A day looking at death...

Warning:  As the title suggests this part of the blog contains some very disturbing pictures and  history. 

April 13, 2010

Krakow, Poland

Our flight to Krakow was early and uneventful.  And once we arrived we were greeted by our taxi man.  Jeanne had heard from tripadvisor about this taxi / tour guide for Krakow and we decided to try him.  Bob's Taxi was just what others had said... fun, informative, reliable and cheap.

But our first stop was not a pleasure stop.  We came to see Auschwitz.

On this trip Scott couldn't afford to come so we traveled with Jeanne's friend Gloria (same Gloria that drove to Salzburg with Jeanne and who went to Rothenburg last fall).  Apparently she wasn't scared away while traveling with our kids!

Auschwitz

Jeanne was very concerned about taking Madison and Christina into the camp so we went in two groups.  First group was just Jeanne and Bryce while Gloria relaxed at a small cafe outside the gate.  Inside both Bryce and Jeanne were cut to the core looking at the displays of just a few of the things left behind by or more aptly taken from those who once occupied Auschwitz.   It was shocking.

Words will never suffice to describe what we saw.

Empty cans of zyklon b- each rep- resenting hundreds of lives.

An entire room filled with the hair cut from women prisoners with the purpose to be used to knit stockings for German submarine operators.  The color was bleached from the hairs over time.  The color was a dull brown.  This was extremely moving...

How could they degrade human life to the production of hair...

An entire room with pots and pans

An entire room filled with prosthetic devices both adult and children

A case filled with eyeglasses




A massive room filled with so many shoes on either side that the walking space was a narrow corridor.


Another massive room filled with suitcases that were labeled so as to be matched up with it's owner later... never.  The Germans had the prisoners in "Canada" immediately sift through their belongings to find the hidden wealth.

I did happen to hear of an interesting story of Zedenka Fatyl.  She was left for dead by those who "liberated" them from the camp.  They were English speakers and must have truly thought her dead or so near dead that they didn't even try to help... That is until she crawled into their barracks and spoke english to them.  She had learned it from her interest in music as a teenager and it saved her life.  They then gave her water and enough care for her to recover.  She currently lives in the U.K. and was surprised to hear how friends who knew her saw her bag with her name on it is prominately on display in Auschwitz.  When asked if she wanted it back- she didn't.


The buildings were well made of brick and could have been a nice place to live but for the horrible tortures and demented philosophies that once controlled this camp.
  

They had a "hospital" known as block 10 to the left where Dr. Mangala experi- mented with ways to kill.  Block 11 the building on the right was a death sentence and executions were fast and efficient.  The wall toward the back was where many of the executions took place.  Firing squads would line prisoners up so as to only use one bullet.  Block 11 was also the building where they first experimented with zyklon b the gas that they eventually used in the gas chambers.



In the basement of block 11 they tortured prisoners for weeks by compacting them into standing room only cells for weeks at a time.







Block 24a was the location of the lowest point some women were forced.







 Small scraps of memory were found all over.  Here was a stone with a handwritten name and date of someone who died here.

It was so personal, so real.

Here is the home of the camp commander whose family of 5 children lived... just within feet of the concentration camp.



 

After being convicted at Nurnburg he was sentenced to hang here where his horrors took place.

Birkenau

We then drove to the expansion camp of Auschwitz which was named Birkenau.  It was designed for death and it was massive.  Here is a video showing it's enormity.  We were driving perhaps around 30-40 mph and it took over 2 minutes to drive along two sides.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RfQ6T0cKDw


Each of those barracks whose foundations and chimneys are all that is left once held around 1,000 people.  Life expectancy of Jews was 2 weeks.  Others could live around 8 weeks.

There was only one original barracks, the rest had been scavanged by the destitute locals in a matter of weeks.

There were two massive gas chambers at the end of the railroad tracks.  And between them at the end of the railroad tracks is a large memorial.

On either side of the memorial is the bombed remains of the gas chambers (blown up by the Germans in an attempt to hide the evidence of the horrors that took place here).

Estimates ramge around 5 million Jews were killed- near 2 million in Auschwitz-Birkenau.  However, that is using actual records.  Since paperwork was only kept in the beginning for Jews, and much of the paperwork they did have was intentionally destroyed before the Germans retreated there must have been many, many more.  Trains of Jews weren't even processed, they were unloaded from cramped boxcars and marched straight to the gas chambers.

Seeing this was truly horrific.  But one story of the quest for a better life haunts me... apparently someone had the audacity to SELL train tickets for Jewish families to go to Auschwitz where their families were to be allocated land and be free to have a better life.

We walked for 30 minutes along the railroad tracks to the entrance where we saw many young Jewish groups.  It hurt to watch the raw emotions.

Never Again... never again.