Brzezinka KL Auschwitz II Birkenau

This day was a grey, windy and rainy day. We visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oswiecim, which is the Polish name for the former concentration camp Auschwitz.

This camp was situated in the village of Brzezinka. It's covering approximately 175 hectares (425 acres) and contained over 300 buildings.

The camp in Birkenau (German name) was decided in several fields and sectors, wich in fact constituted separate camps. The total number of men and women prisoners reached approximately 100,000 in August 1944.

The camp inmates were plagued by lack of water, terrible sanitary conditions and a huge number of rats. It was on the territory of Birkenau that the Nazi constructed most of their instruments of mass destruction, namely: four crematoria with gas chambers, two makeshift gas chambers in specially converted farmhouses, cremation pyres and pits.

I made a picture between the ruins of the crematoria II and III of a part of the International Monument to the Victims of Auschwitz. In the background you see a guard house.

We were deeply impressed by what we saw and during the way back to the hotel the four of us were unusual silent ...