Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau

For many years ive wanted to visit Auschwitz. I cant explain why, however I have always felt myself drawn to this place, presumably because I simply felt I needed to see it for myself. Those of you who know me well, know that I have always had a great interest in WW2 and that if I can extend my knowledge about this period in our history then I will.
Im usually all for making blogs fun, trying to find a humorous side to everything and laugh at myself whenever possible, but by actually coming here and visiting Auschwitz you realise very quickly that less than 65 years ago, this was a place of immense suffering, death and quite simply the location of one of mans most horrific attempts at genocide and there is nothing fun or even slightly humorous to write about this place.

Auschwitz KL I is located in Oswiecim, a small town about 60km west of Krakow. There are 2 sites here that are open to the public, these being Auschwitz KL I and KL II Auschwitz-Birkenau which is located roughly 3km from the former in the small village known as Brzezinka.
On entering KL I you are faced with the well renowned "Arbeit Macht Frei" gate and located just beyond this in a small yard behind the kitchen is where a band would sit playing music for those entering the camp in an attempt to lead them into a false sense of security about the possible fate that awaited them.
KL I is actually quite small in size, however, the entire camp is one great assault on your visual senses. Death resides here and as you enter the camp you can almost feel it in some way. This concentration camp could of so easily been turned into some kind of "over the top theme park" yet the people responsible for arranging the museum here have done only what I can call an amazing job in getting the message of the holocaust across. It is the pure simplicity of the displays that moves you. Many of the buildings you enter are virtually empty with just 2 or 3 displays in each room, yet these are so visually hard hitting that to add any more would probably just be too much and too overwhelming for the average visitor.
Im not ashamed to admit it, however I was brought to tears probably a dozen times and frequently had to make my way over to the window to compose myself before continuing my tour. To come here and not be touched by what you see means that you either have no heart or that you must already be dead.
All of the buildings have main halls running down the centre of them. Some of these are lined with hundreds of pictures of camp prisoners who were subsequently murdered by the Nazis. It is so hard looking at these pictures and even harder still looking into their eyes knowing what each and every one of them probably went through only to eventually lose their lives in this place.
Harder still are the pictures of the children. One little girl in particular caught my attention, the look of sheer terror in her eyes literally broke my heart and it will be something that will remain with me until the day I die.
Moving further through the displays you come to the items that were taken from the victims. Huge piles of shoes, suitcases, prosthetics, glasses and of course the most moving items of all, childrens clothing, shoes and toys. It was probably this display that hit me hardest of all and at this point you really lose all comprehension of how human beings can resort to such evil.
One of the buildings farthest to the East of the camp is known as Building 11 or "The Death Block". This building was a prison in its own right and contained prisoners who had "committed crimes" no matter how small, within Auschwitz itself. Many thousands of prisoners were shot in the courtyard between buildings 10 and 11, many more losing their lives in the cells below, either through hanging, starvation, suffocation or just through sheer exhaustion. The first experiments with Zyklon B were also carried out in the cellar of this building during 1941.
KL I is also the site with the only surviving Gas Chamber and Crematorium. This is located outside of the wire and was in use between 1940 and 1943. The chambers and furnaces were capable of handling up to 350 bodies daily however this was nothing compared to the mass extermination that took place in the 4 much larger Gas Chambers of KL II Auschwitz-Birkenau.

