Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2007 11:02:26 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: I owe you people a few emails, here's the first one...
Sorry for not keeping up to date in my trip journal -- I really didn't expect
that many people to ask me whats going on if I didn't send any emails for a few
days...
Last one left off on June 2nd, so this one is about June 3rd..
Today was the reason why I went to Krakow. To me, the highlight of this country
(or the lowlight, depending on your point of view) was the Auschwitz-Birkenau
concentration camps. Today was a guided bus tour of those.
The tour left the hotel (too promptly) at 9 AM, and after picking up a bunch of
other passengers from several other hotels scattered across Krakow, we finally
started driving the roughly 70km to the town of Oswiecim, where Auschwitz (the
german name for it) is located.
On the way was a pull-at-your-heartstrings documentary video about the
holocaust in general, and Auschwitz-Birkenau specifically. I think most of you
may already have seen the pictures posted on my website, but I'll give some
background info anyway.
Hmmm, a warning before starting.... I was purposely procrastinating writing
this particular email.. I dont even know what to write about a place like this!
I'll try to make the rest of this email similar in tone to that documentary, so
if you find it either offensive, sickening, or depressing, move along...
Nobody knows for sure, but depending on who you talk to, anywhere between 1.1
million and 1.5 million people were murdered here during 1940-1945, and mainly
1942-1945. The first two years was "experimentation and learning"... That's the
kind of place this is, and it was horrifying to see some of the places within
the whole complex. Not simply the gas chamber, but also the living conditions,
and -- the place that made me sick -- a huge hall full of stacks of human hair
that was used to make rugs and fabrics!!! Ugh. I had read about many of the
atrocities and seen different documentaries on the subject, but nothing can
compare to actually SEEING the place and the objects there that belonged to
real people... The place literally made me sick, but I'd still recommend it to
anyone! (Children under 14 are not allowed in the entire museum for obvious
reasons).
The concentration camp is made up of 3 camps, of which we saw two -- Aushwitz
I, which was originally a Polish army training camp before World War 2, and
Aushwitz II/Birkenau, roughly 3 km away and constructed specifically for the
purpose of mass-murder. Auschwitz I ( just "Auschwitz" from now on) had one gas
chamber -- which we saw and went inside on this tour... and Aushwitz II
("Birkenau" from now on) had 3 much larger ones, which were destroyed by the
nazis as they realized the war was coming to an end. The majority of people --
primarily Jews, but also communists, gypsies and a few prisoners of war -- died
in Birkenau -- that was a "killing machine" (I still remember those words from
the guide). Huge differences between these two camps!
The first stop was Auswitz.. There is a gate there with a famous sign above,
"Arbeit Macht Frei" -- "Work will set you free". A cruel joke, the only way to
get free of this place was death. And the ways to die: gas chamber, being shot,
tortured, used for medical experiments, starvation, overworked to exhaustion,
disease, or cold.
Upon arriving at the camp, an SS "doctor" would inspect each person for their
physical fitness. Those who he thought were fit were sent inside, all others
(typically up to 75% of the arriving people, including all small children and
the elderly) were sent to be executed. Families torn apart ... all that crap.
We saw many of the halls there, each one housing up to 1000 people (hard to
imagine so many living in such a small building). Some of these have now been
converted by the museum to house a lot of personal items found by the Russian
army after the camps were liberated. One building in particular -- I'll never
forget these sights -- a large hall full of suitcases, each suitcase having
somebody's name with their date of birth and the number of their train coach
that brought them here. Of course they never saw their luggage again.. Another
hall full of shoes... I'd guess literally thousands of shoes, stacked up from
floor to ceiling... Another one... the hair. That was the most chilling ... and
sickening.
There were very few buildings where photographs were allowed inside, and some
had signs saying something similar to "Please walk through this building in
silence out of respect for those who lost their lives here" ... After one or
two of those I didn't even feel like going inside a couple of others that the
rest of the tour went through.
The last stop on the Aushwitz section of this tour was the single gas chamber
there. Earlier we had seen a model of how it was used... Up to 300-350 people
at a time were herded into a large room where they were told they're going to
take a shower, so to remove all their clothing. After that they were led into
the gas chamber .. for their "shower". Gas pellets were dropped from above and
within 15 minutes everyone was dead.. After that, they were carried into the
crematorium next door, and their bodies burned. In Auschwitz a lot of this was
done manually, in Birkenau the "system" was "optimized" to "handle" the most
number of people in the most "efficient" way...
We walked in, stayed a minute or so (too much I think), and walked out, also
getting a glimpse of the crematorium on the way out.
20 minutes much-needed break to "grab a bite to eat for lunch" -- I didn't,...
I couldn't... I did a few other things... and we were on our way to Birkenau.
Auschwitz I was a palace compared to Auschitz II/Birkenau! As I said before,
Auschwitz I was actually a pre-existing complex of buildings designed for the
Polish army.. all of them were made out of brick, and they looked like "modern
buildings". Birkenau was constructed for the sole purpose of either working
everyone to death or straight away killing everyone, and the "housing" was
basically a bunch of wooden logs put together to make 4 walls and a roof. No
building foundations, no flooring as such, no insulation from the bitter
winters.. If people died from the cold or disease, so be it. They were going to
die anyway!
Fortunately (?), the nazis burned as much of this camp to the ground as they
could when they found out that the war was being lost, and they had to
retreat... The 3 gas chambers and crematoriums were destroyed, and so were many
of the buildings. So we were spared going there and seeing those. As for the
prisoners, whoever was capable of walking was made to march into Germany. Many
of them died during that. About 7000 people were too weak, and left behind to
either die of starvation, die of cold, or be rescued by the Russians later.
We only saw two such "buildings" from the inside, just to show how little there
was. One was the toilet facility, the other living quarters (if you can call it
that).
Finally we climbed up the entrance tower, under which were the train tracks
that brought everyone here. I have a few photographs taken from that tower of
the whole camp, more than 90% destroyed and kept that way.
In Aushwitz, I had asked the tourguide if any of the SS guards had taken pity
on any of the prisoners, or refused to carry out orders of torture or
execution.. She said there is no recorded instance of it.
What else can I say about this place... not much. I had had breakfast at the
hotel that morning; I hadn't eaten any lunch and I didn't really feel like
eating dinner either that night. I'd still recommend anyone (above
14--requirement) to see this place. It can make you sick to your stomach but
it's also very eye-opening in terms of how sick and cruel people can be to
others! The pictures are there on the website already.
On to June 4th next email.... for the "other side" of the Holocaust, the story
of Oskar Schindler... and also other people and places: Copernicus's
instruments, the first known globe, etc...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| June 2 | Contents | June 4 |