concentration camps

The ghetto in Warsaw was one of the biggest.

During the Second world war, Jews living in rural areas had their property confiscated, and then were rounded up and sent to ghettos in towns and cities. These were handy for the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police, because they could "watch" them more efficiently.

The Nazis controlled the ghettos, mostly using

blackmail. They said that if a certain command wasn’t

followed, or a certain number of Jews weren't

turned over to them, thousands more would be

killed. By their “blackmail”, ghettos were slowly emptied.

The Nazis would enter the ghettos. They began to round up the Jews, and

slowly burned and destroyed the ghetto block by block. Eventually,

every Jew was either killed or captured, and taken to one of the

many concentration camps.

Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest of Germany’s concentration camps. The complex consisted of three main camps: the administrative center; an extermination camp and a work camp. It is estimated that up to 2.5 million people died at Auschwitz, and 90% of those victims were Jewish. Most victims were killed in gas chambers; others died due to starvation, forced labor, diseases, executions, and medical experiments.

Electrified Fence around Auschwitz.

These children were used for medical testing in Auschwitz.

Carl Clauberg was the doctor responsible for medical testing at

Auschwitz.

The Crematorium at Auschwitz.

These are the bails of hair

recovered from Auschwitz after it’s liberation, in

January of 1945.

The Nazis would use the hair to stuff furniture.

Wooden bunks in thebarracks of Birkenau.

The prisoners’ toilets.

As beautiful as this pond may be, it was the dumping pit for ashes of the tens of thousands of

burned bodies. These were people were burned at “Krematorium IV”, which was located in the back left. There was a fence of interwoven branches

where the trees are, this stopped the victims from seeing what lay ahead for them.

This was a train full of Hungarian- Jews arriving at

Birkenau in 1944.

Possessions taken from the Prisoners

of Auschwitz.

These were the Jews who arrived at Birkenau platform, and were waiting for the life or death selection. If you weren’t able-bodied, you were generally sent straight to the gas chambers.

The unknown walk up to the gas chamber in Auschwitz

Some blond and blue-eyed children were taken away from their mothers by the Germans.

These kids then would be "german-ised“…

These were the lucky ones…

The Children of concentration camps

Small kids were generally killed immediately because they were too

young to work. Mothers who held their babies in their arms were gassed

together, and grandmothers who were with their grandchildren, were killed.

Children were a sign of weakness.

Boys, who survived the selection, were first assigned to work as masons at the building of the

crematories. Food was scarce for such hard work, and

therefore boys often suffered from malnutrition.