#Roughly 20% of Hungarian Jews were forced into the work camp

 A group of Hungarian Jews straight off a train are separated by gender to be further divided into those deemed fit for labour or those found ineligible.

Roughly 20% were forced into the work camp while the remainder were herded to the gas chambers.

The selection process was quick and brutal: children under 14, mothers with young infants, the sick and the elderly were all considered unfit for work duty.

Seen second from left at the bottom is Irene Fogel – looking around desperately for one of her sisters – who at 13 qualified for the latter group, but through some stroke of luck survived along with her older sister Serena, while her mother and three younger siblings were sent immediately to their deaths.

Irene’s father Meyer and older brother Moshe also survived the selection process but died within the camp system before the war ended.

Photo credit: a nazi guard (1944)

Don't think i could stand visiting one of the death camps. Such evil.

And I'm sure a lot of people probably feel the sorrow and the evil as they approach the gate at Auschwitz

Yes, thank you. That's why I couldn't go…the emotions would overwhelm me as I'm very sensitive to location vibes. I will never understand how the camp guards, etc. perpetrated such evil on innocent people, brutualizing, starving them. So many to be so depraved.

In my opinion, visiting these camps is like going to a church.

I think they are depressing but church is supposed to be uplifting. I’m sorry you feel that way.

My former husband and I visited Dachau years ago, on a beautiful, crisp, clear October day. What a psychological disconnect.

I lived on and off, in Munich, for three years. One day we exited off the ’mittlering’ to visit. We were overwhelmed. At some point we were both crying and I don’t remember going back to the car.

It’s one thing to read about or see in movies or TV shows, but to be there in person……