FOR EVER LET THIS PLACE BE A CRY OF DESPAIR AND A WARNING TO HUMANITY - AUSCHWITZ - BIRKENAU - 1940 - 1945

Auschwitz

Auschwitz and Birkenau are just outside the town of Osweiczm in southern Poland

The nearest city, Krakow, lost 65,000 from its Jewish community

The only surviving section of the wall around the ghetto south of Krakow

The Jews were forced to wall themselves in to the ghetto

The design was deliberately chosen to look like Jewish gravestones

The only surviving section of the wall around the ghetto south of Krakow

The Jews were forced to wall themselves in to the ghetto

The design was deliberately chosen to look like Jewish gravestones

 

The Square of Chairs memorial in Podherz, site of the Ghetto.

When the Ghetto was liquidated, officials decided where the Jews were to be sent

The chairs all face out of town

 

 

ARBEIT MACHT FREI

"Work makes you free"

How cynical, for those who were entering to be worked to death if not immediately gassed

 

 

 

 

One of the guard posts

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Double fences

(Electrified)

 

 

 

 

An insulator on the electrified barbed wire

 

 

 

 

 

 

A model of the facility at Auschwitz II - Birkenau

The people went down into the room on the left to strip off their clothes and moved naked into the gas chamber on the right

Once they were dead they were taken up to the crematoria on an electric lift

 

A display of empty Zyklon B containers

Granules of diatomite were soaked in liquid HCN, hydrogen cyanide, and packed in cans.

The gas was only released at body temperature, after the granules were introduced to the chamber full of victims.

 

 

 

 

Spectacles belonging to the victims

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part of the heap of shoes left by the victims

 

 

 

 

 

The Wall of Death

Transgressors, such as people outside who attempted to help the inmates in any way, were given a one minute trial and shot here.

 

 

 

Entering the Gas chamber.

The way out is through the Crematorium.

 

 

 

 

 

My compulsion to photograph and share the experience deserted me in the place where thousands of people died, hundreds at a time.

This is just a black space with square, timber lined holes in the ceiling through which the Zyklon B pellets were poured.

The gas did not billow in through vents but rose up from the floor as it was released by body heat

The victims struggled to get above the gas - the children were found at the bottom of the heap!

The crematorium ovens where the Jewish prisoners loaded the dead to be burned

 

 

 

 

 

 

A short drive from Auschwitz I is Birkenau extermination camp

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inside, the tracks divided either side of the Ramp where people were ordered to leave their belongings and sent either to the huts or for immediate murder

Generally, women and children went straight to the gas chambers

 

 

 

One of the trucks in which the victims arrived

Notice how little ventilation is provided for a full load of people

 

 

 

 

A guard tower looking over one half of Birkenau

The retreating Nazis attempted to destroy the evidence of the camps and destroyed most of the wooden huts

Look carefully and you will see the chimneys (one per hut) stretching away into the distance

 

The bunks inside one of the huts

Several people on each bunk in three layers

Only two visits to the latrine block allowed per day; however sick

The unsanitary conditions can only be dimly imagined

 

 

Inside the Latrine block.

The only flushing was the water from the washbasins.

The water was infected and would likely cause sickness and death.

The smell was appalling so guards stayed out and visits here provided the only opportunity for social interaction.

 

The ruins of one of the gas chamber + crematoria blown up by the retreating Nazis

It is still possible to see the size of this killing facility

 

 

 

 

 

FOR EVER LET THIS PLACE BE
A CRY OF DESPAIR
AND A WARNING TO HUMANITY
WHERE THE NAZIS MURDERED
ABOUT ONE AND A HALF MILLION
MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN,
MAINLY JEWS
FROM VARIOUS COUNTRIES OF EUROPE

AUSCHWITZ - BIRKENAU
1940 - 1945

 

 

Everyone should visit Auschwitz once.

These pictures in no way capture the horror of what was perpetrated here by the Nazis of Hitler's Reich. The facts and the scale are horrific but the camp tour and the guides are informative without dwelling on gruesome stories. Auschwitz is excellent and very important.

The Message?

The message is that this must never happen again.

But is this just an empty platitude or is it a real determination to make sure it does not happen again?

The Holocaust could only have been stopped much earlier, when Hitler was altering the perceptions and sensibilities of his people until they viewed the disabled, prostitutes, vagrants, communists, homosexuals, gipsies and Jews as less than human and an evil that had to be removed for the sake of society. See The Genocide Mechanism See also anti-Semitism for an insight into the raw materials for such a programme.

Where was the Church?

People have asked what the church did. You can see the spire of at least one church from inside Auschwitz.

Remember the death wall, pictured above; any attempts to help the inmates were punishable by death. Also remember that one third of all Polish clergy perished. By the time Auschwitz was up and running it was too late to stop the Nazi machine of death.

Hitler's government developed a theory of Eugenics, development of a super race, that was popular with many progressives in Europe before it was horribly discredited as the world saw how it had metastasised into Euthanasia organised from TiergartenStrasse Fier (T4). Eugenics included the requirement to decide who was not fit to reproduce and, ultimately, to live.

What are the big medical/ethical debates in our societies today? Abortion of potentially disabled unborn children, genetic avoidance of illnesses, euthanasia for those whose quality of life is deemed to be unacceptable (voluntary at present - but how long would it be before elderly and suffering felt guilty for holding on to life?)

Hitler's campaign to implement his "Final Solution" to "The Jewish Problem" also started much earlier with a campaign of delegitimisation of the Jewish people within the community who supposed themselves to be good, assimilated, German citizens. Once public opinion, led by progressives had accepted this view of the Jews as an inferior and dangerous alien species, the process moved into boycotts and violence.

Anti-Semitism (Jew Hatred) is now not politically correct nor acceptable in polite society. However, anti-Zionism (Hatred of the Jewish State) is acceptable and progressive among people who regard themselves as liberal and intellectual. They justify it by citing the alleged crimes of Israel; stories that spring from the same evil as the medieval Blood Libel that originated in England but which is still circulating the globe in ever more horrible forms. The Arab/Muslim world took up the Blood Libel, Hitler's Mien Kempf, the Russian "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" and many more falsehoods and continue to develop the genre and send it back to Europe. Within the Palestinian Authority controlled territories, the officially sanctioned generation of hate propaganda is unabated, even in spite of the "peace process." State television, the education system and the newspapers propagate this hate material continuously. This is monitored by Palestinian Media Watch and may be viewed (with interpretation into English) on their web site. ( www.palwatch.org ) Both History and Geography are being rewritten and International Law is being re-interpreted to turn the world against Israel.

Once these libels have been internalised, the next steps to Boycotts and violence are easy.

Where is the Church?

In the thick of it.

The church is not leading the way in turning away from following Hitler's evil. Many Christian organisations , individual Christians and Denominations have bought into this hatred for the Jews of Israel in spite of our Lord and Saviour being a Jew and everything that the Bible tells us about God's heart for the Jewish people. They have done this through a perversion of scripture called Replacement Theology, which teaches that God has rejected the Jews and transferred his affections to the Gentile Christians.

The challenge is to take notice of the signs of the times and repent.