Auschwitz e o Holocausto

Em 1983 visitei com a Maria Machado e um casal amigo "O Campo da Morte" de Auschwitz (Oswiecim em Polaco)e o campo anexo Birkenau. Não há palavras para descrever o horror, a raiva, a indignidade humana do que ali se passou. É preciso conhecer e não esquecer. Para que não se repita.

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 Vão a caminho das câmaras de gás. Velhos e crianças produziam pouco. 

Direito à distração: no Campo os guardas e as ajudantes a divertirem-se entre duas chacinas de prisioneiros.

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Adolf Hitler:

“I freed Germany from the stupid and degrading fallacies of conscience, morality... we will train young people before whom the whole world will tremble. I want young people capable of violence, imperious, rentlessiously and cruel.”

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Heinrich Himmler, october 1943:

“We came to the question: what to do with the women and children? I decided to find a clear solution here as well. I did not consider myself justified to exterminate the men - that is, to kill them or have them killed - and allow the avengers of our sons and grandsons in the form of their childreen to grow up. The difficult decision had to be taken to make this people disappear from the earth.”

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Em cima à esquerda:Auschwitz I. Entrada do campo com a cínica legenda “Arbeit Macht Frei” (o trabalho liberta).Auschwitz was established by order of SS Reichführer Heinrich Himmler on 27 April 1940.
Em cima à direita: vista do Campo de Birkenau: About 3 km outside the mother camp, Auschwitz I, another camp, KL Auschwitz II – Birkenau, was located. This was the largest section of all three camps. The camp was built in March 1942 in the village Brzezinka. It consisted of about 250 barracks divided on 175 ha of land. Today only a small number of the barracks remain.
The prisoners in August, 1944, numbered around 100,000. As many as 200,000 prisoners were confined here during its peak.On the left (as seen from the tower) are the brick barracks of which only 45 remain today. On the right 22 wooden barracks may be seen. The rest were destroyed by the SS near the end of the war. Remnants of these barracks can be recognized by their chimneys. The camp had 4 crematoriums with gas chambers. The SS also used fire pits and funeral piles to burn bodies.
Em baixo à esquerda Um forno crematório: One out of the three chambers in the crematorium at Auschwitz I. When in operation, the crematorium had a capacity for incinerating 350 bodies per day. In each chamber 2-3 bodies were placed. In 1941 and 1942 Soviet prisoners of war and Jews from the ghettos established by the Nazis in Schlesien were murdered in this crematorium.
The crematorium was in use from 1940 - 1943. The ashes were used as fertilizer or as filling in nearby creeks and ponds. The last gassings took place in November 1944. Just prior to the liberation of the camp the SS dismantled and blew up the crematoriums. The ruins can be seen today.
Em baixo à direita: o interior de uma câmara de gás: Auschwitz I. Crematorium, mortuary used as a gas chamber.It was originally used as storage room for ammunition. September 3, 1941 experimental gassing on Soviet prisoners using Zyclon-B.