Day 9
Auschwitz - Birkenau
Could we have imagined what we would see, how we would feel and react to this day? Our collective anticipation was palpable - some of us quiet on the bus, some queasy, some curious in order to be prepared, and some reflecting on the reports of prior visitors. The bus ride to Auschwitz through the countryside took one and a half hours. The camp abuts the town of Oswiecim, the Polish name for the camp, - either a “disconnect” to the gut-wrenching concentration camp, or conversely the proof that life goes on, and progresses from the past.
As the camp now welcomes well over a million visitors each year, according to our special guide for the day, Wanda, there are kiosks, a restaurant, and book stores on the site as park-like grounds surrounding the entrance and parking lot. Like Yad Vashem in Israel, the site is so crowded that we all wore earphones to hear our tour guide throughout our 2 and a half hours at Auschwitz. Wanda reviewed the historical context around the camp, offered all the significant dates for the Nazi invasion of Poland on 9/1/39 and subsequent establishment of the labor, concentration (Auschwitz I), and death (Birkenau, or Auschwitz 2) camps for the different victims in Poland - political prisoners, gays, gypsies, Poles’ hiding Jews, and Jews, the last of whom the only ones destined for the death camps. Auschwitz today is a museum, and to some surprise, clean, with building exteriors intact, pathways easy to navigate, and the vestiges of the Polish military baracks, the camp’s original purpose. It could have been a prison, at first look. It was entering the blocks (brick barracks), each dedicated to a different phase of life in the camp that uncovered the true nature of the site and peeled away our own composure. It should be mentioned that at the entrance, once again (first at Terezin) is written Arbeit macht frei (work makes one free). As Wanda reminded, this “freedom:” was only death here. We began in Block 4 focusing on extermination, with George Santayana’s famous quote on the wall in the foyer “the one who does. not remember history is bound to live through it again.” In this block are displayed all the statistics related to the number of Jews transported to Auschwitz from throughout Europe as well as photos extant from a German photo-journalist of the times, and also a model of the largest gas chamber/crematorium, the ruins of which we would later see at Birkenau.
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Block 5, perhaps the most unbearable to see, contained behind glass the remains of Jews collected by the Nazis - now colorless mounds of hair, suitcases painted with names on the inmates, their place of origin and birthdate - the privilege of labeling luggage was one way the Nazis allayed the fears of the arrivals and kept them in the dark as much as was possible about their future - also, the mounds of shoes, shoe polish containers, combs, brushes, kitchen utensils. . . . .remains of life snuffed out at a moment of living it.
Block 7 began with the quote: “This former prisoner’s barrack shows living conditions in the main camp Auschwitz I. They differed according to the period of the camp’s existence. The number of prisoners assigned to each barrack varied from 700-1000.” At the beginning of the camp, all arrivals were photographed for Nazi records, but as of 1943, tattooed numbers were used exclusively at Auschwitz because the Jewish inmates could no longer be recognized. In this block along the walls are rows of those who were photographed with both the date of entry to the camp and date of death. We noticed that the period from one date to another was 3 to 6 months for almost all. On display in the side rooms were both original and reproductions of bunks, long trench-like washing basins, and medical rooms used for human experiments.
Next we stopped in the courtyard between the barracks and the prison, where those who disobeyed the Nazis in any way were temporarily held and then executed at that spot, where a memorial wall stands.
Block 27 holds the memorial room. Much like the Hall of Remembrance at the Yad Vashem Museum in Jerusalem, this was our opportunity to stare at the memorial in the center of a large room, broken stones under glass, listen to Elise chant the memorial prayer, El Malei Rachamim, recite the Mourners Kaddish together, listen to the recorded, haunting male cantorial voice again chant the memorial prayer, and confront our own reactions and feelings to our experience at Auschwitz and all that happened there, as we shed tears and were so very silent for those who were silenced.
We walked down the second road of barracks to the edge of the camp to view the substantial house outside the camp where its commandant, Rudolph Hoess, and his family lived, outside the fence. He was served poetic justice as he was hung after the war (April 16, 1947) on gallows raised up just inside the walls in viewing of his former house.
