Auchwitz

WARNING: This post deals with details of the Holocaust. Parents, please read it before/with your children under about 13. It's not nearly as traumatic as the actual visit, but sensitive kids could be disturbed.

Hey all,
I wrote a pretty good Auschwitz post the evening after I went there, but there were technical issues with blogger (which I knew about ahead of time, which makes it my own fault) that prevented me from posting it then. So, I've been putting it off in the realization that it needs a reasonable amount of time and effort to do it right... but no more. Here is a rewritten account of my recent visit to Auschwitz, which is much better than the first post anyway.

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The town of Oswiecim, whose name was botched in German and given to the camp, is about a 1-1/2 hour train ride from Krakow. Then there was the issue of finding an ATM, then someone willing to break a 100-zloty bill, before I could get on the bus to the camp, so by the time I got into Auschwitz I, it was technically closed (to enter, but they let me in), so I had to come back the next day to see Auschwitz II.

The weather on the days I went to visit Auschwitz couldn't have been more perfect. By that, I mean that the first day was sludgy and raining and the second was snowing with crazy fog. The prisoners were forced to stand at attention for hours in rags and no shoes. Needless to say, I got some perspective just there.

There are two camps open to the public for visits. I think there were other extensions too, but they aren't open, I guess.

The first camp is smaller and more compact. All of the buildings are restored and in good condition (I'm still not sure if they were ever destroyed at all) and house museum exhibits about different aspects of the war and the Holocaust. Some were particularly poignant.

I had heard before coming about the shoes. Some of you may have too. But not even pictures can really prepare you for the emotional impact of that display. Thousands of shoes, piled high behind the glass on both sides of an interminably long hallway, sit in forlorn gray heaps declaring their mournful story. Every shoe had a foot. There was a separate window with a pile of hundreds of children's shoes that broke my heart. There were other displays in that block too. Combs, shoe polish, suitcases (each with family names). Looking around, I was filled with sadness and disgust, and I realized just how meticulously kleptomaniacal the Nazis were. You've seen it in the movies; they took everything. And I had to ask... why? Apparently, a lot of the clothes and things were shipped to Germany and worn by civilians. But even that doesn't explain anything very well. Which is one of the main things I learned in my visit to Auschwitz: When looking at the Holocaust, there is no answer. What they did can not be explained or understood within any sort of human frame of reference. I've concluded that the entire SS must have been either thoroughly depraved, or brainwashed, or possibly both.

Another moving display was a between two blocks. There was a courtyard where they would shoot prisoners. There now is a sort of simple memorial, with flowers. It was so sad and so beautiful.

In a similar note, the hallways of several of the blocks were lined with photos of prisoners. (The Nazis were also meticulous about their records) Some of these had flowers tucked behind the frames, reminding those who pass through of the human connections that still exist to these victims.

In the next block over were some of the most horrific prison conditions in history. There was a room with four tiny cells, each only about a square yard. Each would hold four prisoners at a time, and the door was only a couple feet high.

In another part of the basement was the room where St. Maximilian Kolbe died. These rooms were tiny, cold, dark. If there hadn't been the flood lights, it would have been pitch black. And the men in there with him didn't die of starvation, they suffocated. There was no vent, and they were stuffed in.

A plaque and candle commemorated the martyr.

But enough of the first camp. The next day, I went on to the second camp, which they say is about 2 km away. But in miles, that's really not that much, and I was in hiking boots already.

As I mentioned, Auschwitz II is much bigger. It was built by camp I inmates when the original 

camp wasn't big enough. In some ways, it's a lot like visiting the first camp. They've both got the same solemn atmosphere. But they've got a different focus. Camp I is more academic, historic. Camp II is more emotional.

For one thing, Auschwitz II doesn't have a lot of buildings. There are a few barracks that have been preserved, and which you can go into. The living conditions were horrendous.

There's also the building where all of the incoming prisoners were robbed of their possessions, showered, and dressed in the iconic striped uniform. It's big and, like most of the rest of the camp during my visit, full of huge groups of Italian students. So I didn't go very far through before giving up on coming out again before sunset. So, I can't tell you much more about it. They also had some confiscated possessions on display, but nothing as emotionally jarring as the above-mentioned display at Auschwitz I.

This camp is where the massive operation of gassing and cremating was in full swing. However, as the war was coming to a close, they hastily evacuated the camp, killed many of the prisoners, led the rest on a grueling "death march" that left few survivors, and burned the crematoriums to the ground in a futile attempt to hide their crimes. Today, all that is left in some places are the ruins of these death factories, in others, only the foundations. But the sites are still powerfully emotional.

As I came to the end of the trek around the camp, I made my way clear across half the camp to the entrance. I circled half of the area that once held so many prisoners in rows of prison blocks, and down the last row back to the middle. This whole part must have taken me twenty minutes, and as there was little left to read along the way and I was getting cold with the encroaching sunset, I was walking fairly quickly. This will give you an idea of just how huge the camp was. And at their peak, the barracks were stuffed with bodies. The Polish fog was so thick that I couldn't see much farther than 100 feet in front of me, so I was soon completely alone in the cold dreary camp path, stumbling over the rocky ground and trying to avoid the slushy puddles underfoot. There's no better way to really experience solidarity with the poor souls who once lived there, and countless more who never even made it to the barracks.

The experience of visiting Auschwitz was one that I will not soon forget. I know that most of my readers may never get the chance to make a trip to Krakow to see it for themselves, so I hope that this account of my experience has given you a little bit of an idea of what it's like.

God bless you.