Birkenau (Brzezinka)

Birkenau (Brzezinka) has been selected by the SS as a concentration camp because of its mining activity. It is easily accessible by rail. The Polish population is driven away or slaughtered to allow for the concentration camp to be erected.

the Judenrampe

The train reaches the Judenrampe. The doors open. Many died during the journey. Many fell stepping down, exhausted by this inhuman journey. Many were beaten to death with riffle butts.

the Judenrampe

The separation takes place amid the SS yelling and the dogs. On one side, men, on the other, women and children. Families separated for ever.

the Judenrampe

The SS physician, in his brand new uniform, does the selection which concerns only the Jews. One single movement with his stick whistling his favorite opera air is enough to decide of the fate of each of these victimized people. Pregnant women, old people and crippled are immediately shot. Women and men aged over 15 will go and die in the camp.

Brzezinka

We walk 1km from the Judenrampe to the Birkenau camp. We have a glimpse of the camp. Little houses have been rebuilt, their gardens give onto the camp or the rampe. The owners have been offered a bargain price for them. What a surreal memory !

Birkenau, the Gate of Death

This was the ”Gate of Death”. An unending number walk through it. They have been hunted, betrayed, tortured… Unfathomable anguish !

Birkenau

The Judenrampe had been linked up to the camp in 1944. This connexion had been achieved to facilitate the delivery of numbers of Hungarian jews to the gas chambers. Far away on the picture one can see the platform and the box car.

Birkenau

I am struck by the immensity of this ”factory of death”. I am seized by instinctive repulsion. It’s a terrible feeling of frozen disbelief.

Birkenau

Watchtowers, electrified barbed wires, permanent lightning… The guards have a right of life and death over the prisoners. They are free to bill at will, they will be rewarded for it.

Birkenau, the disembarkation quay

Here is the fate of the Jewish people who have been sent there. Is it better to be shot at once than to suffer the camp ordeal ?

Birkenau

At the beginning, the shacks were built with red bricks. Those were quickly replaced by wood, more economical and easier to work with.

Birkenau

Most barracks have been pulled down, leaving only the obscenity of their chimneys.

Birkenau, Central "Sauna"

Every newcomer is taken there, naked, recorded, shaven and tattooed. Henceforth they are only numbers, the annihilation has begun… Being naked you could see pregnant women or crippled gone unnoticed on the Judenrampe. These are directly sent to their death ”Nacht und Nebel".

Birkenau, Central "Sauna"

The clothes are disinfected and cleaned in autoclaves Les vêtements sont désinfectés et nettoyés dans des autoclaves. The prisoners are given a shower with frozen or boiling water according to the discretion of the warders.

Birkenau, Central "Sauna"

Naked and drenched, the prisoners wait to be given their striped uniform and their bowl. Those will be their only belongings. Then comes the roll...

Birkenau, Central "Sauna"

All the personal belongings are stored in ”Kanada” warehouses (Kanada stands for the Eldorado in the nazi imagination). Everything is used for the benefit of the Reich. Leather shoes are turned into driving belts for vehicles, hair is turned into material and so on.

Birkenau

The prisoners thought they were sent to a labour camps so along with their personnel belongings they took their professional tools. For instance, 8 000 sewing machines were found !

Birkenau, the men's barracks

There are 3 levels in the barracks with a bunk on each one. Sometimes 6 prisoners sleep on the same vermin infected pallet. They shared one ”blanket”. No canteen or dining hall, they ”eat” standing or sitting on the pallets. Everything must be in order in the morning or there were physical punishments. No hygiene, stink, intolerable overcrowded conditions…

Birkenau, the men's barracks

The heat in the barracks is provided by the heating pipe, a pipeline which works according to the warders’ will. Summer is scorching with no water. Winter is freezing going down to minus 30°C, they are almost naked.

Birkenau, latrines

2 barracks are used as latrines. This is a total abjection. Everything is done according to orders and people who can’t comply are immediately executed. People get there in groups and then leave for another group after cleaning with their clothes or their hands…

Birkenau, latrines

Then the ScheisseKommando cleans the place without any tools. The stink is so terrible that this commando is sometimes spared physical cruelty, the Nazis keeping away from them.

