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79 OSWIECEIM, Poland — Germans called this town Auschwitz. What follows is a walk through the place where the greatest systematic mass mur- der in human history was orchestrated. At Auschwitz’s three main camps and 40-plus satellite camps, the Nazis carried out their “Final Solution” to the “Jewish problem” during World War II. I arrive in Frankfurt with my wife on Dec. 29. We are em- barking on a group bus tour of Eastern Europe. It is unusually balmy, almost like spring. Auschwitz parking lots are jammed with buses bringing in tourists by the thousands daily. Upon leaving the parking lots, the first thing that hits your senses is the utter starkness of the place. The next is the present-day camp guides ushering visitors between sites. They are im- maculate in their drab, dark, button-down uniforms and emit a sort of dour afterglow that lingers over the premises. They are sullen, somber, ever-mindful of the monstrositie s that un- folded here 70-plus years ago. It’s almost as though they’re trying to placate the spirits of the approximate 1 million Jews slaughtered here, along with tens of thousands of Poles, So- viet POWs, Gypsies, homosexuals and anti-Nazi activists — the whole panoply of people who were euphemistically called “undesirables.” Gassed, starved, shot, beaten to death. The screaming and the shrieking echo throughout eternity. In the annals of modern history, Auschwitz is mankind’s living monu- ment to mechanistic murder. It is a walk through hell. Contrary to what many may think, the first inmates to be murdered here in September 1941 were not Jews but Poles. Russian POWs, Gypsies and thousands of others from vari- ous European countries soon followed. Then Jews. In 1942, the Nazis orchestrated their strategy to eliminate all European Jewry. The consensus is 6 million Jews were in fact murdered — until the Soviet Army finally liberated the camps and freed the few remaining prisoners on Jan. 27, 1945. A walk-through should take about an hour and a half, and considerably longer if you care to stop and study the many historical placards. Next to the parking lot is a signboard in Polish, English and Hebrew giving a historical overview of the complex, along with a large aerial map.