The creator of this library guide (Professor Wendy Goodwin) visited Auschwitz in July of 2024 and provided these pictures for students to see how the camp has been preserved for all to understand the horrors that occurred while it was operational. 1.1 million people died in Auschwitz, 90% of whom were Jews, including 232,000 children. Along with the pictures of the camp, there is a picture of David Mermelstein, A Holocaust survivor who entered Auschwitz at the age of fifteen and lost his entire family there. He was a friend to the college and visited the Homestead campus annually for eighteen years, until his death in 2021, to speak about his experiences to our students.
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| The entry gate at Auschwitz reads in German, Arbeit Macht Frei which means "work sets you free." The gate was made by prisoners who were used as slave labor. | There are many rooms filled with artifacts from the atrocities. This room holds the prosthetics (fake arms, legs, braces, crutches) taken from disabled people before they were murdered. There is room filled with nothing but human hair (no photos allowed) that was taken from prisoners to be used for making fabrics and products such as blankets for the German army. |
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| These famous train tracks running through the camp carried cattle cars packed with people sent to Auschwitz, and for over 1.1 million Jewish people, including 200,000 children, it was their last journey before being murdered. Children, the sick, and the elderly were usually killed immediately. | The fences at Auschwitz were electrified to prevent escape. Some prisoners chose to commit suicide by running into the fences rather than live in a state of starvation, torture, and trauma from seeing others killed on a daily basis. |
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| This is the inside of the gas chamber, the last place seen by those murdered here. | This opening in the ceiling of the chamber was made so the gas canisters cold be dropped in with the Jewish people who were there about to die. Death by gas was not quick. It sometimes took up to 30 minutes for the victims to die. Occasionally, a baby would be found alive from an air pocket created when adult bodies piled on top. The baby would be murdered immediately upon discovery. |
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| The Crematorium at Auschwitz: Jewish inmates were forced to take bodies out of the gas chambers, shave their hair for use in making textiles, and search for gold teeth or any item of value that might be hidden in the bodies. Teeth with gold were pulled and given to the Nazi SS. Then, the Jewish laborers were required to drag the bodies to the ovens, burn the bodies, and dispose of the remains. | This picture was taken in 1945 after another death camp (Dachau) was liberated. Using the body of one of the prisoners, the inmates demonstrate what they were forced to do. The evidence of starvation among prisoners was clear from the condition of the body. The use of this older picture helps viewers understand how the death camps operated. |
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| David Mermelstein (1928-2021), Holocaust survivor who lost his entire family in Auschwitz, speaks to Homestead Campus MDC students about his experiences at Auschwitz. | |
