Auschwitz I
This section details my personal tour experiences at the main Auschwitz concentration camp in Oswiecim, Poland. Viewer discretion advised.
The camp initially housed transient workers during World War I and was later transformed into military barracks for the Polish Army. Beginning in 1940, Auschwitz served as the administrative headquarters for the camp. From 1940-1945, the Auschwitz complex grew to forty (40) camps used for military, racial, ethnic, religious, and political imprisonment, manufacturing, forced labor, torture, medical "research" and experimentation, extermination, and cremation.
Make no mistake. Auschwitz was not a camp but a sophisticatedly engineered administrative center designed to deliver systematic suffering, torture and murder. The Nazis' focused on Europe's Jews, but other groups were also targeted: Soviet prisoners of war, political dissidents, Poles, Sinti and Roma gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, and Christian clergy.
The articles, images, and videos are mine (unless noted otherwise). I will take you on a step-by-step journey through Auschwitz. You will see what I saw. You will hear what I heard. In some videos, I provide real-time commentary. In each post, I try to coalesce the historical aspects of the time, the impact on humanity, lesser-known details, travel and tour information, and the very personal, emotional and spiritual impact I felt on each step and stop during my tour.
1,000,000
Jewish People
72,500
Poles
21,000
Roma/Sinti
15,000
Soviet POWs
12,500
Others
Estimated number of deaths at the Auschwitz concentration camp complex during the Holocaust 1941-1945, by background
Aaron O'Neill, June 21, 2022
Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1288821/auschwitz-deportees-deaths-by-background/
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