Auschwitz I Double Fence

Auschwitz was the biggest of the Third Reich’s concentration camps. What must be remembered however was that it was actually a work camp and not necessarily a death camp. Though the death rate was inordinately high with workers succumbing to disease, malnutrition, exhaustion, criminal experiments, or outright murder the workers were expected to work. That said there was a gas chamber, crematoria, gallows, and the “wall of death” at Auschwitz but it would be the addition of Birkenau that would contain the facilities for mass extermination. Thus in many ways the twin camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau had different albeit related goals. (Picture taken by Steven Mercatante on September 5, 2014).