Auschwitz

So as noted in the last post, one of the main reasons for our trip to Krakow was to visit the most notorious Nazi concentration camp - Auschwitz. Unfortunately, Jenna was terribly sick the day we were supposed to go, so she had to stay behind while I took the trip alone.

I'll try to keep this short and PG-rated, but must just start by saying that you really can't put into words what it was like to be there. I'll say that it was difficult, but that really only scratches the surface.

If you've been reading you may remember that while in Munich last Spring we saw the Dachau camp. We had mentioned in that earlier post the common misconception about people being either sent to work camps (like Dachau), or death camps (like Auschwitz). In reality, these camps were all part of the same system, and in many cases being sent to a work camp was simply a delay before a person was sent on to a death camp. Even so, I think we were able to handle Dachau a little better because we knew that people were not sent there to die. Unfortunately, I got no such rationalization at Auschwitz...

The camp is actually a set of 3 camps in and around the small village of Oswiecim, just to the west of Krakow. The first two you've probably heard of and are the core of the camp. The third was smaller and I hadn't heard of it, so I didn't visit it at all.

The original camp (Auschwitz) is was an old Polish Army base that was taken over by the Nazis early in the war. It is actually not what you expect to see based on what you've learned from textbooks and films. This was actually a camp with proper buildings - two story buildings made of brick that still stand today much as they did 70 years ago. In the later days, this is where the prisoners who were selected to live and work were sent. Now, the old barracks hold a museum of the history of the atrocities of the Holocaust.

The second camp is called Birkenau. Later in the war, when the Nazis changed their goals from control and segregation to genocide, they had to build this camp. The first camp was simply too small for the German ambitions - the capacity of the furnaces couldn't handle the number of bodies necessary to enact the "final solution". So, they purpose-built this second camp a few miles outside the city.

Birkenau is the camp you're used to seeing - with the railroad track going through the main gate made so famous by the film Schindler's List. This is where horse stables were converted to bunk houses. This is where they built the bunks at a slight angle so that they could sleep three per bed rather than two. This is is where over 1 million Jews were murdered.

The statistics are heart-wrenching. Before the war, Poland had one of the largest concentrations of Jews outside Israel - 3.5 million. After the war, only 300,000 remained. In total over 4.5 million Jews met there end in Poland, after being transported from around Europe to Auschwitz and other death camps. To make matters even worse, the Communists who took over were not exactly friendly to those who remained. The majority were "offered" one-way travel visas - essentially a deportation notice - to Israel. Today there are only a few thousand Jews in the country.

The emotions you feel as you walk through the gates of the camp are indescribable. The plans were that this camp would be able to hold up to 200,000 prisoners. It never quite got as big as they'd planned, but at its height there were over 100,000 awaiting their deaths here. It is massive. The majority of the barracks have fallen apart, but they have maintained or rebuilt one row for the sake of history.

The design of these barracks literally was taken from the design for a horse stable. In order to provide some heat in the winter, a brick "stove" was put in each one - a long brick platform running the length of the bunker with a chimney at either end. For me, the most surreal part of the entire camp was seeing where the old bunkers had been, and where only these chimneys remain. The wooden portions of these have all fallen away, but the bricks are still standing. As you stood looking out on the ruined camp there was row upon row of brick chimneys as far as you could see.

I walked around trying to avoid the huge tour groups. I'm really disappointed that Jenna was not able to come, but I do think that it was probably more meaningful to experience it alone. As I walked around, alone and freezing (although bundled in my long underwear and heavy ski jacket), I couldn't help but try to imagine what it must have been like. For one - they would have been dealing with the same temperatures, but with no coat. Also, I'm sure that most prisoners were there without any knowledge of where their families were, or if they were even alive. As I wandered alone through the camp, I tried to think of what it must have been like to be there and not have anyone, to be really alone.

I took a moment to praise God for the blessings He's bestowed on me and my family. Firstly for my being spared the tragedy that had happened beneath my very feet, and that has happened in so many other places throughout history. Secondly, for the knowledge that my wife was safe and warm back in the hotel, and that the rest of our family members were also safe and happy.

I wandered through the camp, seeing the old guard towers and the platform where prisoners were unloaded from the train and sent - based on the doctors orders - to the left or to the right. One way sent you directly to the gas chamber. The other sent you to the barracks, where all you had to look forward to was a few months of tedious labor and physical torture before heading to the gas chamber yourself.

Lastly, at the end of the camp on either side of the Holocaust memorial, were the remains of 2 of the 4 crematoria, which stand exactly as the Nazis left them:

In a last ditch effort to conceal their crimes before abandoning the camp as the Red Army approached, they tried to destroy these buildings with explosives.

In all it was a very harrowing experience, but I'm very glad that I was able to go and have it.