Auschwitz - Birkenau

Auschwitz concentration camp (German: Konzentrationslager Auschwitz[ˈʔaʊ̯ʃvɪt͡s] ( listen)) was a network of German Nazi concentration camps andextermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II. It consisted of Auschwitz I (the original camp), Auschwitz II–Birkenau (a combination concentration / extermination camp), Auschwitz III–Monowitz (a labor camp to staff an IG Farben factory), and 45 satellite camps.

Auschwitz I was first constructed to hold Polish political prisoners, who began to arrive in May 1940. The first extermination of prisoners took place in September 1941, and Auschwitz II–Birkenau went on to become a major site of the Nazi "Final Solution to the Jewish question". From early 1942 until late 1944, transport trains delivered Jews to the camp's gas chambers from all overGerman-occupied Europe, where they were killed with the pesticide Zyklon B. At least 1.1 million prisoners died at Auschwitz, around 90 percent of them Jewish; approximately 1 in 6 Jews killed in the Holocaust died at the camp.^[1][2]Others deported to Auschwitz included 150,000 Poles, 23,000 Romani andSinti, 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war, 400 Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, and tens of thousands of people of diverse nationalities. Living conditions were brutal, and many of those not killed in the gas chambers died of starvation, forced labor, infectious diseases, individual executions, and medical experiments.

In the course of the war, the camp was staffed by 6,500 to 7,000 members of the German Schutzstaffel (SS), approximately 15 percent of whom were later convicted of war crimes. Some, including camp commandant Rudolf Höss, were executed. The Allied Powers refused to believe early reports of the atrocities at the camp, and their failure to bomb the camp or its railways remains controversial. One hundred and forty-four prisoners are known to have escaped from Auschwitz successfully, and on October 7, 1944, twoSonderkommando units—prisoners assigned to staff the gas chambers—launched a brief, unsuccessful uprising.

As Soviet troops approached Auschwitz in January 1945, most of its population was evacuated and sent on a death march. The prisoners remaining at the camp were liberated on January 27, 1945, a day now commemorated asInternational Holocaust Remembrance Day. In the following decades, survivors such as Primo Levi, Viktor Frankl, and Elie Wiesel wrote memoirs of their experiences in Auschwitz, and the camp became a dominant symbol of the Holocaust. In 1947, Poland founded a museum on the site of Auschwitz I and II, and in 1979, it was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Festungsfront Oder-Warthe-Bogen

The Festungsfront Oder-Warthe-Bogen (Fortified Front Oder-Warthe-Bogen), also called the Festung im Oder-Warthe-Bogen or Ostwall (East Wall), and in Polish the Międzyrzecki Rejon Umocniony (Międzyrzecz Fortification Region), was a fortified military defence line of Nazi Germany between the Oder and Warta rivers. Built in 1934–38, it was the most technologically advanced fortification system ofNazi Germany, and remains one of the largest and the most interesting systems of this type in the world today. It consists of around 100 concrete defence structures partially interconnected by a network of underground tunnels. Some of the forts and tunnels are available for visiting.

The most interesting part is the central section, which begins in the south with the so-called Boryszyn Loop near the village of Boryszyn and extends about 12 km to the north. In the central section the bunkers are interconnected with an underground system of tunnels, 32 kilometres long and up to 40 metres deep. In the underground system there are also railway stations, workshops, engine rooms and barracks.

It is also the largest European underground bat refuge, giving shelter to some 35,000 bats of 12 species in the wintertime.

Biskupin Polish Pompeii

Biskupin is the best known archaeological reserve in Central Europe. The discovery in 1933 of a 2700-year-old fortified settlement on the peninsula of Lake Biskupinskie was one of the most important events in 20th century Polish archaeology. Excavations were carried out here until the outbreak of World War II. The scale of these excavations and the new scientific methods were famous the world over. After the war work was resumed in 1946 and continued until 1974 when it was decides to leave the reamining wooden structures under water and to concentrate on preserving the prehistoric wood which had already been exposed and was in dire need of conservation. 

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In the years preceeding the celebrations of the Millennium (one thousand years of the Polish statehood), in the 1950s and 1960s Biskupin became an educational centre for young archaeologists. Students of universities departments from all over Poland became to the Archaeological Training Camps not only to take part in excavations but also to recreate ancient technologies used in the crafts and farming. The experimantal archaeology is still an important concern at Biskupin today.

                                           

rosslynlee mental hospital

summer cat & new roslin chapel

castelow, pentland hills

Castle Law is a hill south west of Fairmilehead in the Pentland Hills in Midlothian, Scotland.

It is best known for the Iron Age hillforton its slopes.

The Castlelaw Hill Fort

The Castlelaw Hill Fort is the remnant of a stronghold of the Iron Age. When it was occupied the site consisted of threeearthwork ramparts, ditches and timberpalisades. The fort contained aSouterrain for the storage of agricultural produce.^[1] V. Gordon Childe undertook excavations at Castlelaw in 1932–33. The work focussed on the rampart, and showed that it consisted of a a clay and timber filling, faced by stone.^[2]

The fort commands views over the Forth and Lothian. Traprain Law and Berwick Law, both significant centres of power in the Iron Age, are visible from the site.

The fort is maintained by Historic Scotland.

Access to the site is free but, since the area is an active sheep pasture, dogs should be kept under control.

The site also neighbours an army firing range and so care should be taken not to pass into the area marked by red flags.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Law