When we hear the name Auschwitz we are reminded of the horrors that took place in our world and the millions of people who were brutally murdered during the Holocaust.
It’s hard to fathom the true magnitude of what occurred there without visiting the Auschwitz-Birkenau site in Poland.
But if you’re unable to travel to Poland you can visit the site via drone. A BBC News video offers a drone’s view of the grounds to help us understand what it was like for the estimated 1.1 million people who died there.
Auschwitz was established in 1940 by Germans in the Poland suburbs of Oswiecim. The city was annexed to the Third Reich by the Nazis and used as a work/death camp.
The main camp was Auschwitz 1 and a second part called the Birkenau camp or Auschwitz II was later built to house more prisoners of various ethnic backgrounds, which mainly consisted of Poles, Jews, and Gypsies, who were sent there to work and die.
The camp continued to grow in infrastructure and population after that. About 90 percent of the victims of Auschwitz Concentration Camp died in Birkenau, according to Auschwitz.org. This figure is estimated to be at about a million people who were mostly Jewish.
The brutal work, disgusting conditions, inhuman experiments, torture, and death that the men, women, and children were subjected to at this site is too horrible to properly put into words.
Since the Soviets were approaching, the camp started evacuating prisoners in 1944. These people were forced to march from the camp. Many parts of the camp were destroyed to hide evidence of what had occurred there.
The camp was liberated by the 60th Army of the First Ukrainian Front in January 1945. About 230 Soviet soldiers died in combat in their attempts to liberate the camps.
The drone view helps to give us a sense of what it was like to walk the grounds of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
It shows us the railway tracks that lead to the site.
It flies overhead the towers where Nazis would stand guard and watch over prisoners ready to shoot. It also shows us the remains of the wooden huts at Birkenau.
It also takes us through Auschwitz’s main entrance where the gates read “Arbeit Macht Frei” which means “work sets you free.”
It’s a truly chilling experience to be taken through the site so quickly via drone.
You can check out the video below and learn more about the site’s history and how you can visit at: auschwitz.org
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