concentration camps, more than 11 million people were killed.
The concentration camp system in Germany was liquidated along with the defeat of Hitlerism, and was condemned in the verdict of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg as a crime against humanity.
Currently, the Federal Republic of Germany has adopted the division of places of forced detention of people during the Second World War into concentration camps and “other places of forced confinement, under conditions equivalent to concentration camps,” in which, as a rule, forced labor was used.
The list of concentration camps includes approximately 1,650 names of concentration camps of the international classification (main and their external commands).
On the territory of Belarus, 21 camps were approved as “other places”, on the territory of Ukraine - 27 camps, on the territory of Lithuania - 9, in Latvia - 2 (Salaspils and Valmiera).
On the territory of the Russian Federation, places of forced detention in the city of Roslavl (camp 130), the village of Uritsky (camp 142) and Gatchina are recognized as “other places”.
List of camps recognized by the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany as concentration camps (1939-1945)
1.Arbeitsdorf (Germany)
2. Auschwitz/Auschwitz-Birkenau (Poland)
3. Bergen-Belsen (Germany)
4. Buchenwald (Germany)
5. Warsaw (Poland)
6. Herzogenbusch (Netherlands)
7. Gross-Rosen (Germany)
8. Dachau (Germany)
9. Kauen/Kaunas (Lithuania)
10. Krakow-Plaszczow (Poland)
11. Sachsenhausen (GDR-FRG)
12. Lublin/Majdanek (Poland)
13. Mauthausen (Austria)
14. Mittelbau-Dora (Germany)
15. Natzweiler (France)
16. Neuengamme (Germany)
17. Niederhagen-Wewelsburg (Germany)
18. Ravensbrück (Germany)
19. Riga-Kaiserwald (Latvia)
20. Faifara/Vaivara (Estonia)
21. Flossenburg (Germany)
22. Stutthof (Poland).
Largest Nazi concentration camps
Buchenwald is one of the largest Nazi concentration camps. It was created in 1937 in the vicinity of Weimar (Germany). Originally called Ettersberg. Had 66 branches and external work teams. The largest: "Dora" (near the city of Nordhausen), "Laura" (near the city of Saalfeld) and "Ordruf" (in Thuringia), where the FAU projectiles were mounted. From 1937 to 1945 About 239 thousand people were prisoners of the camp. In total, 56 thousand prisoners of 18 nationalities were tortured in Buchenwald.
The camp was liberated on April 10, 1945 by units of the US 80th Division. In 1958, a memorial complex dedicated to Buchenwald was opened. to the heroes and victims of the concentration camp.
Auschwitz-Birkenau, also known by the German names Auschwitz or Auschwitz-Birkenau, is a complex of German concentration camps located in 1940-1945. in southern Poland 60 km west of Krakow. The complex consisted of three main camps: Auschwitz 1 (served as the administrative center of the entire complex), Auschwitz 2 (also known as Birkenau, "death camp"), Auschwitz 3 (a group of approximately 45 small camps set up in factories and mines around general complex).
More than 4 million people died in Auschwitz, including more than 1.2 million Jews, 140 thousand Poles, 20 thousand Gypsies, 10 thousand Soviet prisoners of war and tens of thousands of prisoners of other nationalities.
On January 27, 1945, Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz. In 1947, the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum (Auschwitz-Brzezinka) was opened in Auschwitz.
Dachau is the first concentration camp in Nazi Germany, created in 1933 on the outskirts of Dachau (near Munich). Had approximately 130 branches and external work teams located in Southern Germany. More than 250 thousand people from 24 countries were prisoners of Dachau; About 70 thousand people were tortured or killed (including about 12 thousand Soviet citizens).
In 1960, a monument to the victims was unveiled in Dachau.
Majdanek - a Nazi concentration camp, was created in the suburbs of the Polish city of Lublin in 1941. It had branches in southeastern Poland: Budzyn (near Krasnik), Plaszow (near Krakow), Trawniki (near Wiepsze), two camps in Lublin. According to the Nuremberg trials, in 1941-1944. In the camp, the Nazis killed about 1.5 million people of various nationalities. The camp was liberated by Soviet troops on July 23, 1944. In 1947, a museum and research institute was opened in Majdanek.
Treblinka - Nazi concentration camps near the station. Treblinka in the Warsaw Voivodeship of Poland. In Treblinka I (1941-1944, so-called labor camp), about 10 thousand people died, in Treblinka II (1942-1943, extermination camp) - about 800 thousand people (mostly Jews). In August 1943, in Treblinka II, the fascists suppressed a prisoner uprising, after which the camp was liquidated. Camp Treblinka I was liquidated in July 1944 as Soviet troops approached.
In 1964, on the site of Treblinka II, a memorial symbolic cemetery for victims of fascist terror was opened: 17 thousand tombstones made of irregular stones, a monument-mausoleum.
