I have a pit in my stomach writing this post. In fact I debated whether to even do it. I thought it might be too difficult for people to read. But in the end, I decided that I needed to post this. Why? Because I think it’s important to remember what happened inside this room. This is one of the gas chambers at the Auschwitz concentration camp. (70 years ago today Auschwitz was finally liberated) I thought I knew all about the gas chambers there. I was wrong. In fact after reading some of the specific details I just found myself saying out loud: “How could anyone have that much hate? How could anyone do those things to another human being?” (At the end of this post is a link to a short video tour of the gas chamber now. It’s chilling to watch.) The first thing they did when the prisoners arrived at Auschwitz was separate them. The strong in one line. They were sent to work. The weak, the sick, the women, the kids in another line. They were sent to die in the gas chamber. The second picture is one of the gas chambers from the outside. The prisoners were taken there and told they were going to take a shower and that afterword they would be fed and assigned to a work detail. There was an area for them to take off their clothes. There were hooks on the walls. And benches to sit on while they undressed. There were even signs saying things like: “Clean is Good” “Lice can kill” “Wash Yourself” and “To the disinfection area”. It was all done to try to hide the fact that within minutes they would all be dead. Once the prisoners were undressed, they were told to go into the chamber. The doors were closed and sealed. The third picture shows the poison. It was called Zyklon B. It came in pellets. Those pellets were then dropped into the chamber through holes in the ceiling. The pellets would vaporize inside the chamber. The smell was like bitter almonds. The death was excruciating. The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team quotes eyewitness accounts of what happened next. This is SS doctor Rudolf Hoss: “Through the spyhole in the door one could see how those persons standing nearest the shafts fell dead immediately. Nearly a third of the victims died instantaneously. The others began to huddle together, scream and gasp for air. Soon however, the screams turned into a death rattle, and a few minutes later all were lying down. By the time twenty minutes at the most had passed, no one was moving”. And this is from another witness: “Once the gas was poured in, it worked like this: it rose from the ground upwards. And in the terrible struggle that followed, the lights were switched off in the gas chambers. It was dark, no one could see, so the strongest people tried to climb higher. Because they probably realized that the higher they got, the more air there was. They could breathe better. That caused the struggle. Secondly, most people tried to push their way to the door. It was psychological – they knew where the door was, maybe they could force their way out. It was instinctive, a death struggle. Which is why children and weaker people, and the aged, always wound up at the bottom. The most horrible thing was when the doors of the gas chambers were opened – the unbearable sight – people were packed together like blocks of stone. They tumbled out. I saw that several times. You could never get used to that. It was impossible. Over a million people were killed at Auschwitz. Most of them were Jews. And I will assume that if you hit like its your way of paying respect to them. I know this was a difficult post to read, but I believe in this quote: Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Finally, if by chance you know someone who was in a concentration camp, I would be honored if you would share their story. Here is the link to a short video of the gas chamber. It was shot by a tourist in 2009. https://youtube/watch?v=WkMT2h-IJzY&noredirect=1 As I said at the top it is chilling to watch. Knowing the unspeakable things that happened there 70 years ago. Never Forget! Story courtesy of holocaustresearchproject.org/
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 07:56:58 +0000
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