Arbeit Macht Frei; Work will set you free, the motto and first thing seen by prisoners as they entered Auschwitz. Once through the front gate an orchestra of gaunt, malnourished prisoners in dirty-stripped uniforms played music for the prisoners going to and returning from their daily labor. These men and women were welcomed back by their unheated, unclean barracks; the bunks that they shared with 3-7 other filthy, sick, dying, and sometimes-dead prisoners. They were supposedly given 350 grams of bred, half a liter of coffee for breakfast, and one liter of turnip and potato soup for lunch. 4 times a week they were supposed to receive a soup ration with 20 grams of meat, but this rarely happened. Each prisoner had basically 1,300 calories if they were light workers, and 1,700 if they were hard laborers. The water usually couldn't be used for drinking because of the sewage problems at the camp.
Whether Summer, in the heat, or Winter, in the freezing, they stood for hours at roll call in the one uniform they were given and probably hadn't washed since they had arrived. The sadistic guards sometimes even forced them to do exercises in the nude for their entertainment. If a prisoner failed to appease or cooperate with the guards savage beating would commence, usually resulting in death or wounds that would prove fatal.
This website looks at a few important and specific elements of the camp known as Auschwitz-Birkenau. The only freedom the Germans offered the prisoners who worked at Auschwitz was the freedom to suffer and die inhumanely.
