There are six images below of Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp located near Krakow, Poland

This picture is located at Birkenau. These are the tracks that camp prisoners arrived on. Nearby is a platform where German officers would separate the prisoners. Most were sent automatically to the gas chambers nearby. Only a few were selected for work detail or for expermintation by such doctors as Josef Mengele.

This is similar to the cars that transported people to the various camps. People (children, senior citizens) were crammed into the cars (standing room only). The train transport often took days and the people were exposed to extreme cold or extreme heat. There were NO washroom facilities. Many did not survive the journey.

This is what remains of the crematoriums and gas chambers. The Nazis destroyed 95% of the evidence. We know that this is the site of the gas chambers and crematoriums because at the end of the war, the Nazis forced many victims to march back to Germany. There were some prisoners who were too weak to march and the SS guards thought that they would just die. However, many in fact did survive and explained what happened. Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated by the Russian Red Army in late January, 1945.

This is a Memorial to the Jewish (many of Greek origin) Sonderkommandos, who on October 7th, 1944 revolted, killed three SS guards and destroyed Crematorium IV. The Sonderkommandos were used by the SS to direct the prisoners to the gas chambers. They then removed any valuables from the bodies such as gold teeth. Finally they cartered the bodies to the crematoriums. After doing this for a few months, they were systematically shot by the SS (because they knew too much) and new Sonderkommandos replaced them. The SS always used young healthy men to do this gruesome job. One such person, Albert Gani, is profiled on this website

This Memorial is located near the gas chambers at Birkenau. The plaques give approximate statistics to the number of murdered victims from each country in Europe.