We walked into the cave-like room built into the side of a hill. The room was long and box-like with two doors that had long since been removed. There were no lights, only a little light filtering in through the holes in the ceiling. The walls, presumably brick, were covered in plaster and charred as if from a combination of burning and aging. A plaque had instructed the group to maintain silence, so it was eerily quiet.

Here in this room, and in several others like it, thousands had lost their lives in one of the most calculated massacres of all time. Once dead, they were cremated in the adjoining furnace room.

This gas chamber is the only one still intact at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps. The Birkenau (also called Auschwitz II) gas chambers were destroyed during the German retreat in order to erase the evidence of such heinous crimes. Yet this one was left standing in Auschwitz because it was only used during early experiments with Zyklon B gas and was later converted to an air-raid shelter.

Disturbingly, the gas chamber is not actually within the camp’s borders but, instead, lies just outside the gates, a block away from the commander’s house, where his wife and children lived. Next to the death chamber are houses for visitors.

As a Russian Jew, I expected my visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau to be a horribly depressing trip, yet I knew it was utterly necessary during my stay in Krakow. Still, when walking the gravel streets of Auschwitz on a gorgeous sunny day through rows of brick buildings, each one with trees out front, it’s easy to forget where you are. In the end, after entering every single one of the buildings, now set up as a sort of museum, the trees and sun are probably the only way to maintain composure.

Over the course of our tour, we saw the straw mats prisoners slept on, two tons of hair cut from the prisoners and then sold to weave nets and fabric, and piles and piles of shoes where prisoners were given hard wooden clogs. We saw prison block 11, where rule-breakers and their families and friends were executed or tortured. Tiny cells, 1.5 square meters each, were set up for four prisoners to stand in all night after being forced to work all day – a torture that could last over a week. Other cells were for starving or suffocating prisoners.

We saw rows of pictures of people that had died in the camp, many in only a matter of days after their arrival. We learned that the average lifespan for a woman in the camp was 6 months, and it was not much more for a man. While the prisoners were all dressed alike with shaved heads, they ranged in age, nationality and gender.

Many of us on the tour were already familiar with the atrocities committed by the Nazis, but all were struck by how bad it really was. No article could possibly describe how utterly ravaged these people were or how calculated and cold-blooded the operation was.

If one thing stood out, it was how well-organized the camp was. Everything was planned and nothing was wasted. For example, an entire building stored hair, shoes and other belongings. These people were used as slaves and discarded when they no longer had value to the Nazis. It still amazes me that 6,000 people worked at Auschwitz alone and accepted such heinous crimes. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Sonny Franckel is a senior computer science major and will be writing summer columns on her experience interning with Google in Krakow. She can be reached at sfrancke@umd.edu.