Welcome to the Gates of Hell – The Unforgiving Nazi Killing Factory
The train slowly chugs into Auschwitz on a freezing winter morning, which was now a daily routine in the middle of the war. It was a station where no train originated but only terminated. The chill in the air was enough to bite and pierce through the bare skin as the temperature went well below the freezing point. And, to be more precise, it was a wagon train meant for carrying goods, pressed into service for transporting men, women, and children from the scattered ghettos of Europe to the concentration camps spread around Poland and Germany. The most notorious ones were in Poland. One of those was Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, to be precise. There were many more such extermination or concentration camps located in Treblinka, Belzec, Begen-Belsen, Dachau, Sobibor, and Buchenwald, to name a few. But, the most feared and dreaded among all was at Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland. There was nowhere to escape from here. The Jews came here to die in agony and pain. Well, they did not come on their own. They had it in their destiny. Even God almighty could not alter their fearful destiny. It was fate and nothing else.
Life in the Ghettos
Ghettos refers to confined localities within a city, which acted as an open prison, meant for keeping people, especially during World War 2, by the occupying Nazi forces. Here, the people were Jews, who were all forced to wear a Yellow Star stitched on their clothes with the word Jude embroidered on it, just like a Dog Tag that military personnel wear. It served the same purpose, except that they (Jews) were convicts under Nazi occupation. It was to distinguish them from the native German population. It was mandatory and compulsory for a Jew to adorn this badge on the chest.
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All Jews brought into a ghetto from their cozy homes in Europe had to wear the Yellow Star with the writing Jude stitched onto their clothing. Without the badge, they faced the wrath of the German SS guards and even got shot and killed if they failed to show any reason for not wearing it. So, the ghettos in Germany and Poland served as a transit or a base camp of some sort, from where the innocent and helpless Jewish captives would depart for their final destination. Yes, to the concentration or extermination camps for getting butchered or killed.
Adding to their miseries, the conditions in these ghettos were terrible, but what was waiting for them was far beyond hell. To be candid, it was Satanic. They just could not imagine the intensity of pain, trauma, agony, distress, helplessness, and sorrow that each one of them would have to go through upon arrival at Auschwitz. They were told that a new life awaited them. What a terrible murder of trust and an ugly joke, which is hard to imagine. It is when humanity lost, while evil triumphed.
The Feared Train with Cramped Wagon Cars
It was a goods train carrying people. All packed in like sardines. A single wagon meant for only 50 people was carrying over 300. In some cases, the train started its journey from as far as the Netherlands and took nearly 5 days & 5 nights to reach its final destination in Auschwitz. A single iron drum in each wagon served as a toilet. Imagine for 5 days, cramped in one wagon like sacks of grain and sitting beside shit and smelling it.
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These people were not at all used to such extreme living conditions. Many belonged to well-to-do families from affluent cities and regions like Berlin, Rome, Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw, Krakow, etc. They lived a lavish lifestyle. And now dumped in hell. Some could not survive the ordeal and died on their way. It was mostly the elderly, sick, and children who could not bear the cold, insane physical torture and the inhuman condition inside the wagon car.
The Innocent Souls Who Perished
It comprised small children, infants, toddlers, young guys, girls, men, women, the elderly, and the sick. All Jews were destined to die as they got down at Auschwitz. Crammed in the tiny wagon for hours and days, some even died before the journey could end at this penultimate station. Auschwitz was the brainchild of the Nazis for receiving and butchering the Jews, Poles, Romas, Soviet prisoners, and Gypsies. The majority of them were Jews, brought from all over Europe and mainly from Poland and Germany.
Upon arrival, the selection process began. Yes, you heard it right! SELECTION. The old and weak men and women were separated from the crowd. The fittest were spared and kept for rigorous labor. The group of women, children, and elderly were ordered to march towards the gas chambers. Yes, Gas Chambers! For being gassed and killed. Thereafter, their corpses were stuffed into the burning ovens like you burn rubbish or garbage in your backyard.
Auschwitz was a well-organized killing factory, to be precise. One million Jews were butchered right at Auschwitz-Birkenau. All the personal belongings of the Jews that they had brought with them were confiscated upon arrival, their hair cut or head shaven, stripped naked, and directly paraded to the gas chambers in the cold of the winter months.
Arrival of the Train, Selection, and Final Walk to Death
The Nazi SS guards holding their howling German Shepherds and Belgian Malinois stood guard just almost everywhere. In front of each wagon door so that not a single person could escape or run. As soon as the door opened, they pulled out each one, irrespective of age, physical condition, or gender, just like pulling sacks or gunny bags from trucks. Such was the level of hatred for Jews infused in the minds of the German SS guards that they were bent upon inflicting the maximum suffering and pain, even to the smallest of infants in a mother’s arm.
The ‘Selection’ process began once everyone was pulled out of the train. A handful of the fittest were kept for menial labor at the concentration camp. The remaining paraded to the gas chambers after stripping off their clothes and shaving their heads. It was slaughter in broad daylight. The corpses were burnt in the furnace just beside the chambers after being gassed. It was a gory scene that not even Satan could have imagined. The air filled with the smell of the burning skin. It continued every single day for almost five long years until the Russians invaded and freed the remaining inmates in the camp in the winter of 1945. Only a few lucky ones got to survive this inhuman and unsparing ordeal.
Imagine what these innocent souls went through as long as they were alive in this camp. This was just in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Another 5 million Jews were slaughtered across Poland and Germany in these horrific extermination camps set up by the Nazis. It was a sheer display of madness by humans against humans. Hope and Pray this never repeats! Never Again!!
“If I Was Born A Jew, What Wrong Did I Do?” It was the unanswered question in the minds of all who perished in these scary extermination camps & filthy ghettos.
