Auschwitz, Death Camp

(2 photos)
This photo of the entrance to the Auschwitz death camp, with the famous sign “Albeit Macht Frei” (Work will make you free) is famous all over the world. Auschwitz has become a symbol of terror, genocide, and the Holocaust. The name of the city is actually Oswiecim (in Polish) but was changed to Auschwitz by the Germans, and that became the name of the camp as well.

Auschwitz offers both a fascination and revulsion. They have prepared some buildings as museums and they contain the most grisly items. Huge pile of hair in a glass case, piles of eye glasses, cans that held poison gas, and all those other things we have heard about. Enough of that.
============

When we first drove into Auschwitz we went past the RR Station, then drove past some more large brick buildings then across an overpass, looking for a place to park and fix lunch in our RV. We found a wide place in the road, with a large group of buildings extending as far as the eye could see — high barbed wire fence and miles of brick buildings.

We parked, then looked again, then decided we couldn't eat lunch at a place like this. Those building were the remains of Birkenau, a camp built to hold 100,000 people at a time, who then waited to be sent either to the nearby death camp, or were declared fit for work, so they lived a little longer. We drove back into town and found the main camp. We ate no lunch this day.