Auschwitz-Birkenau

I don't really think either of us possess the eloquence required to give a true impression of this place, so I think we'll let the pictures tell the story.

Although, there's just a couple of things that we'd like to share.

Firstly that Auschwitz is actually made up of three camps, two of which are still possible to visit today, Auschwitz and Birkenau (ie all that remained at the time of Soviet liberation, as the Nazis attempted to destroy all evidence once they realised the war was about to end). Auschwitz was originally considered a 'work camp' for Polish prisoners of the Nazi regime, before it was expanded for the purpose of extermination. Birkenau was designed later in the war to function purely as an extermination camp, capable of holding up to 200,000 victims at a time. They had only managed to build "accommodation" for 100,000 before the Soviet liberation.

I guess the one thing that stood out for us is the sheer scale of Birkenau. Remnants of barracks and the barbed wire fences that enclosed them stretch out to the horizon as far as the eye could see, separated down a middle aisle by the remains of infamous one-way railway line. We were told you would need 2-3 days just to properly visit Birkenau alone.

Auschwitz

Birkenau