Auschwitz

It is not possible to tell the infamous story of the Auschwitz Birkenau concentration camp in just a few paragraphs of prose. The best way to understand the horrific events of the years between 1940 and 1945 is to visit the site of those atrocities to see the remains and ruins of the industrial scale facilities that were created by the Nazi regime.

The Auschwitz concentration camp was not one camp but three main camps and 45 satellite camps in the area around Oswiecim. The camp known most commonly referred to as Auschwitz was Auschwitz I, a relatively small camp currently found in the middle of a built up area of the Polish town of Oswiecim. The Arbeit Macht Frei sign above the enrance gateway gives no real clue to the horrors to be found inside.

The Auschwitz familiar to many from newsreel films of the arrival of trainloads of prisoners is Auschwitz II, referred to as Birkenau. This camp is much larger than Auschwitz I and is a short distance away from the main camp.