Auschwitz (the Nazi name; Oswiecim in Polish)

Many words have been said and written already so I will add only a few more. Below is what the Nazis called the kitchen. They did not want prisoners to last very long, the aim was to work them to death so the 'food' was nothing more than occasional watery 'soup'.

 I was certainly upset at some of the things that we saw at the 'camp'. More often I was disgusted at the lengths to which the Nazis would go to make the prisoners suffer. for example, below are two posts. Victims would be pinioned by their arms and made to hang for hours just above the ground. Shoulders would become dislocated and when finally released from this torture, the victims would be expected to work; either that or be shot. You could be tortured for nothing more than looking at one of the guards. About 1.5 million people suffered here, mostly Jews, Poles, Russian POWs, gay people, the disabled. Some prisoners on outside work managed to smuggle messages to Polish resistance fighters. One set of messages included the names of the most brutal of the SS in the camp. Their names were then published in British and US newspapers, causing the cowards to be upset and providing the inmates with small but morale boosting satisfaction.

 A relatively minor number of the SS were brought to justice after the war. The gallows below were used to hang prisoners, usually in front of others to add to their terror. A small satisfaction for some was that after WWII the camp commandant was hanged here, just outside his residence. Having been inside the buildings and seen the rows of photographs of prisoners, the collections of hair, spectacles, toothbrushes, suitcases, false limbs, babies' shoes for example, I understand why the people at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre continue to hunt down the perpetrators of the appalling crimes of the Nazis and I wish them well in their efforts.

 Last stop on the tour is to enter a gas chamber.