PTravel

My work colleague and I took 2 days after a week's work in Prague to visit Krakow. Krakow is a lovely city. I won't review it here as it deserves a report of its own and we only had one full day there. That's because we spent most of our first day at Auschwitz and Birkenau, which are a 60-90 minute train ride away. I'm still processing what I saw there, so I'll only provide some impressions and some pictures. Please note that there were sights I saw that I would not photograph -- it seemed too morbid and disrespectful of the hundreds of thousands of people who suffered and died at these terrible places.


For my entire life, I've known of this place and the horrors it contained. My father fought throughout Europe in WWII. His company was responsible for liberating a concentration camp -- Dachau near Munich -- something I discovered only 10 years ago. He had once told me that he had liberated a concentration camp during the war, but would not speak of what he saw there and never mentioned it again. From the day the war ended until the day he died, though, he refused to set foot in Germany again.

I've read about WWII and the Holocaust quite a bit, seen movies, viewed pictures. I thought I knew what I would see at Auschwitz. It was not adequate preparation, however, for walking down the streets and through the buildings of the real thing.

First, a compliment to the Polish people and government. Auschwitz was, of course, the site of torture and murder of tens of thousands of innocent Polish citizens, along with the Jews, Roma, Russian POWs who suffered there. Poland's preservation of this monument to evil has been meticulous, and it has curated this nightmare museum with care and attention.Poland does not charge admission -- it is free for everyone to come and see.



We visited on a cold and cloudy day. The first thing that struck me was how "normal" everything looked.



Auschwitz I (there were 4 main camps and more than 40 subcamps) looked like nothing so much as a large collection of well-appointed college dormitories.





Incredibly, the Nazis included design elements!



However, this impression of normality was quickly dispelled by the presence of guard towers and electrified barbed wire fences.











Of course, once you venture inside the buildings the true horror of the place is revealed. I took no pictures inside, but seeing the reality of cells, the torture chambers, the execution walls left me deeply shaken.

Some observations in no particular order:

-- Some people were posing for pictures in front of the infamous Auschwitz gate. These were not somber and reflective portraits of people who were there to bear witness to one of the worst atrocities man every perpetrated on man. Rather, they were of the "smile for the camera and wave" variety. Who would want something like that?

-- I saw one foreign couple (I couldn't place the language) who brought two young children, girls about 7 and 9. I couldn't understand this at all. They strolled casually through the museums in the various buildings containing exhibits that were graphic and terrifying. The wandered around Block 11, the execution and punishment block, and calmly took in the unspeakable conditions in which prisoners were held, humiliated and finally put up against a wall and shot.

-- The gallows from which Rudolf Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz, was hung is preserved. I found myself staring at it for a long time.

-- The gallows is in back of a surviving gas chamber. This is a "small" gas chamber when compared to the huge factories of industrialized death at Birkenau -- it was responsible for "only" the deaths of thousands. You can walk through this facility, taking the same walk as the prisoners consigned to death in its confines. I found myself standing, alone, in the cramped, dark chamber itself. Clearly visible on the wall are the scratches made by prisoners desperately clawing to get out. I gently placed my hand on these scratches. Outside, I noticed some small pebbles placed on one of the foundation supports. It is a Jewish custom to leave a pebble on a gravestone to show that you visited. I added my own pebble to the small collection.

-- The question I asked myself over and over again was how could people do this? My colleague said, it was a few madmen. I disagree. Auschwitz I is a very big complex. It was staffed by thousands and thousands of German soldiers, and thousands more were involved in the logistics necessary to maintain such a place. They were not all mad.

Next post: Birkenau

PTravel

If Auschwitz was a place of neat and cozy horror, Birkenau was a vast and unrelenting landscape of terror. I had no idea of how large this place was -- it must be at least one mile square.





There is little of Birkenau left. With the war ending, the Nazis did their best to hide the evidence of their crimes. The two large gas chambers and crematoria were destroyed and most of the barracks were burned down. What you see is mostly a sea of chimneys, marking where each barracks stood.



A few barracks survived, however. My colleague and I got caught in the rain and sought shelter inside one of them. I do not have words to describe what it was like to pass through that door. A palpable oppression stopped me from walking in. When I did, the misery and fear of the place was almost tangible. My colleague experienced the same thing. Rain or not, we quickly left.

On our way back out, we stopped at the section of the camp where the selections took place. I placed a small pebble next to some others on the tracks.



I'm glad that I visited Auschwitz and Birkenau. I learned a few years ago that a branch of my family -- those who didn't have the foresight to immigrate to America in the early 1900s -- all perished at these camps. It is a jarring experience see these places that have always been the stuff of nightmares loom real and solid before you, but an experience I'm glad I've had.

exilencfc

Thanks for this most sombering of TRs and very atmospheric photos.

