Our guide, Speedy Gonzalski
Work will set you free
That’s me in the plaid coat, rockin’ my Polski snow boots
Birkenau was 20 times larger than Auschwitz
Zyklon B crystals
Zyklon B canisters
Camp kitchen
The camp orchestra played music to encourage better marching when going to and from work.
Polish prisoners, part of a mass hanging
The wall where firing squad executions were carried out
Example of the barbed wire
Going into the gas chamber
A room filled with kitchenware, carried to their “new homes” by the prisoners
A room filled with shoes — but only those in pairs…. There was a separate room for shoes with lost mates
A room filled with luggage, all clearly marked
Six women on each of three levels
The train came into Birkenau
Destroyed barracks, with the furnace system remaining
Destroyed evidence of crematoriums
The gate that we tourists were allowed to leave by
Rudolf Hoess was hanged within the grounds on Auschwitz….
… within site of the home where he’d lived with his wife and four little children