Photos from Birkenau

	My first view of Auschwitz II: Birkenau from the parking lot. Only a few buildings remain of this death camp, as the Nazis feverishly tried to destroy all evidence of it as the Soviets approached from the east. Unlike the brick buildings of Auschwitz I, these block were built of wood.
	The main gate through which the trains passed on their way to the main platform over a kilometer away.
	This is a view of the rail line, overlooking the few blocks that remain.
	This is the latrine that was used by the prisoners in Birkenau. There was one long block devoted just to this function, which was used by both men and women. Here is where all shame and modesty died. The prisoners who had the unseemly job of cleaning the troughs underneath these makeshift holes actually had an enviable job by prisoner standards. Because they were so utterly saturated in filth and the stench of urine and feces, the SS guards and their Polish Kapos would not beat them like they did the other prisoners, since they tried to stay as far away from them as they could. Often the prisoners who were given this job were those not mentally smart enough to perform more complicated physical tasks.
	A close-up of the latrines.
	The empty trough running underneath the latrines.
	These are rows of bunks.
	A close-up of one of the bunks where prisoners had to sleep. The bunks were often stacked three high and each held four prisoners who had to sleep head to feet. Because they were packed in so closely, they always had to sleep on their sides and could never sleep on their backs, which added to the Nazis goal of utter and complete punishment. Likewise, it was a privilege to have one of the top bunks. Prisoners who slept on the bottom bunks spent many nights beings doused in urine and feces from the prisoners above who were too exhausted to leave their bunks to relieve themselves in the night, which was usually every hour, since most suffered from dysentery.
	This is a view of the rail line with a guard tower and the remains of barracks in the background. The only thing that remained of most of the blocks was the brick chimney and the foundation. I tried to capture the sheer size of Birkenau in this shot, though I'm sure my efforts were in vain.
	These are the remains of the infamous platform, halfway down the rail line in Birkenau where hundreds of thousands were unloaded from their cattle cars. In a split second, a Nazi doctor decided each person's fate. Those deemed worthy of work (mostly men and boys over twelve) were sent to the right, which led back into the camp. Those deemed unfit for labor (mostly women, children, and the elderly), were sent to the left for immediate extermination. The total time from disembarkation to extermination and cremation took about two hours.
	This is a perspective shot, looking from the platform towards the area where the crematories were located, behind a camouflaged fence.
	This is a view back down the rail line from the platform towards the main gate, which helps to give one a sense of the size of Birkenau.
	A close-up of the platform area. This spur from the main rail line was built by the prisoners.
	This is within the Crematory area that was separate from the main camp, but accessible via the rail spur. Here, you can see the deteriorating state of some of the pylons that held the barbed wire and electrified wire.
	This is the remains of Crematory II after the Nazis dynamited it before they left Birkenau in January 1945. The Soviets left the rubble just as they found it, where it remains to this day, slowly decaying from weather.
	This is a view of the partially intact Gas Chamber floor for Cremo II.
	Here we see the exposed basement of the Gas Chamber for Cremo II, where the prisoners were actually gassed.
	This is a close-up view of the collapsed roof of Cremo II.
	These are support beams that have been recently added for support.
	This is a mass grave site, next to Cremo II. Since the Cremos were running at maximum capacity, the Nazis had to quickly try to cover their tracks before they left Birkenau. They dug these mass grave pits along with open-field burning areas, made of rail ties. Over the years, this pit has been filled in with water.
	This is the site of the sewage treatment facilities for Birkenau.
	A view inside one of the sewage silos.
	This is the furthest, southwestern edge of Birkenau, beyond which lie the trees that shielded it from the local population. After my official tour of Auschwitz/Birkenau was over, I had about 30 minutes to explore Birkenau on my own before the last shuttle left for Auschwitz I. I spent most of that time in this area beside the remains of Cremo II.
	This is a shot from the edge of the treeline, where you can see a new housing division. What alerted me to this area, was a barking dog. When I got here, I was shocked to see how close the locals have moved to Birkenau, the largest single Jewish cemetery in the word. Close to one million Jews perished in the ovens at Birkenau.
	Another shot of the housing division behind Birkenau.
	This was a unknown building to me. I could easily find it on every map of Birkenau, but it was never labeled. I suspect that it was the guard station outside of the sewage treatment facilities, as it stood between the facilities and the fence back to the main camp, BIb. What struck me was the graffiti on the window, which I could not make out. Graffiti was all over Poland, and not just limited to the larger cities.
	This is a view from the steps where those condemned to death were lead after they left the platform area. They walked down these steps to a disrobing area, which was covered in signs telling them to remember where they leave their things so they can easily retrieve them after their shower. Then they were lead into the shower area, where the door was shut and the gas dropped in from the main floor above. At the far end, you can see the remains of Cremo II, where the Sonderkommando took the corpses from the gas chamber.
	This is the main plaque on the Birkenau memorial (in English), though there are several identical plaques flanking this one in every European language. When I was there, there was the mayor of a French town there making a speech and donating money to the preservation efforts of the Auschwitz Museum. I know this because a hitcher we took back to Krakow with us from the Netherlands, Renault, told me what he was saying. Renault was hitching his way across Europe to visit his cousin in Vladyvlostok, thousands of miles to the East of the Netherlands.
	The main monument at the Birkenau site.
	Signs where the monument was built around the existing structures of the camp. Here you see the remains of the barbed wire pylons.
	This is the North east edge of the monument overlooking the remains of Crematory III, which the Sonderkommand blew-up in January 1945, as the Soviets approached.
	This is the very edge of the rail spur that lead through Birkenau to the Cremo area.
	This is a shot from the end of the rail line in the cremo are, looking back towards the main gate in the distance.
	This is a shot of the main gate from inside the camp.
	The guard tower over the main entrance, where visitors could take pictures, for an extra fee.

	This is the sign on the gate to Birkenau, listing everything that was prohibited in the camp. I personally saw each one of these activities violated many times. In particular, perhaps because of the French mayor's speech, there were large groups of young French teens (12-14 years old), who were wondering around the camp with no supervision: giggling, smoking, and talking on their cell phones. Because of the growing commercialization of and around Auschwitz, coupled with the many student groups who visit it (acting the way student groups do at museums), many mourners and student groups have begun visiting some of the other, less known death camps sites in Poland.
	This is a view of the rail line leading out of Birkenau back into the heart of Osweicim.
	This was a shot from our shuttle in the parking lot outside the gate to Birkenau. Here, you can see the freshly plowed filed that abuts the camp grounds and the new housing division in the distance.

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