Today I went to the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps.
I took a tour from Krakow because I thought it would be easier. Lucky I did because between 10am and 3pm you can't get in as an individual. Having said that, it would be a much better experience to come early and take your time. We were herded around like cattle. Ironically, the place really isn't designed for that. They could just put conveyor belts down like when you go to see the crown jewels. More than once I was overtaken by other tours rushing through. Or they'd just walk into me. The tour guide was very knowledgeable but didn't do a very good job of connecting us to where we were. Too much info about logistics, not enough stories. But it was still great and I won't whine any further (sorry Anne).
On the way from Krakow they showed us a video from the liberation of Auschwitz. A girl on the bus asked the guide if she could put the subtitles on as she was hearing impaired. I thought it'd be kind of funny if she thought she was on the bus to a deaf camp only to discover it was actually a death camp. I think that makes me a bad person.
The video was actually one of the most horrible things I've seen. Aunty Julie I know you don't like reading about this stuff so skip this paragraph. Before the camp was liberated the Nazis tried to exterminate as many people as possible. The ovens couldn't cope so they started pyres outside to burn the bodies and the video showed the half burned bodies. I don't mean partly burned. I mean shoulders and heads the were outside the fire and remained intact while the rest was ash. It was nightmarish. They also showed Soviet doctors examining a toddlers corpse like it was a chicken being prepared. Oh and they showed the remains of the gold teeth removal. It seems that they wouldn't just pull the teeth out but remove the entire upper palette. It was disturbing.
They didn't have footage of the moment of liberation. The Soviets wanted to present a certain image, so a few weeks after liberation they got some former prisoners to go back and pretend to be liberated. It was quite obviously faked. They'd be looking all miserable then 3 army guys would march up, lift the bar and the prisoners would wave their hats and hug people. The cameraman said the real moment of liberation was nothing like that.
At the camp we had to go through airport security then gathered outside the famous sign. I don't know what it says but I took a photo. The translation is roughly "work will set you free". Who said the Germans don't have a sense of humour?
Auschwitz I is the smaller camp which is virtually completely intact and unchanged. The individual barracks now house different exhibits. The one most people know is the hair. The prisoners' hair was used to make socks for submariners and felt stockings for whoever it is that wears felt stockings. The hair was actually shaved off after they were killed. It is shocking to see as it represents the reality of what happened, but at the same time it is a big pile of hair. I spotted a plaited blonde lock of hair amongst it that stood out and wonder if that is something everyone notices.
Later the guide told us that the ashes from the crematoriums were thrown in the river or used as a raw ingredient in fertiliser. Throughout history people have considered other races or groups to be subhuman or animals. As an Australian I usually just pretend I didn't hear or act like I don't know what people are talking about when people mention the 'fauna' in our legislation (really tempted to tell your fauna story here, Sal). I can't say I've ever heard of people treating other people as products until today. They're people; not sheep; not fertiliser. Seriously wtf?
There was also a room full of suitcases, a room of shoes, a room of various brushes, a room of eye glasses and a room of artificial limbs and a collection of zyklon b canisters. It's important to remember how those things got there otherwise it seems like I went to an exhibition on hoarders. They had a zyklon b canister with some of the pellets behind a glass case. That didn't seem safe to me.
Another section showed the living conditions at various stages of the camp's operation. It ranged from sleeping on straw, to sleeping on blankets, to sleeping on bunks. This section was also lined with the registration photos of some Jewish prisoners. I'm not sure if they were random people or people who had lived in that barracks. All of them died though. This was probably the most moving part of the visit for me. You can see the sadness in their eyes. Even the ones putting on a brave face. I noticed two younger girls that looked alike in the photos who were obviously sisters. I hope they were together when they died.
We also saw a reconstruction of the wall where prisoners were shot and the gallows. The wall is now a bit of a shrine in remembrance of the victims. The gallows are just a metal bar to put a rope around. They had afternoon hangings routinely. They'd also flog prisoners which usually killed them; put them in those standing cells which seem to be a favourite method of torture throughout history; and hang them from a hook by the arms. Their arms were crossed behind their back for this so it would dislocate their shoulders. They also had suffocation cells and starvation cells (not sure why they had a special cell, surely any cell could be a starvation cell) for when they wanted to kill people in a particularly cruel way.
The final part of the visit to Auschwitz I was the gas chamber. It was the smallest of 5 (I think) and the only remaining one. The other 4 were at Birkenau and were destroyed by the Nazis before they left. This gas chamber wasn't done up to look like a shower. It was just a grey room. It is likely some people knew they were going to be killed as the ovens were in the next room and the building had a large brick chimney.
