Arbeit macht frei

No words...
...just some quick informations.
Getting to Auschwitz is not so easy. There are some signs, but not enough!
So, be careful.
Once you get to the museum, I think that the best way to visit it is a guided tour, even if it is very long (3 hours).

"Arbeit macht frei"
believe or not, the entrance motto was stolen, then found, cut into pieces. Now you can see a replica, while the original is being restaurated to be exposed in a proper museum, protected from primitive minds

Auschwitz I, the main complex with the blocks, where workers lived. If they can be called workers. And if it can be called "living". Primo Levi descirbes it in "Se questo é un uomo", written in 1948. He survives Auschwitz, where more than 1.500.000 people were killed. But the number refers only to the registred victims. People, which did not survive the long transports to the lager and people, which were sent directly to the gas chambers were not recorded.

Endless Auschwitz Birkenau - the stermination camp

The entrance to Auschwitz Birkenau and the almost 1 km long platform, where new arrivals (more than 50% of them did not survive the transport) went through the "Selection", when people were divided into two groups: the ones able to work and the unuseful. The latter (pregnant women, children, mentally challenged people, old people, sick people or otherwise unable to work) were sent directly to the gas chambers.

One of the vagons used for the transportation into the lager

Auschwitz Birkenau: the male section. It was built of wood and only chimneys are left today, to vaguely indicate the dimension of this place of suffering.

Visitors leave small, yet touching offerings to the memory of the countless victims of this human insanity

One of the ponds, where human ashes were spread. Behing, the ruins of a crematorium. Only one crematorium exists today, the smallest one in Auschwitz I. The others were blown up, one during a prisioners' riot and the other 4 by the Nazis during their retreat.

Chimneys, which never provided warmth to the prisioners of Auschwitz Birkenau: there was nothing to burn.

Section A of Auschwitz Birkenau -  the female barracks. Five to seven women slept on some straw in each niche, also on the floor. There were no windows, no insulation. "Sei ruhig" can be read in the lightened spot on the wall.