Auschwitz-Birkenau was initially established to intern Polish and Soviet political prisoners in 1940, but it was later expanded to carry out the Final Solution—the Nazis’ plan to exterminate European Jews. Millions of Jews were deported from occupied countries to Auschwitz-Birkenau between 1942 and 1945. Prisoners were beaten, starved, and murdered by gassings, executions, or medical experiments. In an academic setting, the size of the camp does not fully translate. However, when walking through the extermination camp, I was directly confronted with the inhumanity of the Nazi regime.
I did not truly understand the expansive nature of Nazi destruction and inhumanity until I walked through Auschwitz-Birkenau. The camp seemed like an infection that metastasized as the Nazis continued to expand the original camp. The preservation of the extermination camp allows people to grasp the massive nature of the Nazi Final Solution. Seeing the hair from the thousands of women who died for the Nazis to make profit from them, and the thousands of shoes from people who were blind sighted by the Nazis makes this realization shocking. That the camp worked like a “factory” made the camp seem even more horrific. I was constantly thinking about whaat each area sounded like, smelled like, and looked like while I was in Auschwitz. While I believe that it is essential to learn about Auschwitz-Birkenau in an academic setting, I felt like I did not truly understand the extent of the horror of the Nazi regime until I stepped through Auschwitz’s gates.