‘I
remember the day our transport arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The wagons were
opened and the people ordered out. The scenes I observed were just too terrifying
to imagine’.
Arek Hersh, survivor.
The Nazis developed a system of camps in order to enforce
their rule of terror, first of all in Germany. They repeated this in the other
countries of Europe that they occupied. But there were different camps for different
functions. The first concentration camp to be built was at Dachau, near Munich,
in March 1933. Communists, socialists and trade unionists were put here; anyone
who opposed the Nazis.
The
infamous gateway to Birkenau. In the later stages of the camp’s operation,
trains passed through here from all over Europe to the ‘ramp’, where
the deportees were unloaded ready for the selection.
