Poland was never in our plan for this trip, kind of out of the way and not on our route. But as we travelled through Romania and then northwards, the story of the Nazi holocaust got very loud. It had affected everything and everyone. So many of the people whose lives we had learned about, whose photographs we had looked at, in Romania, Hungary, Austria and the Czech Republic had ended up in this hell on earth. We wanted to pay our respects to the people who had suffered so much and we wanted to honour them in our small way by coming here in remembrance of them.
Auschwitz Birkenau the place where 1.1 million people were murdered, including 200,000 children. The largest site of mass murder in the world.
We arrived at Auschwitz early just before 7am , before the tour buses and hordes of people. There was about 10 of us in line no one spoke.
This is the first thing you see. The entrance gate that all prisoners walked through. The message reads Arbeit macht frei – work sets you free. But everyone knew, here you could never be free. And most likely the work would kill you… maybe that was what they meant. Only free in death.
I don’t know how to write about being here. I have never experienced a delayed reaction as strongly this. Much to my shock I never shed a tear while walking around. Never shed a tear in the room full of human hair, which they made into cloth and carpet or to stuff sofas and chairs. Didn’t get choked up listening to our educator telling us they had so many ashes from the crematorium they used it as a filler to level roads. Didn’t sob when I saw thousands of mug shots lining the corridors, of bruised and beaten faces and malnourished bodies – and didn’t cry when I walked down into the into the gas chamber and saw the claw marks on the walls. I was shocked I just felt numb. But the day after visiting Auschwitz was a different story. I was immobilized with grief for all those people. I cried most of the day looking at the photos I couldn’t get those shoes out of my head- the unfairness the despair the lice and rats the clinging to life the worthless way they were treaed by their fellow human those marks on the walls and the ovens burning night and day. Such suffering and such enormous peverted cruelty. and depravity on the part of the Nazis. there are no words.It was and is an utterly evil and awful place. And I feel changed by being there
Down the hallways on every wall were the mug shots of battered prisoners who had just arrived – It was the welcome- beat the shit out of them – take a photo. It didn’t matter men, women, young, old – brutalize them show ’em who is boss then snap. These pictures are mostly Poles. The practise of photographing and recording prisoners became difficult to keep up due to the massive volume of people being admitted. So it stopped. These are the early years.
Drawings, photos, statistics and accounts allowed us to understand the reality. Rows of barracks each housing 1,000 people. Filthy cramped conditions, dysentary, contaminated water and barely any food. Starvation was a Nazi strategy. Weak people offer no resistance. And when people did die of starvation which thousands did, there were plenty more transports of people coming to take their work place.
At the height of efficiency 6 transports a day were arriving at Birkenau 1,000 people per transport – 75 percent of whom were taken off the train and walked straight to the gas chambers.
The terrifying role call square on the right where prisoners could stand in freezing weather or burning hot sun for 24 hours.
Block No.11 known as “death block” Prisoners suspected of “crimes” in the camp, stealing bread, helping others , drawing, writing or slacking in their work were subjected to brutal interrogation that usually ended in a sentence of death by being shot or hanged. This was carried out in the courtyard between Blocks No.10 and 11. From 1941-1943, the SS shot several thousand people at the Death Wall
Inside Block 11. Pure terror. And the worn steps down to the underground prison. So many peoples feet. with its standing cells and cells built pitch black for death by starvation. Just left down there to perish in darkness.
Everyone was allowed to bring one one suitcase on the train. On arrival those suitcases were confiscated and sent to be sorted and all the valuables plundered. This was a huge source of wealth for the 3rd Reich and guards (who regularly pilfered gold and jewelry) You can imagine if someone told you to pack only one bag before you left your home forever you would fill it with your most valuable possessions gold silver and jewels. Another calculated Nazi strategy.
Inside one of the Blocks there are displays of prisoners day to day possessions. They were found in a sorting warehouse here, the only one which wasn’t burned down by the Nazis. When it was obvious the war was lost they spent weeks trying to erase any evidence of their crimes against humanity – they blew up the gas chambers at Birkenau and burned all documents and files from their offices. And then slunk away disguising themselves to avoid punishment. Such disgusting cowards. sa
80,000 shoes are piled up in one area – thousands of combs and brushes in another- cooking pots women had brought to prepare meals for their families, piles of glasses and tonnes and tonnes of human hair. And in another space suitcases all carefully handwritten by the owner with their name, ensuring safe return.
Lavender boots
and baby shoes.
(photos permitted)
Behind the barracks to the front of the site is where the first gas chamber was built. It was built underground to ensure that it was airtight – so when the gas pellets were dropped through the roof the gas would stay in the chamber. The ovens next to the gas chamber burned day and night at the beginning. But then this system was deemed to be inefficient as it didn’t “process” enough people fast enough – Birkenau or Auschwitz ll was ordered to be built and the gas chambers there, were designed most carefully. To deliver the best results i.e. “processing” or murdering as many people as possible and as fast and cheaply as possible. Yes, cost was a very important consideration to the Nazis.
Auschwitz Gas chamber. (photos permitted)
Birkenau or Auschwitz ll
A 3 km bus shuttle ride takes you from Auschwitz l to Auschwitz ll or Birkenau
Birkenau was the largest of the more than 40 camps and sub-camps that made up the Auschwitz complex. It is vast as far as the eye can see. On flat plains burnt out barracks (and some not ) litter the landscape, which once housed thousands of prisoners
The majority—probably about 90%—of the victims of Auschwitz Concentration Camp died in Birkenau. This means approximately a million people. The majority, more than nine out of every ten, were Jews. A large proportion of the more than 70 thousand Poles who died or were killed in the Auschwitz complex perished in Birkenau. So did approximately 20 thousand Gypsies, in addition to Soviet POWs and prisoners of other nationalities.
Here the focus was on mass extermination. Leaving the terrible transport that brought you to this place, here at the tracks a Nazi officer deemed, by looking at you, if you should go left to the gas chambers or right to the real showers to be processed for the hard labour camps. The gas chambers were blown up by the nazis at the end of the war to try and eradicate their crimes against humanity.
For me this barrack had special resonance. Women locked in this freezing or suffocatingly hot place with no food or water left here until there was space in the gas chamber. The atmosphere was exhausting and utterly awful.
At Auschwitz they don’t call it a “tour” – that would be just wrong – We join a visit with an Educator. Our Educator told us the stories the horrors of this awful place and said we should go out and share what we had learnt here. So I am.
Photos are not permitted in the room filled with human hair but most everywhere else they are even at the ovens. Not a picture I want.
People in our group said it will never happen again – but I think most of us know genocide has happened many times over, since then.
How did it happen – how does it ever happen – complicity, and a failure for people to speak up.