All language subtitles for DW Travel - A Visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau – the Death Factory of the Holocaust (720p).English

Today I'm in Auschwitz-Birkenau,
the largest Nazi extermination camp.

Between 1940 and 1945, at least 1.1
million people were murdered here,

more than in any other camp.

It was the Nazi's
largest death factory.

Men, women and children were murdered
systematically and in cold blood.

They were deported
here from all over Europe.

The overwhelming majority
of those murdered,

about 1 million people, were Jews.

Auschwitz became synonymous
with the Holocaust and genocide.

There is hardly a place more
awful than Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Nevertheless, about 2 million
visitors come here every year.

It is one of the most visited
memorial sites in the world.

I will visit the camps Auschwitz 1 and 2.

I'll see barracks in which the
prisoners had to live tightly packed.

And I'll enter a gas chamber
where people were brutally murdered.

I also meet a volunteer
from Germany who supports

educational work in Auschwitz.

It's early in the morning

and I'm surprised at
how busy everything is already.

More and more visitors are
coming to visit Auschwitz 1,

the so-called main camp.

I hear names in the entrance tunnel.

Names of people who died in Auschwitz.

So many lost fates.

Above the entrance gate,
there are three cynical words.

Arbeit macht frei – Work sets you free!

Auschwitz is located between the
Polish cities of Katowice and Krakow.

The Nazis built the main camp
in 1940 in a former barracks.

It initially consisted of 22 blocks.

Later there were 28.

Watchtowers, barbed wire and electric
fences made escape almost impossible.

Auschwitz was initially
established as a concentration camp,

like many others set up
by the Nazis across Europe.

It was later expanded
into an extermination camp.

Because it was centrally located

in the middle of German-occupied Europe

and was well connected
to the railway network.

The main camp had
space for 20,000 prisoners.

Although "space" is the wrong word.

The people were
crammed together here.

At first it was mainly
political prisoners from Poland,

then transports came from all over Europe.

With Soviet prisoners of war,

members of the Sinti and Roma,

queer people

and later, mostly Jews.

The Nazis told them that they would
be relocated and that they should

only take the most
necessary luggage with them.

That was taken from
the people immediately

after they arrived in Auschwitz.

Not just gold or valuables, but also
glasses, prostheses, clothing, shoes.

Nothing was left to them.

Even their hair was shaved off.

This was used to make
fabric for mattresses or uniforms.

Out of respect for the dead, we are
not allowed to film in this block.

Tons of hair can be seen here.

The prisoners had to work in
the surrounding factories under the

most difficult conditions.

Most of them only
lasted a few months.

They died of exhaustion,
hunger, disease, torture,

medical experiments,

or they were killed on this death wall

with a shot in the back of the neck.

Many of the victims here
were Polish resistance fighters.

In 1941, a new method of
murder was tested in Auschwitz:

mass extermination in the gas chamber.

Using Zyklon B.

It was the suitable method for
the Nazis to implement the so-called

"final solution to the Jewish question",

which meant the systematic extermination

of all Jews in Europe.

6 million people fell victim
to this murderous madness.

The gas chamber in the
main camp is still preserved.

It's unimaginable.

Here, in this room, thousands
of people suffocated in agony.

The crematorium is
right next to the gas chamber.

The bodies were burned here.

The ovens were especially
developed for this purpose

by the German company Topf & Söhne.

In 1947, the former camp
commander Rudolf Höss

was hanged next to the gas chamber

after he was put on trial
in Nuremberg and Warsaw.

The gas chamber in the
main camp was shut down in 1942.

Instead, the Nazis opened
four large new gas chambers

in the neighbouring Birkenau camp.

It was a factory of death,

built solely to wipe
out the Jews of Europe.

The Birkenau extermination camp,

also known as Auschwitz 2,

is about 2 kilometers from the main camp.

I'm visiting it tomorrow.

For now, I need to
take a deep breath.

The brutality and cold-bloodedness,

the extent of the crimes
committed here, is unbelievable.

How are other visitors?

Probably going
through the chambers, really.

It's such a small room.

And the fact that 1.3 million people

came through here
and 1.1 of those died.

It's such an enormous
amount of human life to be lost.

Auschwitz was liberated by the
Soviet Army on January 27, 1945.

There were about 7,000 survivors,

200 of them children.

The living were cared for,

the dead were buried.

The Auschwitz Memorial is now
on the UNESCO World Heritage List

and the 27th of January
has been designated

the International Day of Remembrance

for the Victims of the Holocaust.

I have an appointment with Andrzej Kacorzyk,

the deputy director of the
Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.

The next day I'm visiting Auschwitz 2,
the Birkenau extermination camp.

Here the Nazis installed a vicious,
sophisticated death machine

that had only one goal:
to kill as many Jews as possible.

Birkenau was huge.

The labour camp had
more than 300 barracks

for around 100,000 prisoners.

There were also four large
gas chambers and crematoria.

They were in operation day and night.

This is the only way
to explain the scale

of the mass murder committed here.

Hundreds of thousands of
people were gassed in Birkenau.

I am accompanied by Lea Zukau.

The high school graduate
comes from Germany

and is working for a year as a volunteer

at the International Youth
Meeting Center Auschwitz, the IYMC.

She shows it to me later.

We first go to the place where the SS

carried out the so-called selections.

Tragedies have taken place here.

Families were torn apart,
never seeing each other again.

This all happened
right here at this spot.

Women with children, the elderly and
the sick were usually taken directly

to the gas chambers.

Those whose labor
the Nazis still wanted to exploit

were herded into the barracks.

They were completely
overcrowded, with 400 people in each.

Hunger, cold, illness, epidemics –

the death rate was incredibly high.

As the Soviet Army advanced in
November 1944, the SS began

to cover up traces of their crimes.

That's why the gas chambers
and crematoria were blown up.

Lea also shows me a place
that is somewhat hidden

on the extensive grounds.

The whole area is a huge mass grave.

In total, around 1 million Jews
were killed in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

This number is outrageous, unimaginable.

Lea often accompanies
youth groups to the memorial.

Will it ever become
easier to visit this place?

At the end, Lea takes me
to the small town of Oświęcim,

which is the Polish name for Auschwitz.

This is also where her
temporary workplace is located,

the International Youth Meeting
Center, or IYMC for short.

Every year around 150 groups
from Europe come here.

They live here for a few days,

are being prepared for
their visit to the memorial

and then have the
opportunity to talk about

what they have seen and process it.