"Auschwitz-The Human Equivelant of hell " a Oswiecim Travel Page by bobsreturn2004

Situated over a hour away from Krakow is the town of Oswiecim.Oswiecim seems a nice quite little town,however situated on the outskirts of the town is one of mans worst creations.Auschwitz truley is a horrible place but its a place you must see.
There are three main camps Auschwitz ,Auschwitz-Birkenau and Auschwitz-Monowitz as well as 40 other sub camps.With Krakow tours you will see Auschwitz 1 and Auschwitz-Birkenau with a tour guide.The tour is not for the faint of heart and you will feel sick.However it must be seen,just to see how cruel man was.i have created these pages as both how the camp came about and my personal experience of the place.

The camp opened its doors in June 1940 when the first polish political prisoners arrived.Over the following years the camp expanded greatly with the opening of Auschwitz-Birkenau,Auschwitz-Monowitz and 40 sub camps.At first Poles were brought and died in the camp,followed by,Soviet prisoners of war, Gypsies, and prisoners of other nationalities.
In 1942 things took a turn for the worse,as part of Hitlers Final soloution Auschwitz was chosen as the place to exterminate all Jewish people from europe.The majority of jews arriving at Auschwitz were taken immediately taken to Birkenau gas chambers.If you were lucky not to be selected for death you were worked until you were close to death.In some cases evil experiments were done in Auschwitz 1,the majority on preganant women and Gypsies.Imprisoned with no food or simply selected and shot.No words of mine could say how unberable the place was.Not only were the Nazis against the Jews,the jews had to fight each other for survival.

With Soviet armies advancing on Oswiecim,Hitlers SS burnt down all traces of the camp including the gas chambers, crematoria, and other buildings, as well as burning documents.This was done to erase all evidence of the crimes made against the jewish people in this camp.Those who were capable of walking were released by the Nazis on what was to be called the final death march,those who remained were liberated by the soviets on January 27th 1945.On July 2nd 1947 the polish goverment established the museum and parts of the camp be opened to the public.In 1979 Auschwitz was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List .