Visiting Auschwitz

We had planned  to take the train to Auschwitz.  Buses are more frequent and quicker, but we wanted to go by train as most of the 1.1 million who died at Auschwitz arrived by train.  Not in a coach, like ours, with seats, and windows to admire the view, but in a cattle car.  Ours was a local train -- a bumpy two hour journey with many short stops.  Each stop consisted of a short pause, then complete silence, pierced by a jarring loud whistle, a mechanical buzz sound and then a clunk as we we lurched forward.  I found the sound of these noises eerie and disturbing, and wondered how those crammed into a cattle car would have felt about them.  Each time they stopped, they must have hoped they'd finally arrived, to a better place, to be reunited with family members sent sooner, or to be working again.  Or did they know or have a hunch as to what horrors awaited?

We went on a Monday, sept 2, the first day of school. We saw many children dressed up for school and most surprising the older boys all in suits, a tradition here on the first day back.  

Yesterday, Sunday, sept 1 had been an auspicious day: the anniversary of the invasion of Poland by the Nazis, the Blitzkrieg that would see the country under Nazi control within 10? days.

Aga, our hostel hostess suggested the crowds would be much smaller this Moyday and she was right. Nevertheless, guided tours are mandatory  for crowd control (between 10 and 2 each day) and we were very happy to have a guide, especially ours who was excellent.  He spoke very quickly, but passionately, conveying a sense of the horrors, the scale of the operation, with facts and anecdotes.  

The camps are restored in places with photos and artifacts on display, to create a museum and memorial.  We saw closeup the doubly fenced rows of barbed wire, watch towers, the rows and rows and rows of bunkhouses, the sleeping arrangements inside the bunkhouses, the latrines, the selection process to decide who shall live (fit to work) and who shall die and finally,  the gas chambers. The railroad tracks were eventually extended into the camp to improve efficiencies of the mass execution.  

We learned of the collaboration with the Nazis by other countries (most European countries incl the Netherlands, France provided lists of Jews in their country or handed them over directly), international companies like Kodak (who I worked for for a dozen years) provided film for all the mugshots of the imprisoned, Coca-Cola pop for the soldiers, Nestlé, IBM provided counting machines that would eventually tally upwards of six million deaths efficiently and precisely and the scheduling capability to route trainloads of detainees efficiently to the various death camps.

I was surprised to learn that the first people put to death at Auschwitz were not Jews.  The camp was originally established to inter and eventually kill people who were considered dangerous or useless to the Nazis, incl Polish intellectuals, students, priests, gypsies, etc..  

Our gude asked people to call out the country we were from and he had a story that connected most of us to Auschwitz.   The fellows from Ireland and England learned that  from their country died here.  Us Canadians learned that there was a special area in the camp called Canada.  The belongings of all the people who arrived were confiscated and then sent to "Canada" -- a land of plenty -- to be sorted and given away freely to ... Germans back in the homeland.  Clothing, shoes, razors, pots, pans.  Everything.

Not all was shipped out prior to the end of the war.  The museum exhibit has some chilling exhibits of huge glass cases filled with thousands of pairs of shoes, a second case with over a thousand pairs of children's shoes.  Each pair of shoes represents a life lived, a human being who died too early, with an individual story untold.

There were dozens of tour groups going though at once, all grouped by language, with a separate guide.  Two groups stood out for me.  The first was a German speaking group.  I had wondered if Germans would visit and was glad they did.  The guide told us they get exactly the same description, the same text.  No words minced.  They don't just use the term Nazis, they refer to German atrocities.

The other group was a Hebrew speaking youth group, proudly carrying a large Israeli flag.

Our tour guide never introduced himself, but at the end told us that he gets asked how can he handle doing these 4 hour tours day after day?  (And our particular guide has lived here all his life). He said that most of the guides, like himself, have lost a relative at Auschwitz, and they do it to keep their memory alive in the hope that this will never happen again.

We took many pictures, but only for our own memories.  I'm only posting one here, of our guide.   We didn't get his name and perhaps that's how it was meant to be, for he was face and voice of the individuals who suffered and died in Auschwitz, presenting a passionate, thoughtful iron clad case for what actually happened.  

Lest we forget.