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Personal Reflection/Anecdote

locked, along a rectangular-shaped perimeter. Not
fully understanding the context, we walked near the
museum placard that revealed we were staring at the
former location of “The Little Red House” or Bunker I.
This was a former home converted into a gas chamber
used to kill thousands who were being deported to
this camp. Eventually, the house was dismantled once
the larger killing facilities were constructed to murder
more people.
The tour continued after our guide unlocked a gate
for us to enter a path with beautiful fields on each side. Kanada storage buildings are the concrete
Our guide informed us that these are ash fields that perimeters, with the Sauna in the background.
bear the remains of those cremated from the nearby gas chambers. We then visited the remains of Bunker
II, also known as “The Little White House,” a larger chamber constructed to murder more individuals at
one time. The foundation of the perimeter is all that remains of the building, with cemetery headstones to
the side in memory of those who were killed there. The next building along the path was the Sauna. This is
a large building with a misleading title because this structure was used for delousing victims, taking their
personal belongings, and murdering pregnant women. Outlines of previous foundational structures stand
on each side of the Sauna between the camp and the barbed-wire fencing. These buildings are known as
Kanada structures. At the Kanada II building, we observed some the belongings encased therein, noting
charred edges along some of the items. These personal belongings remain from the fires that the SS set to
the warehouses as they attempted to escape the Russians and cover up the crimes committed in the camp.
Another part of the camp ruins that deeply disturbed me was a circular foundation with a narrow
walkway—only wide enough for a single person—across its center. Under this walkway was standing
water. Professor van Pelt asked our group for guesses about the multiple structures that littered the area.
After hearing our repeated incorrect guesses, Professor Van Pelt revealed that these had been sewage
and water treatment structures. These circular structures are evidence that the community knew of the
existence and function of the camp because the camp administrators had been ordered to fix groundwater
issues due to complaints by those in the surrounding area. Some of these groundwater issues were due
to the flood zone in which the area was constructed, the insufficient and improperly designed structures
needed to handle the camp’s volume of human excrement, and the vast number of decomposing corpses
buried within the campgrounds. As a result, the problem was fixed, and the camp functioned without any
other complaints or intervention by the community members.
Resting on the opposite side of the Sauna building
are the remains of Krematorium Five. This was
the building used to murder most of the Hungarian
Jews. This transport arrived by train during May-
July of 1944 and was immense, including more than
400,000 individuals. These are the same people who
are photographed in the album that was found by Lili
Jacob (USHMM, 2023). These individuals had to wait
in the nearby birch forest that rests directly near a small
pond because the large gas chambers and crematoriums
were not able to be utilized fast enough by the Nazis
to murder so many people. This pond located between
Krematorium Four and Five was used to dump ashes
Water filtration systems at Auschwitz-Birkenau. from the crematoriums. A famous photograph from

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