Sarah Calams
Pieces of gravel become upheaved as a handful of dress shoes strike the pavement. The black oxfords are glossy – some new, some old – but all of them are in tip-top condition. In years past, worn-down clogs with wooden soles and linen straps – always old, never new – dragged against the gravel.
The visitors don uniforms made from dark wool, most wearing a dress coat with an assigned insignia, a pressed uniform shirt, pants and a formal hat. A stark contrast between those who once traveled the same path in trousers, jackets and caps made of blue and white striped cotton ticking.
Beside the path are railway tracks. Now rusted and vacant, these tracks were once used to transport tens of thousands to red brick buildings. The entrance has three words inscribed above it: “ARBEIT MACHT FREI.” In English, this translates to: “Work sets you free.”
For most, it wouldn’t.
Holocaust remembrance
Auschwitz-Birkenau, the former German Nazi concentration camp, housed more than 40 red brick buildings that served as concentration and extermination camps. The camps, separated by electric barbed-wire fences, operated as slave-labor camps.
From 1942 until 1944, freight trains delivered 1.3 million people to Auschwitz. A total of 1.1 million people – largely those of Jewish faith – were murdered, including 865,000 Jews who were sent to the gas chambers upon arrival. For those men, women and children who were not sent to the gas chambers, they died from exhaustion, starvation or disease.
Today, the camps, seemingly untouched since they were liberated in 1945, are visited by millions each year to learn about the history of the Holocaust, the camps and the horrors prisoners faced.