Auschwitz Blueprints on Display in Israeli Holocaust Museum JERUSALEM — The neat lines and red rectangular sketches look like any typical architectural design. But the handwritten initials H.H. — belonging to the infamous Nazi SS chief Heinrich Himmler — indicate what the drawings represent: wooden barracks, gas chambers and crematoria.
Just ahead of the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Israel's Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem is displaying the blueprints of the notorious Polish camp that has become a symbol of the Nazi genocide of European Jewry. It is the first time the plans will be on display for a wide audience.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expected to attend the exhibition's opening Monday shortly before flying to Poland to participate in the official commemorations at Auschwitz, where 1.1 million Jews were murdered in just over three years.
The Associated Press was allowed to see the collection ahead of the opening.
The camp's name has become synonymous with the Holocaust because it reflected the meticulous German effort to rid Europe of its Jews — a plan dubbed the "Final Solution."
The blueprints illustrate the cold planning behind the plot. They include designs of the iconic watchtower entrance to the adjacent Birkenau camp, where trains transported Jews to their deaths, as well as pathway where the "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign was placed.
The camp's name has become synonymous with the Holocaust because it reflected the meticulous German effort to rid Europe of its Jews — a plan dubbed the "Final Solution."
The blueprints illustrate the cold planning behind the plot. They include designs of the iconic watchtower entrance to the adjacent Birkenau camp, where trains transported Jews to their deaths, as well as pathway where the "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign was placed.