Ravensbruck - a concentration camp was founded near the city of Fürstenberg in 1938 as an exclusively women's camp, but later a small camp for men and another for girls were created nearby. In 1939-1945. 132 thousand women and several hundred children from 23 European countries passed through the death camp. 93 thousand people were killed. On April 30, 1945, the prisoners of Ravensbrück were liberated by soldiers of the Soviet army.
Mauthausen - the concentration camp was created in July 1938, 4 km from Mauthausen (Austria) as a branch of the Dachau concentration camp. Since March 1939 - an independent camp. In 1940 it was merged with the Gusen concentration camp and became known as Mauthausen-Gusen. It had about 50 branches scattered throughout the territory of the former Austria (Ostmark). During the existence of the camp (until May 1945), there were about 335 thousand people from 15 countries. According to surviving records alone, more than 122 thousand people were killed in the camp, including more than 32 thousand Soviet citizens. The camp was liberated on May 5, 1945 by American troops.
After the war, on the site of Mauthausen, 12 states, including the Soviet Union, created a memorial museum and erected monuments to those who died in the camp.
Nikita Khrushchev at the UN (was there a shoe?)
As you know, history develops in a spiral. This fully applies to the history of the United Nations. Over more than half a century of its existence, the UN has undergone many changes. Created in the wake of the euphoria of victory over Nazi Germany, the Organization set itself bold and largely utopian goals.
But time puts a lot of things into place. And hopes for creating a world without wars, poverty, hunger, lawlessness and inequality were replaced by a persistent confrontation between the two systems.
Natalia Terekhova talks about one of the most striking episodes of that time, the famous “Khrushchev’s boot”.
REPORTAGE:
On October 12, 1960, the most stormy meeting of the General Assembly in the history of the United Nations took place. On this day, the delegation of the Soviet Union, headed by Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, introduced a draft resolution on granting independence to colonial countries and peoples.
Nikita Sergeevich delivered, as usual, an emotional speech, which was replete with exclamation marks. In his speech, Khrushchev, without sparing expressions, denounced and denounced colonialism and the colonialists.
After Khrushchev, the representative of the Philippines rose to the podium of the General Assembly. He spoke from the position of a country that experienced all the hardships of colonialism and, after many years of liberation struggle, achieved independence: “In our opinion, the declaration proposed by the Soviet Union should cover and provide for the inalienable right to independence not only of the peoples and territories still remaining ruled by Western colonial powers, but also by the peoples of Eastern Europe and other areas, deprived of the freedom to exercise their civil and political rights and, so to speak, swallowed up by the Soviet Union.”
Listening to the simultaneous translation, Khrushchev exploded. After consulting with Gromyko, he decided to ask the Chairman for a point of order. Nikita Sergeevich raised his hand, but no one paid attention to him.
The most famous Foreign Ministry translator, Viktor Sukhodrev, who often accompanied Nikita Sergeevich on trips, spoke about what happened next in his memoirs: “Khrushchev loved to take his watch off his hand and twirl it. At the UN, he began banging his fists on the table in protest against the Filipino's speech. Clutched in his hand was a watch that had simply stopped.
And then Khrushchev, in his anger, took off his shoe, or rather, an open wicker sandal, and began to hit the table with his heel.”
This was the moment that went down in world history as the famous “Khrushchev boot.” The UN General Assembly Hall has never seen anything like it. A sensation was born right before our eyes.
And finally, the head of the Soviet delegation was given the floor:
“I protest against the unequal treatment of representatives of the states sitting here. Why is this lackey of American imperialism speaking out? He touches on an issue, he doesn’t touch on a procedural issue! And the Chairman, who sympathizes with this colonial rule, does not stop it! Is this fair? Gentlemen! Mr. Chairman! We live on earth not by the grace of God and not by your grace, but by the strength and intelligence of our great people of the Soviet Union and all peoples who are fighting for their independence.
It must be said that in the middle of Khrushchev’s speech, the simultaneous translation was interrupted, as the translators were frantically looking for an analogue to the Russian word “lack.” Finally, after a long pause, the English word “jerk” was found, which has a wide range of meanings - from “fool” to “scum”. Western reporters covering events at the UN in those years had to work hard until they found an explanatory dictionary of the Russian language and understood the meaning of Khrushchev’s metaphor.
November 22nd, 2018 , 09:18 am
But the most important purpose of our stay in Poland was to visit the largest fascist concentration death camp - Auschwitz (Auschwitz), one of the symbols of which is the cynical inscription above the main gate of the camp "Arbeit macht frei" - "Work makes you free."
Entrance to the concentration camp museum is free, apparently due to the desire to tell the whole world about what happened here during the Second World War. The fee is only for the excursion (if you want it, of course), which takes place in different languages at a certain time. Before your trip, look carefully at the website to find out the day and time when the Russian-language tour will take place; walking without a guide doesn’t make much sense. I was here for the second time, so I took the guys myself.
Auschwitz is also known by the German name Auschwitz and consisted of three main camps: Auschwitz 1, Auschwitz 2 Birkenau and Auschwitz 3 Manowitz.
In this post I will only talk about the first Auschwitz.