We ended our tour of Auschwitz walking through a small gas chamber/crematorium.
After a short break, we bussed with our guide to Birkenau – Auschwitz II, the killing camp. We had no idea of its endless dimensions. While Auschwitz contained c. 30 barracks, Birkenau had over 300. The barracks had been destroyed by the Poles after the war. Later, leftover materials were salvaged and a row of barracks was restored so that visitors can more realistically imagine the scope of life and death in this camp. Strangely, the “heating systems”, that is, the chimneys were not destroyed. The onlooker sees miles and miles of chimneys soaring from the ground on both sides of a central “avenue” where the train tracks ran through the camp.
Birkenau is a T-shaped camp and the 5 crematoria were positioned across the top of the T so that new arrivals would not see their fate right away. We toured a barrack, having housed 400 and more where 50 would have been crowded. We were told that the “heating system” never worked, the 2 toilet rooms for all the prisoners were inefficient and resulted in rows of latrines affording no privacy, no possibility of maintaining sanitation, and continued diarrhea from the bread that was mixed with sawdust, making up the main staple of the camp diet.
We walked along the central axis, along the tracks to the memorial at the end between the destroyed crematoria. At that place, we lit memorial candles, and Rabbi Katz and Elise once more led us in prayer. It was a tender moment, made more so by other visitors, mostly non-Jews, stopping to listen with respect and emotion, along with our non-Jewish Polish guide. We walked back, noticing bouquets of flowers placed on the railroad track that ends abruptly at the top of the T (we were told that trees were planted at the end, now behind the memorial, to fool arrivals into thinking that the tracks extended beyond the camp and that this was not the final stop). All in all, it was the most difficult day of our journey thus far.
Contrary to the observation that Auschwitz I is too commercial because books are sold there in kiosks, food is sold in a small restaurant, and many of the barracks are now museums, our group agreed that the information and images displayed offered a compelling education on the atrocities committed here and at all the camps.
Auschwitz - Birkenau
Could we have imagined what we would see, how we would feel and react to this day? Our collective anticipation was palpable - some of us quiet on the bus, some queasy, some curious in order to be prepared, and some reflecting on the reports of prior visitors. The bus ride to Auschwitz through the countryside took one and a half hours. The camp abuts the town of Oswiecim, the Polish name for the camp, - either a “disconnect” to the gut-wrenching concentration camp, or conversely the proof that life goes on, and progresses from the past.
As the camp now welcomes well over a million visitors each year, according to our special guide for the day, Wanda, there are kiosks, a restaurant, and book stores on the site as park-like grounds surrounding the entrance and parking lot. Like Yad Vashem in Israel, the site is so crowded that we all wore earphones to hear our tour guide throughout our 2 and a half hours at Auschwitz. Wanda reviewed the historical context around the camp, offered all the significant dates for the Nazi invasion of Poland on 9/1/39 and subsequent establishment of the labor, concentration (Auschwitz I), and death (Birkenau, or Auschwitz 2) camps for the different victims in Poland - political prisoners, gays, gypsies, Poles’ hiding Jews, and Jews, the last of whom the only ones destined for the death camps. Auschwitz today is a museum, and to some surprise, clean, with building exteriors intact, pathways easy to navigate, and the vestiges of the Polish military baracks, the camp’s original purpose. It could have been a prison, at first look. It was entering the blocks (brick barracks), each dedicated to a different phase of life in the camp that uncovered the true nature of the site and peeled away our own composure. It should be mentioned that at the entrance, once again (first at Terezin) is written Arbeit macht frei (work makes one free). As Wanda reminded, this “freedom:” was only death here. We began in Block 4 focusing on extermination, with George Santayana’s famous quote on the wall in the foyer “the one who does. not remember history is bound to live through it again.” In this block are displayed all the statistics related to the number of Jews transported to Auschwitz from throughout Europe as well as photos extant from a German photo-journalist of the times, and also a model of the largest gas chamber/crematorium, the ruins of which we would later see at Birkenau.
