Auschwitz 2

In theory, nothing would be wasted. Hair, gold teeth, crutches, braces, prostheses and suitcases were collected and sorted for potential sale or use among the elite and those who served their cause.

But Hitler's disgust with weakness and imperfection didn't motivate any mercy toward the crippled.

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The drawings below were done by eyewitnesses and show the horrors of the death camp. Photographs were permitted, since reminders of man's potential for cruelty must spread around the world.

Shot or hanged at the "execution wall" (see last page), the dead were carried by near-dead prisoners and piled in the snow.

Each day hundreds of dead bodies were pulled from the "blocks" each day to the crematoria by starved and tortured slaves.

Notice the Nazi leader whipping the laborers -- and see daily smoke rise from the burning bodies behind the "blocks."

To end their unbearable torture, many starving and desperate prisoners threw themselves into these inward-leaning electric, barbed wire fences

When the Krakow ghetto was established on the left side of the Vestula River, thousands of Jews were forced to leave their homes in the Jewish sector of Krakow (on the right side) and cross this bridge. Most faced cruel death in the gas chambers at nearby Auschwitz. But some were saved by working at Schindler's factory near the ghetto.

Schindler's actual factory (pictured here) saved the lives of many Jews imprisoned in the Krakow ghetto.