18 pillars of remembrance at Auschwitz

You can read here about the history of a new feature at the Auschwitz main camp: “the 18 pillars of remembrance.”  The 18 pillars have been added since I last visited Auschwitz in 2005.

The Auschwitz main camp in winter in 2015

The Auschwitz main camp, which is shown in the photo above, is not deteriorating, but the 425-acre Birkenau camp is rotting away. It will cost billions of dollars to preserve what is left of it.

Steven Spielberg on his visit to Auschwitz January 27, 2015

The 18 pillars, at the Auschwitz main camp, have the names of contributors to the fund for the preservation of the rotting ruins of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

You can see a short video here, which shows Spielberg visiting the site of the 18 black pillars, which are not really “pillars,” but 18 individual black signs, each with the name of a major contributor to the fund for the preservation of Auschwitz. I don’t know where these “pillars” are located, but the most likely location is in the space just outside the Visitor’s center at the Auschwitz main camp.

Administration building at the Auschwitz main camp

The photograph above shows the rear of the administration building, in the main camp, where the exit doors from the movie theater are located. The exit doors are shown on the right side of the photo; the wide doors on the left were doors into the disinfection chambers where the clothes were deloused with Zyklon-B to prevent the spread of typhus. This building was called die Aufnahmegebäude (Building to Receive Newcomers).

Near the end of the video, which shows Spielberg visiting the location of the 18 pillars, there is a building shown in the background which has windows like the windows on the roof on the right in my 1998 photo above. Visitors to the Auschwitz main camp enter this building and watch a movie about the camp, before proceeding to the Arbeit Macht Frei sign at the entrance into the main camp.

As you can see, in my photo above, this location has enough space for the 18 pillars.