(24 Jan 2010)
1. Wide exterior of Yad-Vashem hall housing new exhibition
2. Close of exhibition sign at entrance reading (English) "Architecture of Murder: The Auschwitz-Birkenau Blueprint"
3. Zoom out of blueprints presented as part of exhibition
4. Various black and white photographs of Nazi officers looking at blueprints
5. SOUBNDBITE (English) Yad-Vashem chairman Avner Shalev:
"The horrifying point is that those representatives of the SS planning units knew exactly for what plans they are planning those buildings and constructions and they cooperated and they didn''t pay any attention to the meaning of this kind of process - building up a machinery, an industry that means to systematically eradicate Jewish human beings, mainly, and some other prisoners."
6. Shalev giving media tour of exhibition
7. Various of aerial photos of Auschwitz camp on exhibition
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Marta Weiss, Auschwitz Survivor:
"I always knew that these plans were in existence but I didn''t think we''d ever find them. When you see them actually, in Corpus Delicti, you know, in front of you, you realise the bestiality of the Nazis, that the fact that they in cold blood sat down and planned...you know. It is one thing to kill someone when you are angry, but to sit down in cold blood, make plans for the biggest extermination camp that the world has even known and to plan it as if they were planning a parliament or a school or something is just mind-boggling."
9. Wide of Weiss giving pointing out photos of Auschwitz
10. Various of map showing location of Auschwitz
11. Close tilt down of sign showing numbers and facts about camp
12. Various of photos from Auschwitz
13. Close of sign reading: "Birkenau, winter 1942/1943"
14. Pan of wall with black and white photos of camp
STORYLINE:
At first glance, the neat lines and rectangular structures appear typical of any architectural sketch.
But the handwritten initials H.H. - penned by the infamous Nazi SS chief Heinrich Himmler - indicate what the seemingly innocuous drawings represent: wooden barracks, gas chambers and crematoria.
The blueprints for the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz in Poland went on display on Monday at Israel''s Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem, just two days before before the 65th anniversary of its liberation in 1945.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the exhibition just hours before departing to Poland to participate in the official commemoration at Auschwitz, where more than a (m) million Jews were murdered in just over three years.
The blueprints of the camp illustrate the meticulous planning behind the Nazis'' murder machinery.
The administrative documents at Auschwitz were kept at an archive next to the main camp. But prior to its liberation the Nazis burned the archive in an attempt to cover up their crimes.
However, some of the documents, kept in a separate building, survived and fell into Soviet hands upon liberation.
They remained there until the fall of the Berlin Wall.
In 2008, the original plans of the camp were found in an abandoned Berlin apartment.
German newspaper, Bild, obtained the blueprints and published its findings last year after getting them authenticated by Germany''s federal archive.
Bild presented the blueprints to Netanyahu in Berlin last August and they went on display at Yad Vashem on Monday.
Yad Vashem chairman, Avner Shalev said the truly horrifying thing about blueprints was that they showed that "those representatives of the SS planning units knew exactly" what they were planning for.
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