This is a bloody testification in human history. The biggest extermination camp of Nazi Germany during World War II was established here. Among the killed six million Jews, over one million lives died here. Instead of demolishing it, the Polish government chose to conserve it completely as a warning that the tragedy really happened in our history. We should learn the lesson and don't let the senseless egocentric consciousness extend unlimitedly anymore to extinguish the human nature.
Taking photos without flashlight is allowable inside the museum, except very rare certain zones. I misunderstood the Internet information that taking pictures is not allowable so I didn't bring my DSLR with me when getting off my wife's car (she visited it once and don't want to see the scene anymore). Fortunately I still have my smart phone with me. All following photos were taken by it.
First, let's define the differentiation between "extermination camp" and "concentration camp". The generally-called "concentration camp" is built for prisoning criminals or war captives. As for the "extermination camp", it is constructed for directly executing all captured prisoners to death in the most efficient way. In the beginning of World War II, captured Jews were sent to the concentration camp. But after the extermination camps were set up in succession since 1942, these Jews were continuously transported here to be executed through the most efficient killing methods.
Photo 01
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| Gate of the extermination-camp museum. |
Photo 02
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| Each time when "important activity" will happen, the camp orchestra have to play music for all. |
Photo 03
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| Undecorated red-brick wall. Looked terrible and chilly. |
Why Anti-Semitism?
Is Hitler's hatred to Jewish people his personal complex? I think it's very sure, but much more than that. All over the Europe before World War II, the anti-Semitic atmosphere diffused everywhere, actually it has continued for thousand years. It should be traced to the Christianity doctrine. According to the Christian Bible, Jesus was historically crucified under a conspiracy planned by Jews. It gave a high-sounding excuse for this hostility. For hundreds of years after Jesus died, Christianity was spread over the whole Europe. Wherever the Christianity arrived, the anti-Semitic mood went, too. The religious hatred thousand years ago still works until today? I don't think so. As for why Europeans disliked Jews, I think it is more for such a long time, both didn't live together very harmonically in the real life. My viewpoints are as following:
1. The Jews' country has been subjugated thousand years ago. Jews distributed into every continent on earth, but most of them were in Europe. In eyes of Europeans, Jews are a group of homeless poor guys, like beggars.
2. Jews is a closed race, and maybe living under others' houses made them more united. They lived together and merely married to Jews themselves as possible. The closed nature made a high wall separating them from Europeans. These behaviours declared to Europeans "We are different kinds of people" silently. It activated the road of self-ruining for themselves.
3. Many countries in Europe took the policy of anti-Semite and it made Jews live very difficult. Since the Middle Ages, most European cities set ghetto and limit Jews to live inside it only. All these related policies made Jewish live very poorly. It also enhanced the Jewish image as they were social parasites. Though, as we know, Jews are a top clever people on earth. Without their own government and territory, Jews can only use their own intelligence on calculating money harshly when dealing with Europeans. Sometimes Jews practiced tricks to make Europeans cheated. Some successful Jewish businessmen loved to lend out money at an exorbitant rate of interest. Europeans hate to negotiate with Jews!
It's these real-life conflicts to make the hatred between Europeans and Jews increasing more and more.
Photo 04
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| Visiting house by house under the guidance. This one introduced prisoner's life. |
Photo 05
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| All captured prisoner had to be branded a number to be managed conveniently. |
Photo 06
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| All prisoners were filed when arriving. Walls for male prisoners filled many walls. |
Martin Luther
When mentioning to the enhancement of anti-Semitism, Martin Luther (1483-1546) is absolutely an indispensable character. Through hundreds of years after Jesus died, Christianity gradually transferred into a national religion from one which was originally suppressed by the Roman Empire everywhere. But this triggered a very beginning: the union of politics and religion. Anything connected with politics in a long period of time is not possible to be neat. The Catholic church in Renaissance period has reached the apex of pedantic. Martin Luther is a guy with rebellion personality. Fortunately, he used his characteristic in a right thing and successfully established the Protestantism, one of the three branches of Christianity.
