Forever Let This Place Be A Cry Of Despair

Haveing a few days spare at the start of April, I booked a short break to Krakow in Poland. We found the people there to be generally friendly, the weather was fine for 3 days and we had a pretty good time. For the second day of our visit, I had booked a chauffeur and private trip to the small Polish town of Oświęcim. That name probably doesn't mean much to most people, but in 1939, after the German invasion of Poland, it was given its more infamous name, Auschwitz.

Over time Auschwitz, along with Auschwitz 2 (Birkenau) and Auschwitz 3 (Monowitz) grew to be the largest of the Nazi extermination camps. Far better descriptions than I could manage have been written about the horrors of the camp, so I won't go any further here, instead I have presented a few of the images I shot in the camp, along with brief explanations of them;


Arbeit Macht Frei, was the cynical emblem above the entrance to the main camp, roughly translated it means "Work will set you free"


A sign affixed to a section of the double electrified barbed wire fence that surrounded the camp.


An image showing the line of brick barracks into which 2000 prisoners per barracks were crammed. It also shows the small hut used by the SS officer taking the roll call every morning and evening. According to our guide, prisoners were once forced to stand here in the snow for 19 hours as punishment.


A giant glass exhibition case containing thousands of pairs of shoes and boots stolen from murdered inmates. There were also displays of children's shoes, human hair, spectacles, pots and pans, and artificial limbs.


An image showing the wall where numerous prisoners, both male and female where shot to death.


An image showing the rail tracks that lead towards the main gate of the Auschwitz 2, Birkenau part of the complex. Approximately half way along this track is the platform where new arrivals were sorted into 2 columns, those on the left to be marched straight into the gas chambers, and those on the right to be worked to death.


It wasn't until a few days after I returned that I realised just what this small sculpture was, it is intended to be a Mother and Father holding the hands of their child, and I guess is intended to represent the fact that this platform is the last place many families would ever see each other.


An image of the cots where prisoners would sleep with 8 to 10 prisoners per cot


The moving verse, repeated in all the European languages, on the Auschwitz Memorial.

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