Wow! What a day yesterday. I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau. It is was powerful. It is hard to believe that this all went on not that long ago and that similar "problems" are happening in our world and that we are letting them happen.
You can not take pictures inside the buildings at Auschwitz so I don't have a picture of all the children's shoes. There was one room full of children's shoes. When I say the room was full I mean there were three regular walls and the forth wall was glass. It was filled from the top and therefore the contents of the room were meters deep. Children, old, crippled and anyone they saw not fit to work was told to undress "remember where they put their cloths." They thought they would be coming back for them and sent instantly to the gas chamber. Auschwitz was a death camp. You were sent there to die. When the people arrived by train they were told to line up and pointed in a direction either right or left. One direction was for heading instantly to the gas chamber and the other was to work for awhile before going to the chamber.
There was a room full of human hair (two tons of it). They shaved their heads and sold the hair to textile companys. The children's shoes as I mentioned. A room full of adult shoes, and others full of eye glasses, trunks and cloths. On the trunks they made them write their name and birthdate on the outside. Some that I saw were from children that were one year old and three years old.
Birkenau is three km's from Auschwitz. It had many wood buildings and Auschwitz had a lot of brick buildings. I noticed that both locations now are very lush and green. At the other camps I have visited (two others in Germany) they have been barren and grey. Survivors say there was no grass back then and only mud and dirt. If there was grass they would have eaten it they were so hungry.
This write up does it no justice, but it is something you need to experience for yourself.
You can see some photos from Auschwitz-Birkenau by clicking this link.
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