For those of you who care: I'm sorry that this post took me so long to get around to, but here it is, so I hope the wait was worth it!
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| The whole group (sorry, I don't know what's going on with my face) |
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| Our cute little hotel in Poland |
Friday was the last "fun" day of our trip around Europe. We spent a little over half the day driving and finally arrived in Krakow, Poland a little after noon. We dropped off those who wanted to explore Krakow, and then the rest of us rode an hour more to reach the concentration camps of Auschwitz.
I feel like most Americans have a sort of sick fascination with World War II and the Holocaust. I know that I personally find accounts of the horrors that occurred during this time disturbing and intriguing, all at once. I've studied it so much in school and by reading things on my own time; but nothing really holds a candle to standing in the place where these things actually happened. Nothing can prepare you to be so close to human suffering of that magnitude, a suffering that, until now, was kept safely contained within the pages of a history book.
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| Those headphones were neat-o, they just weren't too cute |
Our tour began at Auschwitz I. This was the smaller of the two camps that were in Auschwitz, but it serves as the main museum with displays set up in the former prison blocks. It was actually a sort of beautiful place, if you could look past the barbed wire fences. The prison blocks were former army barracks, so they were sturdily made of red brick and didn't look too shabby. It really did make this experience all the stranger to have blue skies, green grass, blossoming trees, and chirping birds as the backdrop to the death camps. Maybe it would have been more appropriate if the sky was gloomy and dark, with the wind blowing, but at the same time, that's the point isn't it? These terrible things happened in the real world, where weather can be good and where people buy puppies and where there is love and light. It wasn't some scary make-believe place that's full of darkness and despair, and in a way, that actually made things seem more terrifying, that something this bad was allowed to happen in a world that had so much good.
Our tour guide first led us to a block detailing how people were brought to the camps. There was a large map that showed all of the different places that people were forced to leave in order to be brought to Auschwitz. Documents of different people were displayed in glass cases and pictures hung on the walls of men, women, and children arriving at the camps. The majority of them believed they were here solely to work, which is why they brought so much luggage with them. Some had heard rumors of the killing that was happening in the camps, but they thought these were exaggerations.
A huge initial sorting occurred right on the train platform. Those who were sick, elderly, or unfit to work, like women and children, were immediately sent to the gas chambers for extermination. These people comprised about 70% of each group brought in. The rest were sent to work in horrible conditions.
The next block displayed all the items that were taken from the prisoners. When they were sorted, everything they brought with them was taken away. When they were killed, anything they had left, like jewelry or even hair, was also taken away before their bodies were burned. We first walked into a room where a huge display engulfed one side of the room. In it contained mounds and mounds of women's hair, removed from their bodies after they were killed. This hair was used for many different things, including being used to make cloth, some of which was also displayed.
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| Sorry it's not the greatest picture, but that's all hair |
As we continued through this block, we saw pile after pile of basic things that had been confiscated from the prisoners, things like baby clothes, luggage, shoes, Jewish prayer shawls, shavers, and toothbrushes. The things that really got to me were the hair, the shoes, and the toothbrushes. These things are so basic, so essential, and they were taken away. It struck me how stripped these people were of even the most simple things, and it was incredibly hard to see.
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| Luggage |
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| Shoes |
As we progressed through Auschwitz I, it was incredible to see the demeanor of our group change. In just a short amount of time, the group atmosphere went from joking and happy, to somber and contemplative. There was a really heavy silence that accompanied our group that was only broken occasionally by a few whispers, as we moved from block to block.
The next prison block we visited depicted the lives of the prisoners. Like I mentioned earlier, Auschwitz I serves as the main museum for both camps, so many of the displays actually were representations of life at Auschwitz II-Birkenau. We saw different sleeping arrangements for the prisoners, which ranged from straw or thin pallets on the floor, to wide wooden or brick bunks with three or four levels. Each level was supposed to hold three to five people. We saw the latrines the prisoners used, which is just a glorified name for wooden benches with holes cut into them. With everything we saw, nothing was adequate for the huge number of people that were held at these camps. Take out the hard work and the constant threat of death, and life would still be miserable and unbearable for these people.
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| People slept here |
Along the walls of this building between display windows, hung hundreds of pictures of some people held here. Each picture had information about the person, like their birth, occupation, when they were captured, and when and how they died. I think that was important, to connect faces with the terrible suffering we were seeing in each display.
