Today we decided to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau, the world's biggest concentration camp established by the Nazis during World War II in Poland.
We decided that a tour would allow us to make the most of our visit and were taken in a minibus to the site, the drive took about 1 1/2 hours. On the way there we were shown a 50min documentary about the liberation of the camp, what they found and the stories that they were told.

Once we got to the museum at Auschwitz I we were met by our guide who took us to various sites around the museum; the buildings of the Auschwitz camps, exhibitions located in the barracks, crematorium, cemetery, gas chambers, the main building of Birkenau (this is a very iconic structure with it's watchtower in the middle and the train tracks running through the middle to the centre of the Birkenau camp). The tour went for about 3 1/2 hrs all together and we were still wanting to explore more.

Our tour was fantastic and very moving as you could imagine, it was a very personal experience so we'll finish off with a brief explanation and history of the camp...

Auschwitz is made up of two camps, the "main camp" know as Auschwitz I and the second, Birkenau, also known as Auschwitz II. Auschwitz I was the first to be built in 1940 and held between 15,000 and 20,000 prisoners at any one time, at times they managed to cram up to 1,000 people in a single barrack alone. As the Nazis needed more room, Birkenau was built in 1941 and in 1944 held 90,000 prisoners. This camp was where the mass extermination apparatus was, the majority of the victims were murdered here. It is estimated that more than 1,100,000 men, women and children we murdered here, including 960,000 Jews, up to 75,000 Poles, 21,000 Roma people, 15,000 Soviet was prisoners of various nationalities and up to 15,000 people of other nations and ethnicities.

It was established in 1940, in the suburbs of Oswiecim, a Polish city taken by the Nazis for the Third Reich, it's name then changed to Auschwitz.
Auschwitz I was a Polish military training ground in WWI and was transformed by the Nazis into a concentration camp because the mass arrests of Poles were increasing beyond the capacity of existing "local" prisons. It started off as a concentration camp, not unlike others that occupied Poland and Germany but later, in 1942 became the biggest camp of immediate and mass extermination of Jews, Poles, Roma People and representatives of other nations and ethnic groups.
Auschwitz was known as the "killing centre", the mass exterminations started with an experimental killing in September 1941 and this is where the largest number of European Jews were killed. Zyklon-B (also known as Zyclon-B and Cyclon-B) was the poison used. It was dropped, in crystal form, through small holes in the ceiling where the prisoners awaited. The crystal turned into gas when it hit the air.
When the trains arrived at the camp the men were separated from the women and children, a doctor then assessed your general health and your ability to work. If you were "fit for work" you were sent to the barracks, if you were not you were sent directly to the gas chamber for immediate death. The women and children were almost always sent immediately to the gas chambers.

The liberation of the camp by the Red Army took place on 27 January 1945.
In 1947, the national museum was established on the site and in 1979, the site was included as one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
We have both been profoundly affected by our visit here.