Dying in Auschwitz gas chambers could have taken as long as 25 minutes

Dying in the infamous gas chambers at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death death camp could have taken as long as 25 minutes, according to guides at the Holocaust memorial site liberated by the Soviets 65 years ago. Ginette Kolinka, 84, a Jewish survivor of Auschwitz, flinched as she heard the information. She was sent to the camp from France in 1944 along with her father and brother.

She blames herself for sending them to their deaths.

"When we got off the train that brought us here from Drancy (France), I sent my father and my brother there. My father was old and my brother ill, they couldn't walk. I told them to get in the trucks," she said, visibly upset.

"I didn't know that the trucks would take them straight to their death."

"After spending three days in unbearable conditions in a train wagon, I wanted to get some fresh air. It was August 16, 1944. I was sent to work," she said. From 1940-45 some 1.1 million people perished at Auschwitz-Birkenau - one million of them Jews from across occupied Europe - most killed in gas chambers but also from shooting, hanging, starvation, disease, slave labour and pseudo-medical experiments.

For Luc Seabright, a high school student from Toulouse, southwest France, its horrors are hard to fathom. He was part of a group of students accompanying French Auschwitz survivors to the ceremonies on Wednesday marking 65 years since the Soviet Red Army liberated the camp.

"It's atrocious to imagine just how long it could take to die in the gas chambers," he said. "Looking at all these objects, thousands of pairs of eyeglasses, people's hair and other personal possessions, it's very upsetting."

The museum guide relays other chilling facts: "Traces of cyanide were found in the hair, proof that the women's heads were shaved after their death. The Nazis used their hair for industrial purposes."

Seabright has already visited three other Nazi concentration camps in Germany.

"But there, nothing is left. At Bergen-Belsen, Neuengamme, Ravensbruck, there is only greenery. Here at Auschwitz-Birkenau, we can see the insane machinery of the Nazis." Ginette Kolinka knows she has only a limited amount of time to tell young people what she saw and experienced at Nazi Germany's most infamous death camp.

Around 100 Auschwitz survivors from across the globe attended Wednesday's 65th liberation event at the camp. Five years ago, 2,000 were on hand for the 60th anniversary.