I do think that everyone should visit one of these camps, I went to Dachau on a school trip some years ago and the experience has always stayed with me - and it was pretty mild compared with Birkenau. Can I ask if you found it very quiet? Dachau seemed to be totally free of bird noise and the noise from the road next door didn't seem to penetrate.

londonfog

One of my great-uncles was transported to Dachau after being arrested in Italy in early 1945 (probably your father liberated my great-uncle!).

He took me to Dachau when I was 12, I am now 60 and I still remember it !

FlyIgglesFly

Speaking from my own experience visiting both sites, I can say that while the site and the history are gripping, the hoardes of tourists, especially those at Birkenau, really took the atmosphere down a notch. Loud, obnoxious people galore.

PTravel

It's interesting that you mention that because I noticed this too, not at Auschwitz but at Birkenau. I used to be a professional actor in Los Angeles and liked to spend my lunch hour wandering around the studio back lots. Auschwitz was like that. I had to keep reminding myself that this wasn't some reproduction stage set, but the real thing. Birkenau, however, was different. There was nothing theatrical about Birkenau -- from the moment we arrived there it was nothing but grim, unceasing reality. When we entered, the first thing that struck me was the total silence. As I mentioned, it is unimaginably vast, and there was almost no sound at all, the only exception being the slight stirring of the wind. At the very back of Birkenau, behind the remains of the gas chambers and crematoria, is a small stand of trees, and beyond that is a large field where ashes and, later, bodies were buried. Even in the trees, the quiet was absolute. In the field, which is now completely overgrown, we saw a single deer standing absolutely still, watching us. I tried to grab a picture but, by the time I had brought the viewfinder to my eye, the deer had moved on.

Both the weather and the time of year cut down on the number of obnoxious tourists. I also made a conscious effort to avoid groups of people. The conservators run tours in multiple languages through Auschwitz, but I really had no interest in joining one -- the site is well marked with explanatory signs in multiple languages and, frankly, I've learned so much about the camps over the years, I don't think a guide would have told me much I didn't know. Perhaps it was the weather or the relative lack of crowds, but everyone I encountered spoke only in hushed voices with deportment appropriate to the place.

bubb1

Thanks very much for sharing this trip report. I suppose witnessing bad behavior from some other visitors can be jarring, but perhaps some of these people are unable or unwilling to be so thoughtful to their surroundings, subconsciously prohibiting their emotions from coming to the surface. Blocking the ghastly history from emotional thought (by replacing it with goofing off/posing for pictures/etc) is perhaps instinctive human behavior for some, and may even be vaguely connected to how so many could participate in the atrocities during the war.

In any case, thanks for a thought-provoking and very interesting trip report.

GB

Thank you for your very thoughtful report. It is important that we all remember what happened and pass this on to future generations so hopefully it can never happen again.

tsastor

Good of you to write this report. My father took me and my little sister to see Auschwitz when we were in our early teens in the seventies. In Auschwitz it was a beautiful sunny day and although Poland was socialist, all was good and the concentration camp seemed unreal. I remember a small private cell with the picture of Hitler on the wall. I asked how could this be and I was told that was the cell of a Kapo. Weird memories of worlds that no longer exist.

hamburglar

Agreed. It's a powerful place indeed.

HawaiiTrvlr

PTravel, thank you for the sobering post about your trip. I think everyone should visit one of these camps to understand first hand the significance of what happened.

I have been to Dachau a few times when I lived in Germany during the late 80s. Probably one of the most sobering experiences of my life. It is hard to wrap your mind around the inhuman conditions the prisoners went through. I am thankful people like your father were able to liberate Dachau.

N965VJ

Thanks for sharing this, PTravel.

I'm not sure what to make of the people making "tourist" poses at the gate, but I'd like to think the couple with the young children were the type that did not overly shelter them. Perhaps a few years down the road they may have a conversation about the magnitude of what they had visited.

PTravel

To be clear, I didn't think the parents of the kids were disrespectful or anything for bringing them along, and the behavior of both parents and kids was absolutely appropriate. I was, frankly, concerned for the kids. I may be wrong, but I thought they were just too young to be exposed to this.

SanDiego1K

Beautifully written. I have been to both. The experience is forever seared on my mind.

Askartus

Very emotional pictures from a very dark period of my country.

When asked, what I, being a german, feel about those camps and the horror the National Socialism and its collaborationists brought to mankind, I always answer:
It is not my fault what has happend back then.
But it sure is my responsibility to make sure, that this never happens again.