Birkenau

Theoretically prisoners work 6 days a week and the 7th is for cleaning but facts are that detainees work 7 days a week and washing is once every 2 months using a pipeline with frozen water.

Birkenau

In case of air bombing, the Nazis have underground shelters.

Birkenau

Besides the warders there are the ”kapos”, real criminals who are in charge of watching the prisoners. They are recruited among the most violent german criminals. They are even more cruel than the warders in order to get small advantages. Their favorite pleasure is the shattering of genitals !!!

Birkenau, kitchens

They are located in the women’s barracks, totally separated from the men’s quarters. The staff is mainly Polish. With the warders’ agreement they divert part of the prisoners food. The daily diet is 1 000 calories. Starvation, cold, exhaustion, diseases, physical abuse kill the prisoners.

Birkenau, kitchens

The daily diet consists of : For breakfast, han a liter of coffee and 300g of bread made with oat bran and sawdust. Noon and the evening, cabbage or turnip soup, this diet 5 days a week. The 2 other days a thicker rutabaga soup and sometimes a few rotten potatoes. 25g of margarine 5 days a week, 75g of sausage one day a week, 20g of marmalade or cottage cheese also once a week.

Birkenau, women's barracks

The male prisoners provided a real advantage for the SS but women mainly senseless jobs to perform in order to exhaust and kill them. Simone Weil for instance reported that she had to move stones from right to left and then from left to right the other day.

Birkenau, the gas chamber

Before the gas chamber there is an undressing room where prisoners come down to fold their clothes so that they find them after the ”shower”. The gas chamber in the background has fallen down as well as the undressing room.

Birkenau, the gas chamber

The agony lasts 20-25mn. To stifle the cries the truck engines are roaring full regime. 2 000 people at a time are gassed. Later the gas chamber will be built at ground level to save time.

Birkenau, the cremators

The SonderKommando takes the bodies out of the gas chamber and takes them to the crematory. He pulls out the gold teeth which will be melted and then turned into gold bars to be sent to Berlin. Sometimes the SonderKommando recognizes friends or members of his family. The members of the SonderKommando are regularly killed so that they won’t be able to bear testimony.

Birkenau, the cremators

On October 7th, 1944, 250 prisoners of the SonderKommando rioted and partly destroyed oven IV thanks to explosives stolen by women working in weapon factories. All of them will be executed. They had chosen to die with dignity.

Birkenau, the cremators

The ashes are collected and used as fertilizers.

Birkenau, the stakes

With the oncoming of Hungarian jews, the number of crematories becomes not sufficient. So stakes are built on this area. 4 000 bodies are burnt at each stake.

Birkenau, the stakes

A monument in memory of all the stake victims.

Birkenau, stakes

If only they could talk, what horrendous stories these trees could tell…

Birkenau, the stakes

Alex, member of one SonderKommando, managed to get a camera. He leaves us 3 pictures of these stakes, a unique testimony of this barbarity.

Birkenau, the stakes

The ashes are scattered in this little lake.

Birkenau, water-treatment plant

The nazi imagination has no limit to build a filtering plant in order to recycle excrements and turn them into methane. This plan has never been implemented.

Birkenau, the Memorial

Erected on a terrace the memorial is made of statues and of 21 plaques, the same text written in 21 languages. These plaques are located at the far end of the railway, 500m away from the camp entrance. To get there you must walk along this death path which was used by the prisoners to walk to their death in the gas chamber.

The commemorative plaque in English. The 21 languages stand for the 21 nationalities of deported people.

Birkenau

All those people, I know them… All these pictures, I have seen them… They are all my family for ever vanished…

Birkenau

An emotional picture…

Birkenau

Here I painfully realize that the Shoah is not only a question of numbers and statistics. Here I have troden the path of the victims…

We leave Birkenau hell.

We have one hour for our lunch. In Paris, we were required not to leave a single zloty here. We quickly and silently eat our sandwich and the depart for Auschwitz #1.