The view of the 'BII' section of the camp. In the foreground, the first line of huts were the quarantine area, with the 'family' camp behind.

"We were in the Birkenau section now. This was the death camp of Auschwitz, the Birkenau section, where all the gas chambers and crematoriums were located just a short distance away. And as the people marched here from where they got off the train, where they had to leave all of their belongings, there to our horror we saw these huge, huge electric wire fences. 'Why would they have electric wire fences,' we wondered? I know I wondered, 'If they're just going to keep us in here like prisoners?' We didn't even realize we were prisoners, even though we already were."
The testimony of Gloria Hollander Lyon - Czechoslovakian survivor of 7 camps including Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Beendorf and Ravensbrück. Used with kind permission of The Oral History Archives Project