Tour of Auschwitz

Last weekend, I took an adventure. I was frustrated with many things. I just needed some time alone. I have a very independent personality and I need and treasure time with myself. My travel journal has this quote by Wilferd A. Peterson as a 'Thought for the Day': "Go forth seeking adventure. Open your eyes, your ears, your mind, your heart, your spirit and you'll find adventure everywhere." I booked a flight to Krakow, Poland and then I booked a hostel with a single room. When my roommates and I were discussing studying abroad last year, we started a list of things we wanted to do with the experience. The first thing I put on the list was visit a Nazi concentration camp.

The main gate of Auschwitz I is the entrance that prisoners and Nazi soldiers walked through daily sixty-five years ago. The gate, which reads "Arbeit Macht Frai" or "work makes free," is flanked by two rows of electric fences. The site of Auschwitz I was a Polish army base before Poland was attacked and divided. Most of the buildings are identical in exterior appearance, but they served various functions inside. The Nazis initially used it as a command centre, but it's purposed evolved into a concentration camp and eventually an extermination camp.

The Nazis started Auschwitz as a concentration camp for Poles. Hitler's overall plan was to expand Germany, which meant taking land from the Poles. When the Germans broke their pact with with and invaded the Soviet Union, Soviet prisoners of war were sent to Auschwitz. The Nazis put gypsies in Auschwitz in their attempt to "purify" Germany. A large Jewish population in the surrounding area made Auschwitz a convenient place for mass genocide. Jews were also put on trains and shipped for days to Auschwitz. According to the testimony of the camp commandant, up to three million people died at Auschwitz. The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum has edited this number to about 1.1 million people, ninety percent of which were Jews from almost every country in Europe.

Block 11 of Auschwitz I was the place of trial and punishment. Most prisoners were sentenced to death by execution. These prisoners were walked to the Block 11 Yard to be lined up against a wall with a gravel pit and shot in the back of the head. All others that died in the extermination camp died of 'natural causes' according to the Nazi records. Those deserving punishment but not execution could be locked in a cell in the basement of Block 11 or sent for torture in the Block 11 Yard. The different cells in Block 11 include starvation cells, suffocation cells, and standing cells. The first two are self-explanatory and were not much to view, but the standing cells were opened to be easily viewed. These cells are about 4'x4' and normal height, with very small doors at the ground. Four prisoners would be put in the room at night, only able to stand, they would remain until summoned for an eleven-hour work day in the morning. Another form of punishment was hanging by the wrists in the Block 11 Yard. After hanging long enough to make the hands useless, prisoners would be sent to the gas chamber because they were not able to work.

The gas chamber and crematorium at Auschwitz I are the only that remain at the Auschwitz camps. Most of the deaths at Auschwitz Up to seven hundred people could be put in the gas chamber each time. The prisoners would be crowded into the small room after they had stripped from their clothes. The Nazi soldiers would suit up in gas masks and pour Zyklon B pellets in vents in the top of the chamber. After twenty minutes, a prisoner would open up the chamber to air out. After ten more minutes, the prisoners would be pulled from the gas chamber and carted into the adjoining furnace room. Here bodies would be carted into the furnace.

Auschwitz II - Birkenau was built when the number of prisoners required more mass genocide capabilities and more living quarters. The site was originally a small village that the Nazis plundered. Prisoners from Auschwitz I were marched to the construction site daily to construct buildings from the building materials saved from the village. Prisoners built the four gas chambers and crematoria at Auschwitz II and the warehouse Canada II. When the building materials were depleted, the Nazis brought in wooden horse stables from Germany that could easily be put up and taken down. Very few of these wooden barracks remain because they were taken down before the Nazis evacuated, hoping to resettle in Germany.

Auschwitz II - Birkenau was the largest of the three Auschwitz camps. Train tracks conveniently ran through the middle of the camp. The doors of the cattle cars would be opened for the first time since they closed after everyone was loaded (a ten day journey from Italy). Many of the Jews didn't see what they had been expecting. It didn't look like a new better life at all; the Nazis then changed their story and told the innocent Jews it was a work camp. None of their lies they told were believable. The passengers were immediately separated, men from women and children. Then a doctor would inspect each person to determine if they were fit to work. Those who were deemed unfit would be sent down the tracks towards the gas chambers to "take showers and be disinfected." The families unwilling to separate, pregnant women, disabled people, elderly people, and many other women and children were sent towards the gas chambers in the woods.

The living conditions were horrendous. Five or six people would sleep on each level of a bunk bed. Twice a day, the prisoners could visit one of the three sanitary barracks. Food was rationed to systematically starve the prisoners. The Nazis never worried about losing their labor force because there were constantly trains coming to Auschwitz with new laborers. The average life expectancy at Auschwitz II - Birkenau was one to three months. It is really remarkable that people would survive that long. Most lost half of their weight after a month. The Jews brought with them their favorite things that they wanted to include in their new lives. The Nazis stole all of their possessions and sold them off for even more profit. The prisoners were shaved and their hair was sold as fill. Nothing about the short lives they lived under Nazi control was humane.

I became numb as soon as I got to Auschwitz. No one said too much. It seemed like what I was seeing is older than any of the buildings and places that I've seen before. How could a place like this be used just sixty-five years ago? There's no doubt in my mind that it's real. The piles of glasses, shoes, leg braces, pots and pans, and hair are people. Each pair of shoes belonged to one person. Each face in the pictures is one person. Each person suffered what none of us can imagine. Each still had hope. The Nazis killed a population of people that are forever lost in history. Throughout the tour, I wanted to ask my guide if she had family connections to Poles that were evacuated from their homes. The people that survived are miracles in themselves.

"Auschwitz Concentration Camp." Wikipedia. 5 April 2009.

"History." Auschwitz - Birkenau Memorial and Museum. 5 April 2009.