Auschwitz-Birkenau: Half Hell, Half Lunatic Asylum

"The women lived in a constant state of fear and
uncertainty. They knew they had to submit to some kind of
experiments invented by the SS doctors, and that when their
role ends--the role of guinea pigs-- they will be sent to
Birkenau, where the gas chamber would be waiting for them....I
had the feeling that I was in a place which was half hell and
half lunatic asylum." Dr. Dora Klein, Inmate/Nurse,
Auschwitz

On the way to the gas chambers.
CL:Archives of the State Museum in Oswiecim

A women's barracks. CL:Archives
of the State Museum in Oswiecim

At Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazis manufactured death
with cold, industrial efficiency. Between April 1942 and
November 1944, 2,000,000 Jews were gassed. In addition
hundreds of thousands of non-Jews, including Poles, Soviet
P.O.W.'s and Gypsies were murdered. To erase all signs of
their horrific deeds, the Nazis reduced corpses to ashes in
the crematoria. Operating day and night, the five
Auchwitz-Birkenau gas chambers and ovens murdered and cremated
as many as 9,000 individuals per day.

A ten-year-old female inmate after
liberation; 1945. CL:Archives of the State Museum in
Oswiecim

Sadistic and brutal medical experiments were conducted at
Auschwitz-Birkenau by Josef Mengele and other "physicians"
like Johann Paul Kremer, Horst Schumann, Fritz Klein, and Carl
Clauberg. Twins, dwarfs, pregnant women and other selected
prisoners were used for gruesome "genetic" studies.

Birkenau. Prisoners digging a
drainage ditch. CL:Archives of the State Museum in
Oswiecim

Living in filth and struggling against starvation, the
people who could still work had the most likely chance for
survival, a slim hope at best. An injury, often the result of
the casual brutality of the guards, was synonymous with a
death warrant.

Polish children, numbered and
photographed, upon arrival CL:Archives of the State Museum
in Oswiecim

Birkenau. Crematory ovens. Photos by
SS officer, 1943. CL:Archives of the State Museum in
Oswiecim

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