************************************************************************
Block 5, perhaps the most unbearable to see, contained behind glass the remains of Jews collected by the Nazis - now colorless mounds of hair, suitcases painted with names on the inmates, their place of origin and birthdate - the privilege of labeling luggage was one way the Nazis allayed the fears of the arrivals and kept them in the dark as much as was possible about their future - also, the mounds of shoes, shoe polish containers, combs, brushes, kitchen utensils. . . . .remains of life snuffed out at a moment of living it.
Block 7 began with the quote: “This former prisoner’s barrack shows living conditions in the main camp Auschwitz I. They differed according to the period of the camp’s existence. The number of prisoners assigned to each barrack varied from 700-1000.” At the beginning of the camp, all arrivals were photographed for Nazi records, but as of 1943, tattooed numbers were used exclusively at Auschwitz because the Jewish inmates could no longer be recognized. In this block along the walls are rows of those who were photographed with both the date of entry to the camp and date of death. We noticed that the period from one date to another was 3 to 6 months for almost all. On display in the side rooms were both original and reproductions of bunks, long trench-like washing basins, and medical rooms used for human experiments.
Next we stopped in the courtyard between the barracks and the prison, where those who disobeyed the Nazis in any way were temporarily held and then executed at that spot, where a memorial wall stands.
Block 27 holds the memorial room. Much like the Hall of Remembrance at the Yad Vashem Museum in Jerusalem, this was our opportunity to stare at the memorial in the center of a large room, broken stones under glass, listen to Elise chant the memorial prayer, El Malei Rachamim, recite the Mourners Kaddish together, listen to the recorded, haunting male cantorial voice again chant the memorial prayer, and confront our own reactions and feelings to our experience at Auschwitz and all that happened there, as we shed tears and were so very silent for those who were silenced.
We walked down the second road of barracks to the edge of the camp to view the substantial house outside the camp where its commandant, Rudolph Hoess, and his family lived, outside the fence. He was served poetic justice as he was hung after the war (April 16, 1947) on gallows raised up just inside the walls in viewing of his former house.
We ended our tour of Auschwitz walking through a small gas chamber/crematorium.
After a short break, we bussed with our guide to Birkenau – Auschwitz II, the killing camp. We had no idea of its endless dimensions. While Auschwitz contained c. 30 barracks, Birkenau had over 300. The barracks had been destroyed by the Poles after the war. Later, leftover materials were salvaged and a row of barracks was restored so that visitors can more realistically imagine the scope of life and death in this camp. Strangely, the “heating systems”, that is, the chimneys were not destroyed. The onlooker sees miles and miles of chimneys soaring from the ground on both sides of a central “avenue” where the train tracks ran through the camp.
Birkenau is a T-shaped camp and the 5 crematoria were positioned across the top of the T so that new arrivals would not see their fate right away. We toured a barrack, having housed 400 and more where 50 would have been crowded. We were told that the “heating system” never worked, the 2 toilet rooms for all the prisoners were inefficient and resulted in rows of latrines affording no privacy, no possibility of maintaining sanitation, and continued diarrhea from the bread that was mixed with sawdust, making up the main staple of the camp diet.
We walked along the central axis, along the tracks to the memorial at the end between the destroyed crematoria. At that place, we lit memorial candles, and Rabbi Katz and Elise once more led us in prayer. It was a tender moment, made more so by other visitors, mostly non-Jews, stopping to listen with respect and emotion, along with our non-Jewish Polish guide. We walked back, noticing bouquets of flowers placed on the railroad track that ends abruptly at the top of the T (we were told that trees were planted at the end, now behind the memorial, to fool arrivals into thinking that the tracks extended beyond the camp and that this was not the final stop). All in all, it was the most difficult day of our journey thus far.
Contrary to the observation that Auschwitz I is too commercial because books are sold there in kiosks, food is sold in a small restaurant, and many of the barracks are now museums, our group agreed that the information and images displayed offered a compelling education on the atrocities committed here and at all the camps.
Any words must pale in light of this poignantly, painfully eloquent description. Again, thank you for allowing us to share in this almost unbelievable experience by seeing it through your eyes. Liz
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