Birkenau Sauna Interior

This is one part of the Birkenau Sauna interior in 3 videos. New prisoners were brought here first. Here they would have to give up all their remaining possessions: money, jewels, even wedding rings and photos.

The shining floor is a durable plastic material installed in the recently restored building. Scrolling around, you can see the actual floor, protected now from inevitable wear and tear of many visitors. The windows contain some examples of possessions taken from prisoners.

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“From August 1942 until June 1943 Vrba was assigned – both in Auschwitz and in Birkenau – to work in the special slave labour unit that handled the property of those who had been gassed. In camp slang, the unit was known as “Canada” because of the food and the gold and other precious materials that the Germans confiscated from the luggage of the incoming “resettlement” deportees. The Auschwitz treasures from “Canada” were packaged for Germany, and the gold was quickly melted into ingots and deposited in the Reichsbank.” Rudolf Vrba Obituary

Birkenau Sauna Interior 2 Video

A section of the Sauna (new arrival processing center) near the rear exit with a display of family photographs. Found in belongings taken from deportees directly after their arrival in Auschwitz.

Birkenau Sauna Interior 3 Video

More photos of families lost, lives ended, why? Confronting them in this large, silent room… Imagine people sitting around the table after dinner, posing for photos, joking, gossiping, arguing politics, flirting, getting the kids to bed, helping with the dishes, telling stories, with hopes and dreams for the future… After unloading their human victims, trains would be loaded with the possessions of earlier victims and sent back to Germany.

These objects are often all that is left of their owners. They passed each other in opposite directions. As late as 1980, many such objects were to be found in Berlin curio and antique shops, being the only passengers with a round trip ticket.  The objects shown here were left behind when the Nazis burned Kanada (This is where the possessions taken from prisoners were stored in barrack warehouses, named in camp jargon, “Kanada”) to the ground, lest its contents fall into the hands of the advancing Soviets.

More Auschwitz Birkenau virtual tour

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