site and see and appreciate the true horror and devastation of the Holocaust. You can read about it all you want in books and textbooks, but there was something about walking through that gate, that said "Work will set you free," and around the camp. It was eerie, shocking, sobering, poignant, and terribly sad all rolled into one. But whatever that emotion is, I am glad for it, because it helped me to more fully understand the depths of the suffering of the prisons at the camp and of Jewish people as a whole during the Holocaust.On the train to Poland, we had our third (and final) chance encounter with the Dans and Kurt and Kayla, who they were traveling with for break. Between the seven of us, we skillfully navigated a Polish train station in the middle of nowhere, where no one spoke English, and got to Krakow safely. Which was quite the feat seeing as our overnight train got in to said random Polish train station in random Polish town around 4 am, after only about 6 hours on the train. We all conked out on our two-hour local train to Krakow, but not before learning a few fun facts:
- Krakow is pronouced "Krakoff"
- the Polish currency, zloty, is pronounced "zwatee"
Once we got to Krakow, we had some time to kill before our 9:30 bus to Auschwitz, so we sat on a bench in the mall attached to the tain station and ate some breakfast. But apparently this was some sort of Polish social taboo (although I don't see why--the mall wasn't even open yet because it was so early)...because one of the Polish women cleaning the mall proceeded to come over to us and start yelling at us in Polish. Now, Polish doesn't sound as angry or hostile as German, but even so, it was pretty intimidating and unnerving to be screamed at in a language that I didn't understand, for an offense I didn't realize I had committed. It was definitely getting to the point in the trip where I was starting to miss the soothing sounds of good old English.
We had booked a tour of Auschwitz with Krakow City Tours and hopped on our bus at 9:30 for the hour ride to Auschwitz, which is what the town where the concentration camp was built was named by the Germans. They showed a movie about the history of the camp on the bus ride there, but I'm going to be honest: I dozed off. I really hadn't gotten enough sleep the n
ight before because it was such a short overnight train ride and the narrator's voice on the video should seriously be used for meditation or yoga or something, it was that soothing. But once we got to Auschwitz, I immediately woke up and was ready to go.We had a guided tour in English of both Auschwitz and Auschwitz II-Birkenau, which is right next to Auschwitz. The tour lasted around two hours or so and it was just one of the most moving experiences of my life. At times I felt like I wanted to cry and at other times I just felt angry that such atrocities occurred and that one group of people felt that they had some sort of right to claim utter superiority over another group of people. It was definitely an emotional day.
Our tour guide was great. He was very knowledgeable and gave us a lot of information about the camps, but he also struck a good balance between informing us and giving us time on our own to just take it in and process (well, at least try to) what we were seeing. He also conducted the tour with a tone of great respect for all those who were killed at the camp. He wasn't trying to make it into some sort of tourist attraction; it is a historical monument in tribute to all those who were murdered during the Holocaust, which was very clear from his tour. Since taking my Archaeology and Ethics class here in London, I haven't been able to look at museums and historical sites in quite the same way, which is a good thing. Before the class, I probably wouldn't have noticed that about the tour guide, but so much of our readings and class discussions have focused on the presentation of history and artifacts. So often historical sites, like Stonehenge, and artifacts, like human remains, are demeaned into mere tourist attractions and not given the proper respect. People just snap pictures and stroll by, completely unaware of the actual significance of what they are looking at. But at Auschwitz, pictures are banned inside all the buildings and exhibits, which I think is a good thing. It allows the visitor to really be present in the moment and is more respectful of the atrocities that occurred there. Sorry for the digression into the anthropological analysis, it was just what came to the forefront of my mind while we were at Auschwitz.
