Auschwitz Extermination camp.
Trip Start
Apr 20, 2011
1
32
44
Trip End
Jul 21, 2011
Oswiecim, Southern Poland, Poland
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
After leaving Warsaw we drove to Oswiecim, the town of Auschwitz (named the latter by the Nazis during their occupation). Dan had located a camping which also acted as a hotel and prayer\discussion center not far from Auschwitz. It was close to 9:30pm and dark as we entered the city and both of us were more than a little creeped out as we drove through and hoped we wouldn’t pass the camp on our way. Luckily we didn’t and made it to the camping safely. We made full use of their free wifi and water in the reception area until we went to bed.
The next morning we woke up early and headed off to the camp. We had heard that there might be a guided tour in English around 11am and we wanted to get there earlier than that. We made it at 9:30am and were told there was an English movie at 10am and our guided tour would follow immediately after. The movie, to be honest, was nothing special – and I found that the choice to have the dialogue accompanied by classical music a little tasteless. As promised after the movie we were met by our English speaking guide – and a whole whack of other visitors.
We were both a little taken aback about how many people were there of all different cultures and languages taking tours of their own. Dan was a little disappointed about this as it would certainly detract from our experience. Though I certainly agreed that it would be a less personal tour I thought it was nice to see so many people interested enough to come here and see what had happened for themselves. I find it so important that people are educated about our history, as gruesome as it was, to ensure that this never ever happens again. In fact, every Polish student is required to visit Auschwitz but the government does not implement any supplemental education on the holocaust. I attribute the racist graffiti to the lack of proper education about genocide in their history. In Germany, for example, not only is this type of graffiti illegal as well as any other signs of nazi support (white laces, iron crosses, swastikas, etc) but students are taught in depth about the holocaust in class. In addition, there are countless memorials all over Germany serving as reminders of the atrocities their country was witness to. This is not so in Poland and it is hard for me to understand why. There were just as many Poles as there were Jews in these camps – shouldn’t this touch them more than others? I just don’t get it…
Anyway, we began our tour around Auschwitz I with our guide and the many other visitors and visited rooms that had been barracks during the war but were now converted into regular rooms (initially restored and used by the Soviets during their reign) that held many pictures pertaining to the victims. It all went by so quickly – as tours do and this, as Dan had predicted, took away from the emotion we thought we’d be feeling. The information that was given was pretty basic and all facts we had heard countless times before. The only thing I learned was that there was a work barrack that was used to sprt through the belongings of the victims in search of things of value to be sent to the Nazis. It was called 'Canada’ because our country was considered rich due to our gold mines. Dan mentioned that he believed if Hitler had been successful in conquering all of Europe, he would have certainly gone after Canada next. Scary thought. Then we saw the gas chamber for about ten seconds and were done. Our group consisted of about 30 people and we were constantly intersected by the other groups, who were just as large. With people everywhere and all the talking, pushing, bumping into people, laughing, smoking, the not-so-interesting guide coupled with the lack of actual information in each section, we were not feeling the severity that we thought Auschwitz deserved. The first part of the tour lasted about an hour and a half and was disappointing to say the least.
We all boarded the shuttle bus to Birkenau, the second part of the camp. As soon as we got off the bus and spotted the rows and rows of barbed wire as far as the eye could see we knew this was going to be more intense. The same guide brought us to the old prisoners’ barracks, still intact and one of the crematoria’s. Within 45 minutes the tour was over. We couldn’t believe it. The camp was huge, at least ten times the size of Auschwitz I and there was so much more we hadn’t seen. We broke away from the group who were all heading back to the shuttle bus and decided to continue discovering the extermination camp on our own. We followed the train tracks and visited the some sites that tourists rarely get to see, the sites of the mass graves in the forests and the remains of crematorium 4,5 and 6. We spent the rest of the day solemnly seeing as much as we can. Still though, we realised that though this was the biggest and deadliest of the camps we were unable to get the same feeling of fear and dread we had when we had visited Dachau and Terezin. We just couldn’t figure out why.
One of the most powerful things I had witnessed there was the Israeli Army had come to visit. At one point they all gathered around near one of the crematoriums and performed an incredibly touching ceremony. They sang songs and said prayers and raised the Israel flag. It was really beautiful to watch a country commemorate it in this way.
At one point I heard a man behind me say that it’s a shame they had visited Auschwitz today while the weather is so good. He told his friend that they should have come to visit on a day where it was overcast or raining. I just thought to myself, "I don’t think he gets it". I think many people forget that life went on outside the camp for the rest of the world and that life didn’t stop just because people were being systematically murdered in ways that are too cruel to imagine. The skies were still blue and the birds still sang. Butterflies would flutter in and out of the barbwire while people we being shot to death. The trees saw families being torn apart and sent to gas chambers. The same trees, weeds, sky and earth we see now saw the mass destruction of innocent people. In Canada families were still buying bread and going to the cinema. Life went on but in Auschwitz it ended for most.
(More to come...)
Comments
daniel,you always touch me and again you have managed to leave a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye with your painting of a lilac tree and the rock with
your immediate family tree...thank you..thank you so much....much love..mom
I'm sorry your experience here wasn't as you hoped. It's sad to hear that people were laughing during the tour :( I'm proud of you guys for living your dream, and the last paragraph you wrote was extremely touching because there is such truth behind it. Thanks so much for sharing this with us. I miss you lydia! and say hi to dan