Paul Calvert spoke to Teresa Wontor-Cichy about conditions at the camp, experimentation on prisoners and how Holocaust survivors have been involved with the museum.

Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau concentration camps have been preserved and an authentic memorial exits to educate and remind people of their history.

At first, the Germans held Polish political prisoners in the camp and then from the spring of 1942 Auschwitz became the largest site for the murder of Jews brought here under the Nazi plan for their extermination. More than 1,100,000 men, women, and children lost their lives.

Paul Calvert spoke with Teresa Wontor-Cichy from the museum in Auschwitz about conditions at the camp, experimentation on prisoners and how Holocaust survivors have been involved with the museum.

Paul: What is Auschwitz?

Teresa: Auschwitz today is mainly associated with the former concentration camp, so in today's perspective it's just a state museum. Auschwitz Birkenau is how it is called officially and today it includes two places: the main camp Auschwitz I and Birkenau, which is another place visitors may see.

Paul: Is it as it was in 1945?

Teresa: Well of course everything has changed. After the war the camp itself was still a complex, but today I mentioned the two places, but actually Auschwitz as a camp was the three major camps, Auschwitz I, Auschwitz Birkenau and Auschwitz III Monowitz and 40 smaller sub camps. As the liberation was here in January 1945, first of all the country was ruined and devastated by the Germans, in terms of the population and the economy. Now it's so many years after and everything has changed. To be more precise, before the war, Auschwitz I, well actually the name was Oswiecim, which is the Polish name that was changed into German in 1939. It was the base for Polish forces, so the buildings looked slightly different. They were most of them just one floor and only a few had two floors. They changed the place when the camp was set up here and after the liberation, the priority for the first directors who took care of this place as the commemoration place, was to save as much as possible of the original objects, but of course the time and the economic situation of the country did not allow us to keep everything in the same state. Then also the normal development of the town caused some other limits, but we may say the most important and the most significant places of the camp are under the special care of the museum.

Paul: How many Jews were killed in the camp?

Teresa: In terms of victims of the camp, the historians are saying that at least one million and 300,000 people were deported to this place. In this number 1.1 million were Jewish people and 150,000 were Poles - Poles from all over the country. Then 23,000 were European Roma Gypsies and 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war. Roughly 25,000 people were from all over Europe, including the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Austria, Ukraine and Belarus. They were non-Jewish peoples, so Auschwitz was the place where many different people were sent. Its associated by most of the visitors that it's a place of the Holocaust, as most of the victims who were brought here were Jewish people from all over Europe, but the first people the camp was set up for were Polish people - non-Jewish members of Polish Intelligence, members of the Polish elite and then the next group after Polish transports, were Soviet prisoners of war. There were 10,000 of them brought here. Men, women and children were brought to Birkenau, so we have to remember about the different groups being deported here, that's why Auschwitz is actually a place for commemoration of many different nationalities.

Paul: You can go into the barracks today. What were conditions like in the barracks and how many people lived in them?

Teresa: The conditions varied depending on where the people were brought to. If we consider Auschwitz I, the main camp and the buildings were built for the army, so the official number was 700 people in each, but as the camp was over crowded, including basement and attic, it was many more. Birkenau was the camp built of the ruined village. Before the war it was an ordinary Polish village called Brzezinka. It was the Germans idea to set up a new camp, so that's why the village was completely devastated. The people were to leave and their houses that were taken down, the materials were used to build new buildings in Birkenau. That's why we may see two types of buildings in Birkenau; red bricked buildings and wooden barracks. The red brick were officially for 600 women, as mainly they were in the female sector. The wooden barracks were officially for 400 prisoners. The wooden barracks were produced as stables for horses and in the packages they were brought here, the prisoners had to simply join all the planks and this is how the buildings looked. The conditions were catastrophic. Their first serious problem in Birkenau was a lack of sewage system and a lack of running water. Then the epidemics; they slept on primitive beds with some straw and with blankets that were never washed and never changed, so they were full of insects.

Paul: So a lot of people would have died of an epidemic before they even got to the gas chambers?

Teresa: Actually for the gas chambers were taken the Jewish people, who were brought here and taken for selection upon arrival. Those who were considered as fit for work were taken for the camp. In a few cases they could also be selected for the gas chamber, as from time to time the doctors were just doing the selection in the camp to separate the weaker, the very sick people and then they were taken immediately for the gas chambers.

Paul: How many people were killed a day here?