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Published: January 21st 2008
"Work Will Set You Free"
The original entry to Auschwitz1Our travels have taken us as far East in Europe as we will go; to Krakow, Poland and the site of the largest death camp built by the Nazi's. Our words can in no way describe this place where an estimated 2.25 million people were murdered so we will not even try. With all the suffering, pain and torture inflicted here, it is the most sadistic place a person can imagine. Suffice it to say that this place needs to be visited to even grasp the slightest scale of what happened here although only the survivors will ever really know.
The camp is actually 2 camps, Auschwitz 1 and Auschwitz 2-Birkenau. Auschwitz 1 was the first camp and was built in an old Polish Army barracks. Today, in the barracks are exhibits describing what happened here. There are rooms full of original items taken from the prisoners like suitcases, glasses, artificial limbs, even a full room full of the hair that was shaved from the prisoners’ heads, hair that was then used to manufacture things like mattresses and cloth for lining military uniforms. These items become more significant and more alive when they remind you that each one of these
The Other Side of the Entry
The sign says to stop. If the prisoners passed this point they were shot immediately. There is a guard tower up top and an electric fence surrounding the perimeter. items represents a life. There is also a building where the punishments took place. Punishments like 4 people being forced to stand together all night in a space so small they could not even bend their knees. This was after working all day with little to no food. Next to this building is an execution wall where they executed countless prisoners by gun fire.
Only one of the crematoriums is still intact, the smallest one that could kill up to 700 people at once. The other crematorium had fake showers, but this one did not, they just lied to the people that they would undergo "delousing," and instead they lead them into a gas chamber which adjoined the stoves in the very next room. You can go into all of these areas but are not allowed to take photographs anywhere indoors.
Next you move to Auschwitz 2-Birkenau which was built from the ground up after the Nazi's realized Auschwitz 1 was too small to kill on the scale they needed. This is where you have seen famous photos of prisoners on wooden bunks, bunks loaded with 5 or more grown men on each level. They built train tracks
right in the middle of it where the prisoners could be offloaded and immediately "examined". If they looked fit enough to work, they were put in one group. If not, they were immediately taken to the crematorium where they were gassed and burned. The working group did not have it any better. The only purpose was to work them so hard that they died from exhaustion. The life expectancy of a healthy male was 6 months, 3-4 months for a woman.
While we were in Nuremberg, Germany (the former Nazi rallying ground) we saw a film where they were interviewing Germans who were alive then and getting their take on the events of that time. There were two old women in the film who were, still to this day, talking about the Nazi party as if they were the greatest things ever. One in particular looked as if, had the Nazi's still been around today, she would be ecstatic to join them. At one point she makes a fairly blatant statement about the Jews of the time saying she just thought they were being sent to a place like Jerusalem where they would have to clean their own trash.
A Vibrant Display
Illustrates what it must have looked like. While few and far between, we certainly have come across our own fair share of prejudice people, from around the globe, on this trip. For this we are appreciative that places like Auschwitz are being preserved so people can remember what happened here and do our best to prevent people like that old woman from ever doing this again. It also forces you to keep in mind that this type of racial cleansing is going on today in places like Africa and we as a free society should be doing what we can to stop it.
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