Auschwitz 1 was founded on May 20, 1940, on the basis of two- and three-story brick buildings of former Polish and earlier Austrian barracks, and served as the administrative center of the entire complex.
The first group of 728 Polish political prisoners arrived at the camp on June 14 of that year. Over the course of two years, the number of prisoners varied from 13 to 16 thousand, and by 1942 it reached 20,000.
Some could not survive the long journey in the cold or the summer heat without food and water, so corpses were often unloaded from the carriages.
Camp prisoners were divided into classes, which was visually reflected by stripes on their clothes.
The grueling work schedule and meager food caused numerous deaths. In the Auschwitz 1 camp there were separate blocks that served different purposes.
In blocks 11 and 13, punishments were carried out for violators of the list of camp rules. People were placed in groups of 4 in “standing cells” with an area of 1 square meter. meter, where they had to stand all night, the next morning they, like everyone else, still had to work; naturally, they did not live in such conditions for long. More severe measures involved slow killings: the offenders were either put in a sealed chamber, where they died from lack of oxygen, or simply starved to death.
There were two rows of energized barbed wire strung around the entire camp.
Very often, unable to bear the torment of the camp, prisoners attempted suicide and threw themselves at the fence. The supervisors on the towers tried to prevent these attempts.
It was almost impossible to escape from the camp. If this was successful, then the prisoner’s entire family would go to the camp instead. Or everyone who lived with the fugitive in the same room was shot.
On September 3, 1941, the SS carried out the first gassing test in Block 11, killing approximately 600 Soviet prisoners. But the prisoners did not die immediately. After the first day, the Nazis went down to the cell and saw that the prisoners were still dying in severe torture, after which they increased the dose of gas, and on the second day everyone was already dead. The test was considered successful and one of the bunkers was converted into a gas chamber and crematorium. The cell operated from 1941 to 1942, and then it was rebuilt into an SS bomb shelter.
This photograph shows a model of gas chambers and furnaces. The cells were underground, with ovens for burning corpses above them. People were convinced that they were being sent to a bathhouse, so they did not know until the last moment that they would be killed. In the first room, the prisoners were forced to take off their clothes and were driven into the second room, which was narrower and cramped. About 2,000 people were brought into the room at once, after which the doors were tightly closed and gas was supplied, after 15-20 minutes everyone died. The gold teeth of the dead were pulled out, jewelry was removed, and their hair was cut. After this, the corpses were transported to the ovens, where the fire burned constantly. If the ovens did not cope with the work, fires were lit behind the crematorium, where the remaining bodies were burned. All the work was done by the prisoners from the Sonderkommando (from among the prisoners themselves), who were also killed a few months later, exchanged for other prisoners.
Tin cans of used Zyklon B gas, which was used to kill people in the cells (previously it was used to kill insects and pests). It consists of granules that began to release gas at room temperature.
The warmer it was, the faster the gas was released, so the Germans pushed the maximum number of people into the gas chambers for quick murders. According to Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoess, about 5-7 kg of gas was needed to kill 1,500 people. Paradoxically, this substance was invented in 1922 under the leadership of Fritz Haber, a Jew by nationality. Some members of his family died in death camps.
An urn with a handful of ashes from burned bodies, taken from the camp, perpetuates the memory of the victims.
One of the heaviest “exhibits” of the museum is the hair of dead people. After the liberation of the camp, 7 tons of hair were found in the warehouse. The Nazis used hair for business: they wove linens, nets and other household supplies.
The exhibitions with things of dead prisoners are also very strong - shoes, suitcases, pots, clothes, glasses, dentures.
People came here deceived; they were told that they were going to work. Some Jews were even sold non-existent lands and positions in factories. Therefore, everyone took with them personal and valuable things and food.
The walls of one of the blocks are covered with photographs of people who died in Auschwitz.
The most terrible blocks in Auschwitz are 10 and 11.
In block 10, in order to develop a quick method of biological destruction of the Slavs, Professor Karl Clauberg conducted sterilization experiments on Jewish women, and Dr. Josef Mengele, as part of genetic and anthropological experiments, conducted experiments on twin children and children with physical disabilities.
In block 11, in the halls on the right and left sides of the corridor, prisoners were placed awaiting the verdict of the emergency police court, which came to the Auschwitz camp from Katowice once or twice a month. During 2-3 hours of his work, he imposed from several dozen to over a hundred death sentences.
Between blocks 10 and 11 there was a torture yard, where prisoners were, at best, simply shot. Under the stone fence in the yard, a large wall of black insulating boards, lined with absorbent material, was built. This wall became the last facet of life for thousands of people sentenced to death by the Gestapo court for unwillingness to betray their homeland, attempted escape and political “crimes.” The wall where the execution took place still exists; in the photo below, flowers are laid on it.
The chamber and crematorium were recreated from the original parts and exist to this day as a monument to Nazi cruelty. There were three such double ovens in each crematorium; 2-3 corpses were placed in each oven at a time; up to 350 bodies were burned per day in one crematorium. So the number of murders was determined not by the capabilities of the gas chambers, but by the productivity of the furnaces.
