Birkenau (14 photos)

[thucythucy]

6. Much of the construction was done by prisoners

who were then murdered themselves. They may have known, but then again the enormity of what the Nazis planned was so outrageous and unprecedented even prisoners themselves often didn't believe what was happening until it was too late.

An example is Primo Levi, who writes about this in "Survival at Auschwitz"--one of the most depressing books I've ever read. Levi at first simply refused to believe it was a death camp, not until after he'd been there a while. I had a neighbor years back who was also a survivor of Auschwitz, and she told me the same thing.