Auschwitz-Birkenau

Sometimes history just plain hurts to know. It is not easy to pause a vacation to learn about a site such as this. However, it is a way of respecting in memorial those who suffered. A day of conscious prayer. A day to remember and reflect on history at its darkest.

This place requires no introduction. The complex at Auschwitz was a Polish military base until occupation. In 1940, the Nazis first used it to hold Polish political prisoners. Soon it was overcrowded with other prisoners including Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah Witnesses, the mentally ill, Soviet POWs and more political prisoners (especially after the Polish uprising in 1944). Auschwitz was purposely chosen because according to Heinrich Himmler, “the area can be easily isolated and camouflaged.” (Consider the first Ally aerial photos of the camps were not taken until 1944) Away from sight, Auschwitz became the stage for mass murder. Prisoners died from overworking, extreme punishments, hunger, disease, medical experiments, firing squad and finally, the gas chambers. In September 1941 the first experiment with gassing prisoners was held in the jail cells of bldg 11 where 600 Soviet POWs and 250 others were killed slowly over 2 hours. By 1942 the Nazis started killing Jews in earnest immediately as they came to camp, mostly in gas chambers. This same year a new camp was constructed at Birkenau (Auschwitz II) and then one in Monowice (Auschwitz III). The new camp at Birkenau had new “more efficient” gas chambers where 2000 victims could be killed every 20 minutes in each one.

Above the main entrance to Auschwitz I is the famous “arbeit macht frei” giving false hope to prisoners of an eventual freedom. Just as sickening was the addition of trees to the barracks to make the area more appealing and again offering the prisoners hope that this was only a transfer area until they were reassigned. The result is today there are some beautiful trees on the site that clash indescribably with the history here. There is such an eerie peace over the camp that I cannot describe or process it.

The SS tried to dismantle the camp and destroy photographic and material evidence before the camp was liberated. However, prisoners found ways of hiding evidence in walls they were forced to build. There was also an underground effort with local Poles, smuggling out information and documentation about the war crimes taking place.

Some Reflections

• I found it very interesting that the guide made every attempt to associate the camp with Nazis and not use German or made certain it was always Nazi Germans not just Germans. It makes a historical distinction that I think I can only explain by - Germans of today are no longer Nazis just as Christians today are no longer Crusaders. A crude example, but an important distinction the guide was earnest in making.
• The Polish people suffered greatly at the hands of the Nazis. Political prisoners died in these camps. Our tour guide’s grandfather had been imprisoned there for 6 months at the end of the war and luckily survived. One of Poland’s great heroes is Father Maximilian Kolbe who volunteered his life to save a fellow prisoner. He was then starved for two weeks in bldg 11. Still alive, he was then killed with a shot of poison to the heart. Our guide asked us to always refer to Auschwitz as the death camp in occupied Poland. The Poles often hear tourists refer to Auschwitz as “Poland’s Death Camp” and to them this a egregious and hurtful error - it was never their death camp.
• As I stated above, I cannot explain exactly how eerily peaceful Auschwitz I was. Even with the throngs of tourists, the grounds were muted somehow.
• Birkenau is simply overwhelming in its size - over 350 acres it is hard to fathom all the people that were “processed” here. I don't think any picture I took of the remnants does justice to size of the place.
• When I toured Dachau years ago, I remember there being a memorial on the grounds to reflect and pray. I found it startling that although there was one small indoor memorial, the real memorial is the camps. This created such a different experience. I almost have the sense that there is still a gap, that not enough has been done or can be done. I think that may be why there is not a wall memorial here - the camp leaves a deeper impression for it.