Auschwitz – Concentration Camp

The German forces occupying Poland during the Second World War establishing a concentration camp, on the outskirts of the town of Oswiecim in 1940; the Germans called the town Auschwitz. The first people to be brought to Auschwitz as prisoners and murdered were Poles. They were followed by Soviet prisoners of war, gypsies and deportees of many nationalities. Beginning in 1942, however, Auschwitz became the setting for the most massive murder campaign in history, when the Nazis put into operation their plans to destroy the entire Jewish population.

While this was my second time to visit Auschwitz, it was still quite moving, especially while viewing all the shoes, eye glasses, suitcases, and piles of hair that are on display in the museum, and the crematorium and firing squad wall.