The Virtual Historian

Auschwitz is a town in southwestern Poland not far from the Czechoslovakian border. To get there by train from Terezin, one passes Prague, continues east toward Moravska Ostrava and then, turning north, enters Poland.It is an area of coal mines, steel mills, large factories and much poverty. Hundreds of thousands of workers were needed towork in the factories in Auschwitz. What better method to employunpaid slave labour? When these prisoners became too weak towork, they would be shipped out and replaced by other slaves.Several miles from Auschwitz, the Nazis built theirtwentieth-century horror invention: death factories. Unheard ofpreviously in the history of civilization, mass murder contraptionswere built by the Germans in the 1940s: gas chambers andcrematoria. The location was appropriate — an unknown addresswith vast flatlands, easily reached by a railway. The name of theplace: Birkenau.Birkenau was our destination. The train carrying us was a freight cattle train. It had no windows, but there were narrow slits on the side of the train that allowed some air to come in. There was just enough room in our wagon for us to sit or lie down on the floor. We were provided with food for one day and some old blankets. The trip was slow and at times the train stood still for hours.