The families arrived at Auschwitz with their most precious belongings stored in suitcases. On the outside of each case, the unsuspecting owners wrote their names and dates of birth believing that their things would be returned.

But nothing is further from reality, because the systematic process of determining who would live and who would die was known as "selection". The SS officers briefly evaluated each arrival.

Those considered capable of forced labor, such as 15-year-old Elie Wiesel and her father, entered the labor camp. All the others were sent immediately and unknowingly on the way to the four gas chambers of Auschwitz.

The people selected to die were told that they were receiving showers, and then they were sent to the cameras by the thousands. Bins of the deadly chemical Zyklon B were thrown in. As the toxic granules mixed with the air, cyanide gas was released. Death took about 15 minutes to arrive and it felt like suffocation.

The dreadful task of burning the corpses in underground furnaces was left to the Jewish prisoners. Forced into this horrible work, they temporarily evaded their own death.

5 0

3 years ago