It seems likely they would have an idea of what was going on, but then again I have grown up in a world where a country has inflicted industrialised murder on an entire race of people. They hadn't. If it didn't happen already I don't know if I'd ever seriously believe it could happen. So maybe they weren't capable of believing or forming a correct idea of what that big chimney was for.
We went over to the Birkenau camp afterwards. It is also called Auschwitz I I. It is the camp from Schindler's list and is enormous. Not many of the buildings remain but the ruins are clear on the site. The buildings here were wooden which is one of the reasons they don't exist anymore. The Nazis could burn them before they left. When I say it is enormous I mean kilometres long by kilometres wide.
The train would come straight into the camp through the 'gate of death'. The prisoners would be unloaded from cattle cars and the dead removed. Often they'd have been in transit with no toilet, food or water for days. They'd line up in two columns. Women and children on one side and men on the other. A doctor would inspect them and choose those capable of working. The rest - almost all of them - would be sent down the track to the showers. They were never registered. They'd be put into change rooms and forced to strip. The change rooms had pegs so they could hang their clothes up neatly without them getting lost. Some would be given soap and towels. They'd enter the shower room next door and the doors would shut. A chute would open above them and a canister would drop in. The zyklon b causes them to suffocate internally. So they take a few minutes to die. After 30 minutes the ventilation is turned back on and the bodies are taken to an elevator up to the building above. Their hair is shaved and their teeth checked for gold. Then they are cremated. That is my poor retelling of the experience the extreme majority of people had of the camp.
Those selected for work were registered, had their photo taken and were placed in barracks. I remember at the imperial war museum in London there was a story of a prisoner who would shuffle along past the newly arrived prisoners muttering 'you're 18, you're a carpenter' so they would know to say they weren't children and they could work. He apparently saved many lives. Most of them would instead die of starvation, disease or in the gas chambers later, but not all.
They were crammed into wooden huts lined with bunk beds. They weren't heated and weren't plumbed. I think she said there were 19 huts in each row and the end hut was the wash room and toilets. Each set of 19 huts held around 15 thousand people I think. The toilets were communal and toilet time was in the morning. I counted 3 rows with 64 toilets in each. They were just like long benches with holes in them. You'd be touching cheeks with your neighbour.
In between the ruins of the big main gas chambers there was a memorial monument. We couldn't go too close as an Israeli school group was having a ceremony. They started singing which was lovely although I have no idea what they were singing. It sounded like Christmas carols but that seems unlikely.
I asked the guide what the feelings of average Polish people towards the Jews were at the time. She said that Jews were fairly well integrated into Polish society and there was no general ill will. At Mauthausen, remember, the local population went on the great hare hunt when 400 people escaped. She also said that the people knew these camps existed and there were rumours they were for killing people. It was even reported on the BBC in 1943.
I also asked if any capos (work supervisors) were convicted after the war. She said quite a few were. One was a female who had been a leader of the Polish resistance. She was sentenced to death when she was caught but because she spoke German she was instead sent to a work camp instead. She rose to the highest position a prisoner could attain within the prisoner hierarchy and was known for her brutality. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison after being liberated. From prison. The line between victim and perpetrator seems blurry.
I feel all the emotions you'd expect when confronted with such horror but underlying it all is a kind of shocked confusion. What the hell did those Nazis decide to get up to? Do they even know what they've done? Are they proud of this? Can they look their children in the eye? How can this be allowed to happen? How can you get a whole country on board? How can you get some people to actually go through with it? How can you get companies to participate? How can you keep it hidden for so long? Wtf humanity. How did this happen?
I just don't understand.
After we left we got to participate in our bus driver's fantasy of being an f1 driver. He zoomed back to Krakow overtaking into oncoming traffic, cutting people off and making me very nervous.
Photos are:
Lovely day for a stroll through a death camp.
The famous sign, which you can barely see. Sorry.
Confiscated pots and pans, suitcases, shoes and brushes. Photographing the hair was forbidden and rightly so I think.
A candle left by the Pope in the starvation room. A priest in the camp offered to take the place of another condemned prisoner and was starved to death in that room. He was later canonised.
The standing rooms. There are 4. They're so prisoners can't sit or lay down.
The wall where prisoners were executed by shooting. It's a memorial now.
The gas chamber. Bad photo but there isn't much to see.
The ovens.
The gas chamber/crematorium complex. It was only small with a large ominous looking chimney.
A rail car for transporting prisoner to Birkenau.
The bathroom hut.
The toilets.
The remains of one of the big gas chambers.
The gate of death. It looks like a face.
The gate of death from further away.
