The death camp

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I don´t want to write a lot about this day, but I said I would blog the trip and I figure if you are still reading by now you´ll be interested in what I have to say.

Firstly, we learnt that Auschwitz has been a musuem for over 60 years with 1,300,000 visitors lat year I think it is deifinately something you should see for yourself. Its a strange thing that Dan and I were both drawn to including this in the trip even though we cant explain why we wanted to see it.

We learnt that the Nazis had reached Krakow within 6 days of invading Poland and starting WWII, thats incredible speed and studying the map of Europe and the focus points of the War it made it obvious why Auschitz was the perfect location to turn into a Concentration and then Death camp. You are obliged to take a tour when visiting Auschwitz (our guide was great). The major point she wanted to impress upon us was that Auschwitz was first a concentration camp for Polish rebels, intellectuals and prisoners of war. It was later turned into a death camp in which 80% of the Jews that arrived were murdered immediately and so were never ´prisoners´of the Camp.

Entering the Camp was just creepy, our skin was crawling and we felt on edge all day. Auschwitz consists of 2 camps Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II- Aka Birkenau. The first camp is really set up like a museum with the individual prison blocks set up to exhibit the prisoners belongings (hundreds of suitcases piled up with Jewish names emblazoned on them - labelled because they thought they would be returning to their luggage), the gas chambers, the everyday lives of the prisoners, photos of the prisoners etc etc. Really informative and totally overwhelming culminating in a walk through the smallest (and only one in camp I) gas chamber. Messed up stuff and like nothing I´ve ever seen before.

After a couple of hours touring around Auschwitz I we were taken to Birkenau and this is when it becomes completely too much. Auschwitz I teaches you all about the experience and significance of what the Nazis did but Birkenau places it on a larger scale than you could imagine. Its huge, hut after hut where hundreds of thousands of prisoners were kept in overcrowded and atrocious conditions. This place was what we had in our minds when we imagined concentration camps, but was far worse than we had imagined.

We followed the railway tracks down to the sorting platforms where the Jews arrived on cattle trains and were marched straight to the Gas chambers, as cooly and efficiently as anything. There was a small Jewish tour group standing on the platform who spotaneously began singing together - I dont know what they were singing but tears flowed. One of those incredible moments travelling that you could never plan but feel so privileged to have witnessed. We continued down the tracks to the major Gas chambers and furnaces that could murder up to 2000 people at a time. We quitely tried to take it all in and viewed the simple monument that sits between two of the Gas chambers that just asks that this place be a warning. With so many complicated concepts to fathom during the day the simple words on the memorial were just perfect. (Again!) it bought tears to our eyes and we just wanted to get out of there as soon as we could. It had all just added up on us and we really couldnt bear it anymore. Completely tragic and one of the hardest days of my life.

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