Next we made our way to the prison of the camp. That seemed strange to me because the entire camp was a prison. On our way there we passed a walled off courtyard between Blocks 10 and 11. Here thousands of people were shot and tortured. The area was sectioned off to hide what was happening from the other prisoners.
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| A memorial to those who died here |
Finally we entered the prison block. This area was used to put people on trial and hold them for intimidation/special punishment reasons. In the basement of the prison were starvation cells. People were sentenced to die by starvation in these cells. There was a memorial to a priest who died here because he sacrificed himself to allow others to escape. In the back of the basement were standing cells where people were forced to stand all night and then go out to work the next day. (Sorry, no pictures were allowed down here.)
The last part of our tour through Auschwitz I was the gas chamber and crematorium. Most of the gas chambers were destroyed by the Nazis (or in one case, the prisoners) but this one survived because it was repurposed well before the war ended.
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| Going into the gas chamber |
It was surreal to be standing in the place where so many people died. The ceilings were low and it was dark and cold. All the Nazis had to do was drop some crystal chemicals down a hole into the chamber, and within just a few minutes, hundreds of people suffocated. It's insane that this actually happened. How could so many people be so systematically killed? How could people do this to each other? This was truly a horrific event that was made so real to me by actually being there.
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| Empty poison containers |
In the chamber were a few ovens that were used to burn the bodies. They were reconstructed from original parts. Our tour guide told us that one body could be burned at a time in each oven and it took 30-40 minutes to completely burn. They must have been constantly burning human bodies. So many people--men, women, children, elderly, sick--were murdered in these camps.
After almost two hours in Auschwitz , we boarded the bus and headed to Auschwitz II-Birkenau. This camp is ridiculously big. I believe the guide said that it's a square kilometer.
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| The main building of Auschwitz II-Birkenau |
One of the reasons Auschwitz was chosen as the site for these camps was the large amount of railways that run through here. That made transporting Jews and others from across Europe much easier. A large railway track runs through the main front building of Birkenau and divides into several more tracks. Around these tracks are large areas where the initial sorting took place, deciding who lived and who died. On either side of this railway section are rows and rows and rows of wooden barracks. Because they were made of wood, many of them rotted and fell apart, leaving only rows and rows of chimneys. However, a few were reconstructed from original materials and placed on stone foundations to preserve them for visitors. We toured through a couple of these to see how the bunks and latrines were situated. Each of these wooden buildings held a few hundred people, and there were so many wooden buildings. So many.
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| Reconstructed buildings |
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| All those chimneys represent buildings |
We walked down the railway tracks and saw a train car that sat on the tracks as a memorial to the thousands of people brought to the camp in cars just like this one. At the end of the tracks there was a huge memorial to those who suffered the horrors of the concentration camps at Auschwitz. Plaques with the same words but in different languages lined the memorial: these were all the different languages of the many people held here.
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"Forever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity, where the Nazis
murdered about one and a half million men, women, and children,
mainly Jews from various countries of Europe." |
To the side of the memorial was a destroyed gas chamber and crematorium. Birkenau had several of these, but this one was the closest to the memorial. It was blown up by the Nazis when word reached them that the camps would soon be liberated. It was so big and I kept thinking of the model of a gas chamber that was displayed in Auschwitz I. They crowded so many people in the chamber at a time, stripped of their clothes and belongings. These people had no hope, and died in last minute fear and panic because they were expecting a shower, not death.
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A model of the gas chamber (section underground.)
Aboveground are the ovens used for burning the bodies |
After a little over an hour here, it was time to leave. Honestly, I don't think I would want to spend any more time in these places. It was a somber and emotionally draining experience, and I probably still only understand the tiniest fraction of the hardship and trials that these people suffered.
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| The sun was huge and red as we left the camp |
We headed back to Krakow to have a couple hours of free time before heading back on our long trip home. We ate at a yummy little café and used the rest of our time to buy souvenirs, take pictures, and eat gelato.
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| The main square of Krakow |
We drove all night on the bus and almost half the day on Saturday. We had another fun, middle of the night, three hour stop at the border, but by mid-afternoon Saturday we were back in Kiev. It's not as beautiful as the rest of Europe, but Kiev really does feel like home and it was nice to be back in a familiar place. That week was amazing and it was so much more than I could've hoped. I'm so grateful I am having these experiences, and thank you to everyone who has supported me and helped me to have these special opportunities. Coming to Ukraine is something that I will never regret.
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| The view from our lovely bus seats |
