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Published: July 22nd 2013
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Infamous Gate
"Work Will Set You Free" Auschwitz ... in a word ... Grim!
Auschwitz, the Nazi's largest and most efficient extermination camp, is located about an hours drive from Krakow.
I don't usually do this, but I am going to provide you with some terminology. Otherwise, I think the following blog is unnecessarily confusing. I would like to note, however, what a brutal world we live in, when I have to make a clarifying distinction between two types of camps that should not exist at all.
"Concentration Camps" were camps established by the Nazis to hold (or "contain"), without trial, labor leaders, opposition party leaders, communists, religious leaders, some Jews (as compared to all Jews), homosexuals, gypsies, captured prisoners and other people in a position to challenge Nazi authority, or whom the Nazis did not like. Many people died in these camps, but those deaths were generally due to hard labor, unsanitary conditions, experimentation and/or the brutality of the administration. The purpose of the camps (at least initially) was not extermination. The first concentration camps were established in 1933, the year the Nazis seized power in Germany. Some camps (like Dachau, near Munich, Germany) evolved from concentration camps into extermination camps near the end
of the war, in 1945.
"Extermination Camps" were established as part of the "Final Solution," the Nazi's 1942 plan to systematically exterminate all of the Jews in Europe. They contained huge gas chambers and crematoriums, where millions of people were gassed to death and burned.
When you arrive at Auschwitz you are divided into tour groups by language and tagged with a colored sticker (orange for English, green for German, Blue for French, etc).
As a result, everyone who enters Auschwitz is sorted into a group and then has a sticker put on their chest. I honest to God do not know if the metaphor is intentional or accidental (I suspect its a little of both).
What we think of as "Auschwitz," is actually several camps located in an around the Polish town of Auschwitz.
You start the tour at Auschwitz I, which started as a concentration camp. Like Dachau, Auschwitz I evolved into an extermination camp. Auschwitz I is a former Polish Army base, consisting of 32 brick barracks and supporting facilities. Its a pretty big place. But once the Final Solution was set in motion, it was not big enough.
The second
part of the tour is Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazi's biggest extermination camp, designed specifically for the eradication of the Jewish population.
A couple days after the tour I was having dinner with some British chaps I met on a bike tour in Vienna, and one of them asked "what made the biggest impression at Auschwitz-Birkenau?" My response was two words ... THE SCALE.
If you look at the photo of the map of the Auschwitz area you will find Auschwitz I (which is a large army base) at the bottom on the right. Auschwitz-Birkenau is at the top left. Like I said ... SCALE.
I have been to concentration camps before (unfortunately, there are several to tour), but nothing prepares you for how big this camp is. You think you know ... but you don't.
Auschwitz-Birkenau is 320 acres of brick and wooden barracks, each of which housed 700-1,000 prisoners. The gas chambers and 4 crematoriums were located outside the camp in the woods (because the Nazi's were trying to hide what they were doing). When train loads of Jews arrived each day, from all over Europe (see the map in the photos), they were divided into
groups. The 30% that were fit for hard labor were taken to the barracks, where they slept 8 to a platform, on platforms stacked 3-high (see photo). The remaining 70% were immediately gassed, and their bodies burned, at the rate of 4,500 people a day.
Near the end of the war, as the Red Army approached, the Nazis attempted to hide what they were doing, so (1) the stronger prisoners were force-marched back into Germany and (2) those remaining were gassed, but a rate so fast the crematoriums could not keep up. The result ... mass graves.
In addition, the Nazis blew up the gas chambers and crematoriums, and with 1 exception, those facilities have been left in their destroyed-state, as part of the memorial.
Needless to say, it was a tough day, but a worthwhile one.
The sense I have is that most people's knowledge of the Holocaust comes from their general familiarity with the history of the extermination camps. For what it is worth, I think the more sinister aspect of the Holocaust was not the execution, but the planning of the Final Solution. It is frightening how systematic and cold-blooded it was. If
you are interested take a look at books (or even the Wikipedia page) on the Wannsee Conference, where Nazi leadership sat down on January 20, 1942, and planned the Final Solution. There is also a decent film called Conspiracy starring Kenneth Branagh and Stanley Tucci about the Wannsee Conference.
A note for potential Auschwitz visitors ... from Krakow, you can buy a private tour package to Auschwitz, or you can take a public bus out to the camp and buy admission tickets when you arrive.
I am usually a "do it yourself guy," but not in this case. If you just get off a public bus, without pre-paid tickets, the queue for admission tickets is HUGE, and does not appear to be very efficient. People standing in line seemed frustrated.
As an alternative, you can wander into any Tourist Information Center in Krakow and purchase a pre-paid package tour. It costs a bit more, but they pick you up at your hotel, provide a box lunch, and bring you back at the end of the day. Ez-Breezy.
Who should go? ... I will leave that to you. I met a new friend from Madison on the
train. She is traveling Europe with a group of friends and family, including her 10 year old daughter. She asked if Auschwitz would be appropriate for a 10 year old. I honestly do not know. Older teens for sure, but younger ninos, I just do not know. What keeps them up at night?
I am on my way to Vienna.
More from there.
JJF
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Sue
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Grim
Unreal. I read a lot of books on WWII and the Holocaust but seeing the camps in person would be surreal. When we visited Pearl Harbor tears welled in my eyes - so much death. My Dad fought in WWII - left school when he was 17 and was in they South Pacific for the Navy during his formative years. He never talked about it. We say "never again" but we still have senseless wars. What horror and suffering - the ghosts remain.