Auschwitz Appelplatz Roll Call Square #1

View Auschwitz Appelplatz Roll Call Square #1 and take the tour with videos below – the top 2 are the Original Auschwitz Virtual Tour. Below those are the same 2 videos with captions and art.

Prisoners were assembled here and in both directions left and right, in the morning and evening. It is one of the places where “selektions” were made sending prisoners back to slave labor or to their deaths.

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Each morning and evening all prisoners had to be accounted for, even those who had perished. From prisoner Zalman Gradowski’s diary found buried beneath the ashes at Krematorium II-Birkenau after the war*.

“At almost each block, beside the men standing in line, bodies of three, four persons are lying. These are the victims of the night that have not lived to see the day.

Even yesterday they were standing members of the roll-call and today they lie, lifeless, motionless.

Life is not important at the roll call. Numbers are important. Numbers tally…”

*Gradowski, S. in “Amidst a Nightmare of Crime: Notes of Prisoners of Sonderkommando Found at Auschwitz”, p.p.104 -105, Oswiecim: State Museum at Auschwitz.

Auschwitz Appelplatz Roll Call Was Cold

The first Virtual Tour video view is of the Corner of a barracks built with prisoner slave labor. Moving on you see the front half of the Appelplatz with the chimneys of the camp kitchen beyond.

Scrolling you see visitors strolling along a street lined with trees, grown much larger than in the old days of the camp. As you move you see one of the camp’s streets of dirt and stones, and then a row of barracks.

Moving on you see the rear half of the Appelplatz (roll call square) where prisoners stood at attention in ranks in the morning and in the evening. At the bottom of the page are descriptions of what you see, with stories, details, and historical information.

They were forced to stand here with no exceptions for weather.

When the prisoner count was short they stood until it was correct, sometimes all night.

The prisoners used the 15 minutes of free time before the roll, trying to stay warm. Survivor Jan Komski’s paintings are from his memory of his time in Auschwitz, a memory of experience rendered in paintings that show life inside the camps, of which few photos exist.

This, while enduring a conscious program of psychological dehumanization and physical degradation consisting of frequent beatings, insufficient food, primitive sanitary conditions promoting disease, little or no medical attention, and long hours of brutal slave labor with constant harassment and beatings.

Art at end of the video Copyright © Jan Komski and Auschwitz Museum. All rights reserved.

Auschwitz Roll Call Square – The Train Rail Used Only Once

The three posts in front of the building across the street support a train rail used only once, in July 1943, to hang 12 Polish prisoners. You see the Rapportführer’s booth from where the roll was conducted. The memory lasts even after the event for prisoners.

Scrolling around you can see the entire length of the Appelplatz.

Jan Komski Paintings – Roll Call

Copyright © Jan Komski and Auschwitz Museum. All rights reserved.

All photos and videos are Copyright Alan Jacobs and Remember.org.

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