About 11 million victims, mostly Jews, and also Romanis, homosexuals, to name a few groups of human beings, were unilaterally determined by Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler to be unworthy of living. Some died in medical experiments, some by summary execution, many by starvation, but most died by systematic killings in extermination camps built by the Nazi government in Germany and in German-controlled territories in the early 1940s. The number killed in the complex Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau in Nazi-occupied Poland topped the number systematically killed. This video contains three parts: 1. Minibus travel from Krakow in southern Poland to Auschwitz (Oświęcim in Polish), during which a video introducing the camp's operation is shown to passengers on the minibus. 2. Visit to Auschwitz I: mostly outdoors; some indoor locations, for example, gas chambers built early on, and in mate latrine facilities; this is followed by a half hour break for the visitor to feed and recuperate before moving to the intensity of Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the second part of the tour. 3. Visit to Auschwitz II & Birkenau (the "Arbeit mach frei" gate, sentencing room, gas chambers built on a large scale later on, victims' personal property ...). This part of the tour is mostly indoors, where the guide's narrative is transmitted to each visitor through a wireless headset for greater efficiency; due to the distance between the headset and the camera microphone, it is not possible for all comments to be recorded on the sound track of the video. For basic information on the Holocaust, please see Wikipedia's Holocaust page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust. For basic information on the Auschwitz concentration-extermination camp, please see Wikipedia's page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz_concentration_camp#Auschwitz_. History of the Jews in Poland: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Poland Jedwabne pogrom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedwabne_pogrom The Nazi regime was not the sole eliminator of the Jewish population. See for example: The Kielce Pogrom: A Blood Libel Massacre of Holocaust Survivors: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007941 Extensive scholarship in print and on video on the Holocaust and extermination camps exist. This video is to document one visitor's experience from the time of departure from Krakow, a major "staging city" today for the visit. The visit requires, at a minimum, half a day, followed perhaps by a lifetime of contemplation over the liabilities and the responsibilities of being human.

• published: 15 Dec 2014
• views: 33