What is the explanation for all the hair, shoes, eyeglasses, and other personal items found at Auschwitz?
As prisoners were processed into the concentration camp, their hair was shaved to prevent the introduction of more typhus-bearing lice into the camp. Their personal belongings were taken away and put into storage. Uniforms and shoes were issued to the prisoners after they were deloused. Hundreds of thousand of people passed through Auschwitz camp and survived. The best evidence available points to a total of around 130,000 deaths that took place during the time the Nazis operated the camp. Nearly all of these were due to epidemics of typhus and other diseases. The separation of a person from their belongings in and of itself does not cause death, however, those that not survive their time at Auschwitz did not claim their belongings, so these remained in storage. In addition much of this prisoner private property was left behind when the camp was evacuated and abandoned to the advancing Red Army in January of 1945.
As prisoners were processed into the concentration camp, their hair was shaved to prevent the introduction of more typhus-bearing lice into the camp. Their personal belongings were taken away and put into storage. Uniforms and shoes were issued to the prisoners after they were deloused. Hundreds of thousand of people passed through Auschwitz camp and survived. The best evidence available points to a total of around 130,000 deaths that took place during the time the Nazis operated the camp. Nearly all of these were due to epidemics of typhus and other diseases. The separation of a person from their belongings in and of itself does not cause death, however, those that not survive their time at Auschwitz did not claim their belongings, so these remained in storage. In addition much of this prisoner private property was left behind when the camp was evacuated and abandoned to the advancing Red Army in January of 1945. There was very real possibility of having one’s belongings stolen while
