In Poland, in Silesia, along the river Sola, there sat a little town named Oswiecim. It was a quiet place, and the people there kept to themselves, for the most part. Nothing of note ever really happened there, and it was ignored by the outside world. Finally, just before the First World War, the Austrians brought a railroad spur to Oswiecim, with the station in the neighboring village of Brzezinka. The village was called Brzezinka, because, in Polish, Brzezinka means “birch trees”, and there was a birch forest next to the village. The railroad came, but things didn’t change very much.
The town had a Christian majority, but by 1935, almost half the population was Jewish. The two communities got along reasonably well, by all accounts, and everyone was sure that they would for the near future, because, after all, nothing exciting ever happened in Oswiecim.
Then, in 1939, Germany invaded Poland. The Germans were fighting, not just for more land, but also for an idea, a new order based on race. Because, you see, these Germans didn’t hold with the “all men are created equal” idea. No. Germans were superior…naturally. It was in their genes. But, if Germans were superior, who in Europe was inferior? Slavs, of course. They were just natural slaves…unfit to do anything else. As for other races, Jews and Gypsies, they were worse than inferior. They were diseased. No, they were diseases. Homosexuals? They were just deviants. The seriously mentally and physically ill? Unfit to live. Jehovah’s Witnesses? Religious fanatics. Socialists and Communists? Insane traitors. This was what the Germans thought. But what was the answer?
“Throughout the lands we control, lets build camps and centers, to hold these unfit people, so we can get rid of them easily.”
One of these camps, which would be the model for all the rest, the camp that the German government could point to as an example of the way the camps should be, was placed at Oswiecim. The camp had everything neccesary to get rid of undesireables. There were large gas chambers, to kill the unfit upon entering. Of course, these camps were expensive, and the prisoners, even though they were “inferior” and “parasites”, still could work. So, the camp also had barracks, and the big German industries, places like Krupps, Siemens, and I.G. Farben, as well as many smaller industries, set up factories there. Oh, the workers were all going to die anyway, but at least this way they could work themselves to death, and help the economy, so to speak. Of course, the Germans, being German, used German names, instead of Polish ones. So, Polish Oswiecim became German Auschwitz. Polish Brzezinka became German Birkenau.
Auschwitz ran from 1940-1945, until it was liberated by the Russians, and over those five years, about 2 million people died there, about 1 to 1.6 million of those Jews, and about 500,000 Roma and Sinti. The people murdered there committed no crime except for being what they were, which is to say, people that the German government decided should die.
In Poland, in Silesia, along the river Sola, there sits a little town named Oswiecim. It is a quiet place, and the people there keep to themselves, for the most part. Nothing of note ever really happens there, and it is ignored by the outside world.