INFO TO HELP READERS WITH NIGHT AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU

HOLOCAUST & WWII

Entrance to Auschwitz “Arbeit Macht Frei” Video on Auschwitz

“’Comrades, you are in the concentration camp Auschwitz. Ahead of you lies a long road paved with suffering. Don’t lose hope. You have already eluded the worst danger: the selection. Therefore, you must muster your strength and keep your faith. We shall all see the day of liberation. Have faith in life, a thousand times faith. By driving out despair, you will move away from death. Hell does not last forever…And now, here is a prayer, or rather a piece of advice: let there be camaraderie among you. We are all brothers and share the same fate. The same smoke hovers over all our heads. Help each other. That is the only way to survive.’ Those were the first human words (Wiesel 41).”

MORE ABOUT AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU It was the largest killing center. By spring 1943 it had four gas chambers (using Zyklon B poison gas) in operation. At the height of the deportations, up to 6,000 Jews were gassed each day at Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland.

BIRKENAU Birkenau was the largest of the more than 40 camps and sub-camps that made up the Auschwitz complex. The majority—probably about 90%—of the victims of Auschwitz Concentration Camp died in Birkenau. This means approximately a million people. The majority, more than nine out of every ten, were Jews.

About the Camp’s Functions There were two basic periods: concentration camp and death camp It functioned exclusively as a concentration camp— that is, predominantly a place of slow killing as the result of deliberately created, inhuman conditions, above all starvation from its founding in 1940 to the first months of 1942, the camp continued to function as a concentration camp for prisoners of various ethnic backgrounds while simultaneously functioning as the largest center for the immediate, mass killing of Jews from the first months of 1942 to October 1944, Final two months of its existence, the gas chambers closed due to the expected Soviet offensive, and the camp entered the phase of final liquidation, which ended with the evacuation of the prisoners.

"We were in the Birkenau section now. This was the death camp of Auschwitz, the Birkenau section, where all the gas chambers and crematoriums were located just a short distance away. And as the people marched here from where they got off the train, where they had to leave all of their belongings, there to our horror we saw these huge, huge electric wire fences. 'Why would they have electric wire fences,' we wondered? I know I wondered, 'If they're just going to keep us in here like prisoners?' We didn't even realize we were prisoners, even though we already were.“ -The testimony of Gloria Hollander Lyon - Czechoslovakian survivor of 7 camps including Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Beendorf and Ravensbrück. Used with permission of The Oral History Archives Project

The “Gate of Death” at Birkenau

BIRKENAU

INSIDE A BRICK BARRACK AT BIRKENAU

Barracks at Birkenau. Originally built to hold 52 horses, they eventually held over 400 men.

The picture was taken by the Allies. This is Auschwitz II- Birkenau in summer of On the left the smoke is clearly visible. It comes from burning pits next to crematory V, where Germans burned bodies of murdered Jews.

The entrance to Crematorium 1. The largest room in the crematorium was the mortuary, which was converted into a temporary gas chamber.

Inside a chamber of Crematorium 1

The “ramp” at Birkenau. This is where people were sorted. You can see their luggage piled in the distance.

DR. JOSEF MENGELE Josef Mengele, German physician and SS captain. In 1943, he was named SS physician of Auschwitz. In that capacity, he was responsible for the differentiation and selection of those fit to work and those destined for gassing. Mengele also carried out human experiments on camp inmates, especially twins. After the war, Mengele was released from a U.S. detention facility. He fled to South America and remained in hiding until his death in National Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau

Prisoners digging a drainage ditch next to a quarantine facility inside Birkenau.

The picture was taken illegally by a members of the Sonderkomando. It shows burning bodies of victims of mass extermination in Auschwitz II- Birkenau. (Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Archives)

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in the camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky. Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes. Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God himself. Never (Wiesel 34 ).

YOUR TURN For your homework, you need to use the information given in this PowerPoint as well as from the first 65 pages of Night to research further into some of the living conditions of Birkenau & Auschwitz. Make three connections to what you have read in Night to what you find while researching making sure to use page numbers for each connections. Here are some helpful links: United States Holocaust Memorial Mueseum Auschwitz Memorial Mueseum mid=85