Israel receives original plans of Auschwitz

Watch Video

Play Video

Architectural plans for the Auschwitz death camp discovered in Berlin last year have been handed over to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The plans will be displayed at Israel's Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem.

The 29 sketches of the death camp built in Nazi-occupied Poland date back to 1941.

They include detailed blueprints for living barracks, delousing facilities, crematoria and gas chambers. They are considered important for understanding the genesis of the Nazi genocide.

Germany's mass circulation Bild newspaper said it purchased the prints after it learned the plans were stashed in a Berlin apartment.

The blueprints' authenticity has been verified by Germany's federal archive.

Speaking at the handover on Thursday, Netanyahu said those who deny the Holocaust should look at these plans.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister, said, "There are those who deny that the holocaust happened. Perhaps until this moment we will say, let them come to Berlin. And from tomorrow we will say let them come to Jerusalem and look at these plans. These plans for the factory of death. This is a very important, historical documents."

The sketches will be on display at Yad Vashem from January next year, as part of a special exhibit marking the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

The blueprints include general plans for the original Auschwitz camp... and the expansion of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, where most of the killings were carried out.

More than one million people, mostly Jews, died in the gas chambers or through forced labor, disease or starvation at the camp, which the Nazis built after occupying Poland.