Never forget that the residents of Auschwitz/Oszwiecem and all of the workers at the nearby IG Farben factory knew exactly what was happening. They saw the starving jews walking by every day, saw them being worked to death, saw them trudging back. That's why Otto Schindler's acts were true heroism -- all of the other people just like him bought into the euphemisms and looked away.
One of the sickest parts of the tour at Auschwitz I (where they housed Poles and political prisoners for the most part) is near the end of the tour, after you've seen Block 11 and the torture rooms, the abominable living conditions, the mustering ground, and you walk down a long road that terminates in a galley. Off to the right is the Commandant's house; to the left is the remains of the first gas chamber. From the house, you would smell the camp daily, you could not fail to see the prisoners dying, or hear their screams. The commandant's wife, however, described her time at Auschwitz as one of the happiest and most pleasant times of her life.
Maybe we should start calling Planned Parenthood “Birkenau”: the largest and most lethal of the Auschwitz death camps?
As Morgana described PP’s careful work protocol, introducing and inoculating new employees to the horror, the Germans had their sonderkommandos as well—special workers who did the things the Germans were too squeamish to actually do themselves.