After the impact that KL I makes on you, KL II Auschwitz-Birkenau then shocks you in a completely different way. Approaching by foot, you can not help but be astounded by the sheer size of this camp. While many of the brick buildings to the left of the main gate remain, the area to the right where wooden buildings once stood is mostly devoid of structures, although much of the brickwork foundations and hearths of each building remain giving you an idea of how vast this site really is.
Making your way along the railway track towards the infamous Main Gate at Birkenau, you can not even begin to grasp that over 1 million people entered this camp in a similar way most of who were often slaughtered less than an hour or two later in the most cruel and inhumane way possible.
Inside the gate, the track parts going either side of a huge raised area about 10m wide by 1km long, lined with gun towers on each side. This is where the prisoners were offloaded. As you walk down this strip you try to imagine how it must of been to be greeted by armed soldiers and SS officers screaming "Raus Raus", the barking of Alsatians and the general confusion of disembarking from a filthy carriage that has been your home for days into the complete unknown.
It was here that the prisoners were separated, many of them being led off down a long path that runs through the Eastern part of the camp to their deaths in Gas Chambers 4 and 5, while those who were more "fortunate" were led away to be disinfected before being sent to the workers accommodation areas.
One row of wooden buildings has been reconstructed to give you a vague idea of how it must of felt to live in these conditions. On a warm, sunny spring day, as it was when I visited, it is even harder to imagine what it must of been like to live here in the freezing cold depths of a Polish winter with nothing more than the thinnest of camp clothing in what was effectively a shed with no hard floor. You cant even begin to conceive how conditions must of been here, the sights, the diseases and the smells.
On the western side of the camp was the womens area. These buildings were built from brick and remain to this day. Here is also what remains of the building where over 200 sets of twins were kept for Josef Mengeles horrific experiments. Here you will also find "Building 25" or KL IIs own "Death Block" This was a building where women prisoners who were no longer fit to work were sent before being sent to the Gas Chambers. Many died here due to the horrific unsanitary conditions.
Towards the rear of the camp you will find the remnants of what was once the site of Gas Chambers 2 and 3. Although partially destroyed you can still make out the rooms and for what purpose they were used. Standing here, on the exact site of one of the largest concentrated mass murders in history can only be described as totally mind numbing and it is harder still to grasp the concept that human beings were being fed into this machine, day after day, night after night in a relentless attempt to rid a fanatical regime of its undesirables. Yet it did happen, the proof is right here and it is something that we must never be allowed to forget.
Towards the extreme rear of the camp you will find "The Sauna" and the foundations of what was once "Canada" or the area where the victims possessions were sorted for transport back to Germany.
The Sauna is a building where prisoners were "disinfected" and "cleansed" before being sent to work in the camp. The visitor follows the same route through the building as the prisoner would of taken. The new arrivals were first of all forced to strip off and were then made to walk down the "dirty corridor" to an area where they were tattooed, their hair was shaved and they were inspected by the SS doctors. Prisoners were then forced to shower and be "disinfected". After this they entered the drying room where the prisoners would often wait several hours seated on a stone cold floor before they received camp clothing.
Finally, a short distance to the West of The Sauna are the remnants of Gas Chambers 4 and 5. All around these crematoria are pits that are filled with water where the ashes of the murdered victims were thrown.

Around 1.5 million people died at Auschwitz and while a large percentage were Jews, many others also died here at the hands of the Nazi death machine. Russian Soldiers, Poles, Gipsies, Political Prisoners, Disabled and Mentally Retarded people, Homosexuals, Resistance members and even Jehovahs Witnesses were all murdered here simply because they were labelled as undesirables or refused to submit to the Nazi mantra.
If you are interested in the Concentration camps and already have a good working knowledge about them then I would suggest that you visit Auschwitz on your own or as a very small group. To visit a unique place like this is something not to be taken lightly and the less people there are in your group the more time and solitude you will have for private contemplation.
Auschwitz will always be thought of as a place of death and horror a place where one of the most unimaginable acts of wickedness in the history of man took place. However, after visiting I would also like to think of Auschwitz as a place of hope, a place where almost 1.5 million men, women and children didnt lose their lives in vain. I would like to think and believe that the sacrifice these people made will forever be a reminder to us that as human beings we must never allow a horrific act of this nature ever to happen again and by us doing this, the memory of each and every person who died in this place will always live on.

Dedicated to the memory of every Man, Woman and Child who was murdered at Auschwitz.

May they forever rest in peace.

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