Holocaust victim

Immediately after arriving at the camps, prisoners had their glasses taken away by Nazi guards. Upon arrival at Auschwitz, the cattle trains were emptied, and everyone was told to get out, except the cattle, who were taken to the gas chambers.

The Nazis did not believe in the sanctity of human life. Everything was considered state property and was to be used for the German war effort.

The glasses were taken and stored in large warehouses called Kanada, where prisoners sorted them. Some frames contained gold or silver. The SS separated those frames and melted down the metal for the Reich’s treasury. The others were sorted based on the amount of inscription and sent to Germany along with the prisoners’ work.

If a prisoner was sent directly to the gas chamber, his glasses could be found in the undressing room. The prison guards allowed some prisoners who worked with sorting glasses to keep their own glasses. Guards could also beat a prisoner and break his glasses.

This created another serious problem for prisoners who were near-sighted. A prisoner might not be able to clearly see an approaching SS guard, putting him in danger of being beaten or even killed.

In his famous book, Night, Elie Wiesel describes the day he arrived at Auschwitz and lost his possessions to the Nazi guards. According to Italian-Jewish writer Primo Levi, losing the ability to see was one of the most disabling problems a person could face in a concentration camp.

When Red Army soldiers entered the city in January 1945, they found tens of thousands of pairs of glasses in the warehouses at Auschwitz. Those glasses were among the remaining objects that had been taken from prisoners at Auschwitz.

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