65 Years: Auschwitz

Today is the 65th anniversary of Soviet troops liberating the Auschwitz Death Camp in 1945. It is also International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Auschwitz was the largest Concentration/Death Camp the Germans built. Millions of people (anti-Nazis, Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, Freemasons, Soviet POWs, priests, Jehovah's Witnesses, criminals, Communists, etc) from all over Europe were sent there.

Men, women and children were crammed into cattle cars without food or water and sent to Auschwitz (with the help of the National Railroads of each country involved.) Once at Auschwitz the men were separated from the women and children and then the Nazis selected those that looked like they could do hard labor and those that would be murdered right away.

For those selected to die right away they walked to a large building where they entered a room and were told to undress. Then they were crammed as tightly as possible into another room where a heavy door was closed. Gas was sent into the room through small holes in the ceiling. After around 5 minutes of screaming from the people inside the gas chamber's door was opened and other prisoners took the dead bodies to the ovens to burn them.

For those selected to be worked to death they walked to a large building where they were told to undress. Then all their hair was shaved, a tattoo number was put on their arms and they received rags to wear before being put in barracks where they waited to be told what hard labor they would be required to do. For the majority of those people sent to Auschwitz and were not killed on arrival the average life span was a few months before they died by starvation, disease, being shot or gassed.

No intelligent person can deny the Holocaust happened. The eye-witnesses (both the victims, by-standers and murderers), pictures, records and the camps themselves prove to the world what the Germans (and their helpers)did during the war.

No one should ever forget what happened during the war and even though it is 65 years since it's end those responsible should be punished and those murdered should be honored. Today is the UN's International Holocaust Remembrance Day and every country that is part of the UN needs to educate it's people about the horrors that can and have happened when people stand by and do nothing while they see others do evil things.