Not only is Luther a person with rebellion, but he is a theomania. He paid all his effort in the Reformation. In the beginning of religious reform, Luther hoped that Jews will all become Protestants after abuses of Catholic churches had been removed by him. However, this is Luther's own hallucination. After his wish ended up with nothing, Luther's disappointment and rage transformed into his hatred to Jews gradually. As his enthusiasm for the Reformation, Luther was in a fever of attacking Jews in his latter years. He even listed a seven-point plan about how to extinguish Jews step by step in a famous booklet:
1. Burn all Jewish schools and synagogues. Anything disable to be burned should be buried under ground.
2. Destroy Jewish houses to let them have nowhere to live in.
3. Confiscate Jewish canons and books.
4. Forbid Jewish Rabbis' preaching.
5. No longer provides any protection on Jews, and revoke the right to use the road from Jews.
6. Deprive Jews of all their fortunes to prevent them from lending money at usury.
7. Give young Jews tools to let them fend for themselves.
While most people see this plan, we will just think it as imagination. But Germans carried it out! Luther's plan provided Hitler a concrete guiding principle. When Hitler preached all the nation to persecute Jews, usually he cited Luther's words to make a holy ground for his personal wish. After Luther could not make Jews to believe the religion he founded, he tried to hate Jews and plan how to exterminate them. The egocentric consciousness between Luther and Hitler is more or less similar, I think. Just let God himself judge it!
Photo 07
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| Look outside from a window. There are only wire netting, sentry and wall. |
Photo 08
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| Wall of female files. These photos filled many walls. All died between 1942-43. |
Photo 09
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| All in prisoner clothes. They are guilty because of what flowed inside their bodies. |
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) in his early book "Mein Kampf" has revealed his anti-Semitism thought. If you dislike a person and want others do the same, you must find a very reasonable reason to persuade them, though it needn't be the genuine one. I don't think Hitler hated Jews because of a religious reason. More possibly 'cause of the hatred in the real life. But the religious complex and Martin Luther's words provide him a perfect tool.
Hitler was born in a Catholic family. He was a Catholic as his father, but slowly converted to agree the Protestantism more, he was even determined to be a pastor. No wonder for this, because the builder of the Roman Catholic is a Jew (the Apostle Paul) while the Protestantism was built by the Aryan Martin Luther. In Hitler's eyes, Jesus is also a pure-blood Aryan, just he was murdered by the dirty Jews. In 1931, Hitler ran for the premier election of Germany. Because Hitler advocated the concept of hatred and hostility, the Catholic churches rejected him. The Pope commanded that Catholics don't vote to Hitler. After Hitler won the election, he started to "clear" the Catholic churches and murdered Catholics, overall controlled religious thought of Germany to lay the foundation for the Nazi Germany.
In the decade of Hitler's governance, he transferred Germany step by step to be a national machine which developed and executed his hatred. He dismissed German congress and change the nation as "Nazi Germany". The Nazi Germany during World War II had become a nation of genocide and all institutes joined different parts of the Holocaust respectively. Churches offered the birth records to report Jewish identification, post offices sent commands of denationalization, the ministry of finance took away Jews' fortunes, companies fired out Jewish employees, universities fired out Jewish professors and students and denied their diplomas, the ministry of communications provided trains to send Jews to the extermination camps, the pharmaceutical factories made poisonous gas, the cremation cremated bodies, stationery businessmen provided documentary business, and banks laundered the money deprived from Jews. If the fight between Germans and Jews is one between country and country, at least it will be based on an equal beginning. Both had government, territory, forces and weapons. Maybe after a time of fighting, the loser could pay the compensation or cede territory to ask for peace. However, the fight between Germans and Jews is not like this. It is a strong empire to cooperatively exterminate a human race which had no any force or strength. Except for waiting to die, poor Jews can do nothing.
Photo 10
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| The execution ground for shooting. |
No human is perfect. Nobody will be loved by all humans. When people live together, sometimes groups will make each other feel disgusted. However disgusting a people is, nobody is qualified to make a decision to exterminate a whole race from earth. Nobody! In 1939, the Nazi Germany invaded Poland and constructed the biggest extermination camp here in Auschwitz and Birkenau. During this period, many people of conscience tried to save these Jews under the danger of death. Most of these righteous people are Polish Christian families. I see people usually argue for which religion is better than the other(s). From the story above, it's not difficult to see that, for all Christians who believe in the same God, they can have such a great diversity of behaviours in good or bad. Throughout a people's life, one's spirit will go upward or go down to self-spoiled, I think the point is not which religion to choose, but how your heart will work.
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