Unlike most of the sites on the UNESCO World Heritage List (and there are almost 900 of them, not just the selection shown here) this is not a place that celebrates archaelogical significance, geographic or ecological importance, or human achievement (unless one considers mass murder to be a human achievement) This is the most notorious of the Nazi death camps of World War II in which an estimated 1.5 million men, women and children were slaughtered in what may be the best organized and most callous and calculated genocide in history.
The barracks, crematoria, gas chambers, railway sidings and barbed wire of this massive factory of murder have been preserved, and the overall effect on visitors is shocking. It is a deeply moving experience to visit this, and walk under the wrought iron gate with the cynical "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work will make you free) motto and through the silent empty horror of the place.
