Aerial view of the Auschwitz main camp with the Sola river shown at the top of the photo
My 2007 photo of the gas chamber and the entrance into the oven room in the main Auschwitz camp
My 2005 photo of suitcases on display at Auschwitz main camp
The biggest mistake, that the Nazis ever made, was to allow 10,000 Jewish children to travel to Great Britain, before they started gassing the rest of the Jews in Germany and Poland.
Now those children are all grown up, and they are making a big effort to teach today’s British students about Auschwitz, the largest death complex in the Holocaust.
You can read about the latest student trip at http://coventryobserver.co.uk/news/feature-sobering-day-remembering-fallen-auschwitz/
The headline of the article is
A sobering day remembering the fallen in Auschwitz
The fallen? This expression usually refers to soldiers who have fallen in a war. In this news article, the fallen are the Jews, who fought the good fight, but were Holocausted by the evil Nazis.
The following quote is from the article:
Begin quote
Prior to arrival [at Auschwitz], [Jewish] prisoners were shown images of a ‘swimming pool’ [at Auschwitz] with green grass, flowers and beautiful countryside in the background – a lie which clearly worked.
Auschwitz
Little did they know this swimming pool’s only purpose was to extinguish any fires that broke out – and lying directly next to the ‘pool’ was endless amounts of fencing, barbed wire and lookout bases to stop any prisoners escaping.
Pictures of prisoners that were killed are plastered over the walls – some lucky enough to live a couple of months, others days, the majority just hours.
A huge chamber of shoes, pans, glasses, possessions dominate my vision – it’s shocking, jaw-dropping.
I could tell some students were incredibly hesitant to enter one of the gas chambers, a place where thousands of innocent people were killed.
Chillingly, it took the Germans two days to kill the first innocent group due to a lack of knowledge in knowing how much Zyklon B to add to the chamber.
From killing hundreds in days, the Germans tweaked the quantity of Zyklon B pellets used and could now kill thousands in minutes.
We entered, and you felt an incredible sense of what those entering the chamber would’ve felt – though obviously nowhere near as terrifying or shocking.
A concrete bunker it was, just a room with plain concrete walls, a plain concrete ceiling and very claustrophobic.
For me, though, the most poignant moment came when strolling past some old ruins – that turned out to be another gas chamber.
End quote
Note that the first thing, that the students are taught, is the swimming pool lie. Auschwitz was allegedly a death camp! What kind of a death camp has a swimming pool! Unmöglich!
1996 photo of the swimming pool in the main Auschwitz camp
My 2005 photo shows repair work being done on the swimming pool
In the photo above, the building on the right is Block 6, one of the barracks buildings where Jews lived in the camp. How cruel it was, for the Nazis to house Jews in a building where they could look out the window and see a nice swimming pool, but they were forbidden to swim in it!
According to the news story, the swimming pool was only for putting out fires!
Pity the poor Jew who tried to start a fire at Auschwitz. The Nazis had this covered: a swimming pool, with a diving board, ready to put out any fire. Besides that, the buildings in the Auschwitz main camp, where the swimming pool was located, were all brick buildings, not easily burned to the ground!
The following quote is also from the news article, cited above.
Begin quote
I could tell some students were incredibly hesitant to enter one of the gas chambers, a place where thousands of innocent people were killed.
Chillingly, it took the Germans two days to kill the first innocent group due to a lack of knowledge in knowing how much Zyklon B to add to the chamber.
From killing hundreds in days, the Germans tweaked the quantity of Zyklon B pellets used and could now kill thousands in minutes.
We entered, and you felt an incredible sense of what those entering the chamber would’ve felt – though obviously nowhere near as terrifying or shocking.
A concrete bunker it was, just a room with plain concrete walls, a plain concrete ceiling and very claustrophobic.
For me, though, the most poignant moment came when strolling past some old ruins – that turned out to be another gas chamber.
End quote
Another gas chamber that is in ruins now? Was this in the main camp, or at Aushwitz-Birkenau. As far as I know, there was only one gas chamber in the main Auschwitz camp, so the student must be talking about the ruins at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
My 2005 photo of the ruins of Krema II at Auschwitz-Birkenau
This final quote is the words of a student, as stated in the news article:
Begin quote
Standing on the platform, I look to my left and see an endless train line – running deep into the woods that helped the Germans disguise the true purpose of Auschwitz [Birkenau].
I look to my right and see the iconic building that shadows the death camp – looking forwards and backwards just fields, fields as far as the eye can see.
It’s near impossible to describe the day, the place, the feeling of standing in a spot where millions of people were once murdered.
There I was, strolling through a place that could be renovated into a nice town, a place of construction, but instead it was – and continues to be – the world’s most infamous town where millions of people were separated, murdered and used.
End quote
