The trip to Auschwitz was one of the main reasons we went to Krakow. What can you say about a place of mass murder? It is probably a place that everyone should visit to see man's inhumanity to his fellow man.

The camp was set up by the Germans in 1940, in the suburbs of Oswiecim, a Polish city that was annexed to the Third Reich by the Nazis. Its name was changed to Auschwitz, which also became the name of Konzentrationslager Auschwitz.

The first and oldest was the so-called "main camp," later also known as "Auschwitz I" (the number of prisoners fluctuated around 15,000, sometimes rising above 20,000), which was established on the grounds and in the buildings of prewar Polish barracks;

The second part was the Birkenau camp (which held over 90,000 prisoners in 1944), also known as "Auschwitz II" This was the largest part of the Auschwitz complex. The Nazis began building it in 1941 on the site of the village of Brzezinka, three kilometers from Oswiecim. The Polish civilian population was evicted and their houses confiscated and demolished. The greater part of the apparatus of mass extermination was built in Birkenau and the majority of the victims were murdered here;

The Germans isolated all the camps and sub-camps from the outside world and surrounded them with barbed wire fencing. All contact with the outside world was forbidden. However, the area administered by the commandant and patrolled by the SS camp garrison went beyond the grounds enclosed by barbed wire. It included an additional area of approximately 40 square kilometers (the so-called "Interessengebiet" - the interest zone), which lay around the Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau camps.

Both camps are remarkably well preserved. The allies knew of the camps existence and never bombed them during the war. The gas chambers at Birkenau were destroyed by the SS just before the Russians arrived to liberate the camp in 1945.

At it's height of operation Birkenau's 4 gas chambers could kill around 8000 people at a time. It is reckoned that over 1.1 million people died between the two camps.

Auschwitz I now contains a museum in the former buildings used to house the prisoners. This camp also has a fully intact gas chamber although on a much smaller scale then the ones at Birkenau.