"This Way to the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen"

One of the reasons Krakow made my list of places to see is because Auschwitz is just about an hour outside of the city. I've had a couple people ask me why I wanted to go to such a depressing and horrible place, and honestly I had to think a minute about why I have always wanted to step foot in a place that was once a death camp. While I mulled it over, I realized my desire to go there was tied to one of the main reasons why I have always read so much about the holocaust- to help remember what mankind is capable of doing, to never turn a blind eye to injustice-whether it be large or small- so that I can do all I can to stop things of this nature from occurring again. I think I need the reminder to make me more aware of things that are occurring in the world today and the need for action. There is so much to be learned from studying these events and, for me, visiting a site where these events took place brought a greater understanding of the magnitude of what happened and how easily people changed in order to save their own lives.

Auschwitz is broken into three areas, I was able to visit Auschwitz main camp and Auschwitz Birkenau. The main camp buildings now house the items that were found in the camp when it was liberated, photographs, maps and other information on the camp. There was a lot to take in, and unfortunately I went in a tour group- bad idea- and we moved through things rather quickly. There were documents from the soldiers with tallies of new prisoners coming in, plans for how many Jews to kill from each European country, and many other documents. I kept thinking about the hands that had written up the documents and what could have been going on in their heads as they planned the deaths of so many. There were displays of every sort of thing found at the camp which had been taken from the prisoners as they exited the trains and were sorted into the camp. The Nazis were not wasteful and everything was saved- toothbrushes, shoe polish, artificial legs, hairbrushes, toys, suitcases.... 

There were a few displays that were the most impacting and hard to take in. One was the 2 tons of hair that was remaining at the camp at the time of liberation. 2 tons of actual human hair. The guide said this amount of hair represented roughly 40, 000 people. Over 1.5 million people were killed at this one camp. One of the other displays was the suitcases from the prisoners. It was hard to see the huge pile of luggage, so many with the owners name stenciled on... The hardest part for me though was the incredibly large pile of shoes. I don't know if its because I have a love for shoes, or just because I am a women,  but the womens shoes stood out so much in the pile. There was so much personality captured in these shoes that it was too easy to picture the type of person who may have been wearing it. I saw shoes that reminded me of something I would wear, or that I could picture people I know wearing, and that made my stomach sick. It brought these victims to life, I could picture all to clearly the people that had died, not just how they looked, but their personalities and how they carried themselves. These people were no different than me.

Auschwitz Birkenau is what I have always pictured in my mind when I think of concentration/death camps. Large pieces of open land, littered with barracks, and train tracks leading to the main gate. Arriving at this area (about 5 minute car ride from the main camp) was a little staggering. I have seen aerial shots of the camp and I knew it was large, but walking out and seeing it was something else. The barbed wire fence went so far in one direction that I couldn't see the end of it. Not all of the barracks are still standing, in fact most are not, but there are brick remnants at the end of where each barrack previously had stood. Seeing the stacks of bricks was kind of incredible to see. 

                                    

     

There was also the remnants of one of the gas chambers that was destroyed by the prisoners. It was interesting to see that the undressing area was 3x's the size of the actual gas chamber. I have always wondered why the big the facade- why have hooks for them to hang their dirty clothes when they have been treated so poorly in the past, why put signs up in their native language telling them its a shower, why build undressing areas that were so large, why did they sometimes call them ladies and gentlemen as they got off the trains to the camp...why? I don't understand why so much effort was put into some of these lies. Were they afraid of chaos breaking out? Did they do it out of pure enjoyment, knowing they were deceiving them? What was the reason?

It was definitely a rough morning, but I absolutely no do not regret taking the time to go there. It was an 

experience that completely changed my perception and understanding of the Holocaust.