Looking into the camp from the main gate watch tower.

In the distance is 'the ramp' where the selections took place.

More than a million Jews from all over Europe were deported to Auschwitz. The intention of the Nazis was to murder them all, without exception. However, those Jews whom they considered strong and healthy enough to work were selected from among the mass of Jews arriving on the transports. It was not that they were to be reprieved from the death sentence, but rather that they should contribute their labour to the German war effort intil they dropped dead from exhaustion, starvation or disease.