Auschwitz and Birkenau

The entrance to Auschwitz. Prisoners were made to march through these gates uner the words "Arbeit macht frei": "Work makes you free." As they marched in and out of the camp an orchestra played music to further humiliate the prisoners.


Auschwitz I was a concentration camp and was created before Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the death camp. The buildings in Aushwitz I are made of brick instead of wood. This is because Aushwitz I was orignally and old Polish Army barraks.


This was the first gas chamber and crematoria, which operated from 1941- 1942, was constructed by converting a bunker. The prisoners were made to strip naked out in front of the gas chamber before they entered. This gas chamber could gas approximately 700 people at one time and was quite small compared to the gas chambers the Nazis later constructed. After the contruction of extermination camps with much larger, more efficent gas chambers, this gas chamber was deconstructed and turned into an air raid shelter for the SS.