Auschwitz

Today was a bit of a tough day.  Kelly and I left Krakow for Oswiecim (Os-fyen-cheem), the town where Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau are located.  We opted to organize our own transportation and tour to save money.  This attempt started somewhat eventfully with a struggle to book a ticket on a city bus.  Despite practice, we are still mangling the Polish language, usually beyond recognition.  Finally having got our point across, and having figured out that the bus left from peron (platform) 2, we settled down to wait and eat one of the delightful bagels that are easily purchased (for the equivalent of $0.40!) on street corners.  A few minutes before our bus was scheduled to leave, we headed down to chat with the driver.  He informed us that we had in fact purchased train tickets, so we had a somewhat frantic run between stations, and arrived just in time to hop on our train.  After an uneventful train trip through beautiful green countryside, we arrived in Oswiecim and headed towards the museum.

The famous entry to Auschwitz I: Works Makes Free
The 'B' on "Arbeit" is said to be backwards because the worker installing the sign wanted to warn people that all was not well at the so-called work camp, and that the Jews and political prisoners would not be able to work their way out.

Photos of the prisoners.  Most of them
did not survive the genocide.

We joined one of the hourly English tours, and met our very informative and well spoken guide.  The tour started in Auschwitz I, which was set up as a work camp and was only able to house 20,000 people at one time.  The barracks where the people slept were all still intact, as were the cells where prisoners awaited execution, and we were able to walk through to see how people lived and died.  Some of the buildings have been changed to house exhibitions, which we walked through first.  The personal photos of a high-ranking SS officer survived the Nazis' destruction of evidence upon abandonment of the camp, and they lent a chilling reality to the locations we were seeing.  The hardest to see were the exhibits depicting, with brutal simplicity, the scope and personal nature of the crimes.  I wept the whole way through, as did many others on the tour.  After the Jews, Roma, political prisoners and other 'enemies of the state' had died, their hair was shaved and their belongings taken.  Much of that evidence remains, and is on display.  It was extremely distressing to walk into a room and suddenly see a glass case full of 2 tonnes of hair.  Hair that women had probably striven to care for, cut off before the women were burned in the crematoriums.  Another case held thousands of shoes.  Another, hair brushes and combs.  Another, suitcases with the names and birthdays of those who died, from which we were able to

The barracks.  The photos of prisoners can be seen reflected 

in the glass on the opposite wall.

determine the ages of those murdered... the oldest we found was in his 80s, the youngest, no more than 2.  Another held the empty remains of the gas cans used to kill during the 'final solution to the Jewish problem'.  One exhibit which sent both Kelly and I into hysterics was the case holding Matthew-sized baby clothes.  After leaving the barracks which housed the artifacts, we walked into what was known as the "death block".  This particular barracks was where the SS held prisoners before execution in the yard.  In many cases, the barracks themselves were used as tools of murder, with prisoners confined in 'starvation rooms' with no food or water until they died, or left in 'standing cells'... tiny spaces 1m squared where prisoners were crammed 4 or 5 together for nights on end, until they died of exhaustion.

From 1941-43, the SS shot several thousand people against this wall. 

A poorly-lit photo of the standing cells, which have been cross-sectioned to show how small they were.  Several prisoners would have been forced to stand in each cell for days without food, water or sleep until they died.

A crematorium at Auschwitz-I.

We carried on, by shuttle bus, to Auschwitz-Birkenau.  This was the death camp created by the Nazis in 1942 with the express purpose of efficient mass killing, and it accomplished this goal... over a million people were killed there.  Much of the camp, including the gas chambers and crematoria, were destroyed by retreating Nazis, but what remains is chilling.  It is many times larger than Auschwitz I, able to house 90,000 prisoners at one time.  However, as our guide reminded us, most people were at Auschwitz-Birkenau for less than 2 hours before being sent to the gas chambers.  The other prisoners were to be exploited for a few months, in atrocious conditions, until they died of 'natural' causes.  If you can call starvation and sickness natural causes.  An international monument stands on the site between 2 of the exploded gas chambers, but it feels like an apology that is too little, too late.

The remains of one of the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The many barracks of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Prisoners of Auschwitz-Birkenau were forced to compete for space
on one of the higher bunks, to get away from the refuse, rain and
rats that plagued the bottom bunk.  7-8 people were crammed onto
each level of these wooden bunks each night.

I feel it is extremely important to bear witness to the horrific history, and failure of humankind that took place in the 1940s.  However, grappling with that level of human ignorance, hatred, and cruelty was impossible.  I took it in, I coped, but I feel scarred by the experience.  It was a beautiful sunny day, our tour group was respectful and our guide was wonderful, explaining all of the details in an understanding and soft-spoken way.  However, I still don't know that it was a good day.  I feel heavy hearted.  My brain cannot comprehend the numbers, cannot fathom the suffering that so many people endured.  It was surreal walking along the train tracks towards the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau and reflecting that hundreds of thousands of people took their last steps there.  I'm glad to have gone, I feel it was important to have gone, but there is a dark history here that has left its scar on the nation, the continent, and our world.  I highly recommend the museum to everyone, but be aware that it is not an easy place to venture, and you will return from it somewhat changed.

The fields, just outside camp, where the ashes of the men, women and children
murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau were laid to rest.