"On Auschwitz" (34): The first moments at the Auschwitz camp

You have arrived not at a sanatorium but at a German
concentration camp in which the only way out is through the
chimney. If someone doesn’t like this, he may at once go to the
wires. If there are any Jews in this transport, they have no
right to live longer than two weeks. If there are any priests,
they may live for a month, the rest only three months.


This is how the speech given by Auschwitz camp manager Karl
Fritzch was recalled by Jan Karcz in his memoirs. 


Teresa Wontor-Cichy of the Museum Research Center talks about the
first moments at Auschwitz, when deportees came into contact with
the world of death, terror and dehumanization, as well as factors
that could help surviving the camp.