The tour itself took us through all the parts of both camps. Auschwitz is more intact than Birkenau, because the Nazis destroyed Birkenau towards the end of the war as they were fleeing the advancing Russian Army. The buildings at Auschwitz are also still intact because they are mostly made of brick, since the camp served as a Polish army base before the war. Our tour took us in the exhibits inside many of these buildings, where we saw many artifacts from the camp. There was the paperwork registering the prisoners, until the Nazis did away with paperwork entirely, because there were simply too many prisoners and too many people being killed each day for them to keep track. One of the most jarring parts of the day was when we saw the photos that the Nazis took of prisoners upon their arrival at the camp, to go with this paperwork. They were almost painful to look at; some people looked so scared, others looked defiant and angry and weren't looking directly into the camera. All of the names were listed under the photos, which made it even more real to me.
We also saw some cells and torture rooms in the buildings at Auschwitz, including the cell where St. Maximilian Kolbe died of starvation. Fr. Kolbe was a Catholic priest who was a prisoner at Auschwitz, and I had read a book about him in high school, so it was amazing to see the cell where he died, where a small memorial is set up in his honor. While r. Kolbe was at Auschwitz, two prisoners escaped and the Nazis customary punishment was to kill ten of the prisoners left behind, to deter future escapes. One of the ten that the Nazis chose that day was distraught, screaming about his family, his wife and children who he couldn't leave behind. So Fr. Kolbe offered himself in place of that man, a move that shocked the Nazi guards so much that they didn't object. Fr. Kolbe was placed in the starvation cell and left to die, a brave martyr for the sake of the other prisoner, who survived the war and returned to his family.
Another building housed the remains of the possessions that were taken from the prisoners upon their arrival at the camp by train. There were literally thousands of eyeglasses, shoes, suitcases, kitchen supplies, prosthetic limbs and crutches, and other personal objects. The two that struck me the most were the suitcases and the prosthetic limbs and crutches that had belonged to the handicapped people who were transported to the camps. Many of the suitcases had names and addresses written on them, which literally brought tears to my eyes as I walked into the room and saw them. You could picture the owner of that suitcase carefully marking their possessions, with no idea what was in store for them at the camp. And I think the prosthetic limbs and crutches were the worst part, because I knew that these were the prisoners that didn't even make it inside the camp; they were sent to the gas chambers immediately because of the Nazi's hatred of physical handicaps. After going through all these rooms, we saw the square were executions took place. It was surrounded by a brick wall, so the other prisoners could hear the screams and terror, but couldn't see what was going on. The Nazis did all that they could to instill utter fear in the prisoners. We also saw the building where the camp doctors carried out awful medical experiments on the prisoners, which was something that I hadn't realized occurred there. Then our guide t
ook us by the house of the commandant of the camp, who apparently used to say that the only way a prisoner would get out of Auschwitz was through the crematorium chimney. It was absolutely chilling to stand on the spot where thousands of prisoners heard those words. The last part of the tour at Auschwitz was the gas chamber and crematorium. Our guide took us through them, in silence, out of respect.After the tour finished at Auschwitz, we went a little farther down the road to Birkenau, the camp built by the prisoners during the war. All that remains of this camp is the crumbling brick foundations and chimneys, because the Nazis destroyed it in the retreat, so this portion of the tour was very short. The landscape was desolate. A few wooden structures remained and we went in one of them and saw the wooden bunks where 12 prisoners often had to sleep in the two beds. And although there were chimneys in the ruins of the camp, survivors say that they were never allowed to have heat or light the chimneys. And we saw the remains of the train tracks that carried thousands of people into the camp and to their deaths. The station platform where the prisoners were initially sorted is gone, but it is still terrible to picture the Nazis sorting those who would become prisoners and those who were immediately killed in the gas chambers.
The whole day, I was just struck by the depth of the suffering of the people at the camp. It was a cloudy, snowy, and blustery day in Poland and I was cold in my warm winter jacket and hat and gloves, but our guide told us that the prisoners were only given thin shirts and pants and clogs to wear in the biting winter cold. I couldn't fathom that and just felt like I deserved to be as cold as I was at a place of so much suffering. Yet despite all the suffering, our guide stressed to us that survivors of the camp always said that hope was the last thing that died at Auschwitz. With all the atrocities and adversity that these people had to face, these survivors had to have an incredible will to live and an unending supply of hope. And that's pretty inspirational.
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