This publication is available in Polish only. Ordering of publication in languages other than English is possible after selecting a particular language variant (below the price of publication).

The book is the fifth part of series “The place of the truth” presenting the history of former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp by using voices of eye-witnesses, these who went through the Auschwitz hell.

This time the tragic experiences refers to first contact of victims with extermination camp, the place where people condemned to death got off train after a several-days, exhausting deportation. That was an unloading platform. Misleading impression of reaching the goal and thereby feeling of release and the vision of rest and shelter turned into horror and helplessness very quickly. Only healthy, young and strong could have survived. The members of their families, wives with a little children, parents, grandparents, all of these were sent to their death, as “incapable of working”. The publication contains an extracts of testimonies written by survivors depicting dramatic episodes during deportation to the camp and directly after arrival at so-called unloading ramp in Birkenau. This ramp became for many deportees a symbolic crossing of the gate of hell, the place where they had lost sight of their relatives. Forever.

The voices of witnesses were placed in the five chapters presenting overwhelming experience of genocide: the Train, Arrival, at Unloading Platform, the Selection, Horrifying Truth.