Auschwitz and Birkenau
Trip Start
Feb 28, 2010
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Trip End
Mar 05, 2010
Oswiecim, Silesian Voivodeship, Poland
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Instead of taking an organised trip, we did this one on our own, because we'd read that generally the organised trips are quite short, and you don't get to see everything there.
So, walked to the bus station and got one of the Mercedes mini buses to Oswiecim, which is the town in which the first part of the death camps is. Easy trip, about 80 minutes, plenty to see of the Polish countryside. This mini bus dropped us at a rather remote gate into the camp - the main buses probably take you right in. And a bit of advice, wherever you get dropped, you don't need to find your way back there as there is in fact a public bus stop right in the camp across the car park opposite the visitor's entrance.
It was freezing cold and snowing. Exactly the right conditions to see this place in, as prisoners lived and worked outdoors in flimsy garments whatever the weather.
First we watched a very moving film in the cinema. It was made at the end of the war and shows the conditions in the camps then, along with many prisoners. It describes what was done to them.
After this we made out way to the main gate, which is where the sign 'Arbeit Macht Frei' (Work Makes You Free) was stolen in 2009. There was a reproduction sign over the gate, and as it is made of steel rod, it would be impossible to tell it from the real thing.
Though this is not a place to take photos, we did take one from outside the camp gate, and later one of the electric fence. Inside, the atmosphere is sombre in the extreme. The camp at Auschwitz consists of the former Polish Army barracks, and a few extra buildings and conversions. The area was much smaller than we imagined it would be, and it is very hard to imagine how the Germans could have 'processed' millions of people through this place and on to their deaths. Teutonic efficiency at its best/worst.
The piles of shoes, spectacles, cases and clothes left behind by those who died are very moving. All the signs that describe what you are seeing are written in a very detached, unemotional, factual manner, which is good.
I think that what affected us most here was the punishment cell area and the Death Wall. We didn't know that not only were prisoners killed in the gas chambers and by medical experimentation, but they were also punished for the slightest offence, like looking at a guard, or being slow, or falling over. These punishments demonstrated the greatest sadism, perhaps. Some prisoners were sentenced to death by starvation, locked in a cell, and left alone to die. Others were forced to crawl through a floor-level opening into a brick cell just 3 feet square and 7 feet high, without any openings, and to stand there. Each cell had FOUR prisoners in it. In one square yard. Those who survived the night were pulled out and sent to a day's hard labour. If they survived the day, they went back in the cell. For 12 days. Such sadism.
There is much more to say, but you need to go yourself, I think.
One sad aspect was the very bad behaviour of some visitors, particularly the younger ones. There was a big party of Jewish teenagers from Israel, their clothes advertising this fact. They were noisy and ill-behaved, and even threw litter on the ground. They were far more interested in chattering and using their mobiles than anything else. Sad.
BIRKENAU
We then took the shuttle bus to Auschwitz 2 - Birkenau, which is the vast area (575 acres or so) of wooden barracks where the real killing took place. This is a flat, bare, wind-swept place, so cold.
If you've seen the film Schindler's List, you will remember the railway entrance to this camp, under the wooden arch way. It still exists, just the same. What the film didn't show was that this rail line passes straight through the camp and on up to the doors of the gas chambers. Those who were to die immediately - Jewish women and children, and the sick - never got into the barracks, but were dropped off at death's door.
Otherwise, people were put into the wooden barracks, which were designed for horses, and slept three to a bunk in appalling conditions, until they died from over-work, illness or were taken to the gas chambers. Or were beaten to death by the guards or experimented on by the doctors.
The remains of the two gas chambers and crematoria are still there as ruins, preserved as they were dynamited by the Germans as they tried to disguise their deeds at the end of the war.
So, a place that shows man's cruelty to man very well, and is a warning that such things should never be allowed to happen again.
Back to Krakow on the public bus (bit more comfortable than the mini bus, but took half an hour longer), and a hot bath and a good meal in the evening.
