"Birkenau" Top 5 Page for this destination Oswiecim Favorite Tip by Paul2001

Favorite thing: Birkenau was a second camp built by the Nazis a couple of kilometers from the original camp at Auschwitz. Auschwitz was proving to be too small to hold exterminate the large number of Jews and other prisoners being sent to the camp. It was necessary to construct an annex.
Birkenau is actually bigger than the camp at Auschwitz. Because it was built from scratch as opposed to Auschwitz, which had been an army barracks, the buildings were constructed in a haphazard manner with little care for comfort for the prisoners being held here. The compound at one time consisted of 300 buildings however now there are only sixty still standing. Most of the prisoners taken to Auschwitz for extermination actually met their end here.