Auschwitz II-Birkenau

From Auschwitz I we rode the three kilometers to Auschwitz II-Birkenau.  This was primarily a women's prison camp of far more degraded conditions.  It is also where most of the trains would arrive and the selection process took place right there on the train platforms.  Also, Crematoriums II-V were constructed along the far side of this camp, at the end of the train rail lines, so that prisoners could be unloaded from the trains, selected for labor or immediate death, and marched directly into the gas chambers and furnaces.  At the peak, this camp could hold upwards of 100,000 prisoners at a time.