Birkenau

Birkenau Feb. 28, 2011

During the beginning of the war, Aushwitz housed about 100,000 prisoners.  It was quickly realized by the Nazis that Auschwitz was not going to be big enough to hold all the incoming prisoners.  Prisoners were then used as slave labor to build Birkenau.  Birkenau is located about 10 minutes from Auschwitz and it is about 30 times the size.  It is the largest cemetary in the world and you can definitely feel that as you walk through the entrance.  Most of Birkenau was destroyed by the Nazis after the war or it was rummaged by people who wanted to use the materials from the buildings.  Most of Birkenau is a flat waste land, where you can see the outlines of buildings and heaviness in the air.  The temperature was -5 degrees celcius and I was freezing.  I was layered with a wool sweater, jacket, gloves, scarf, and hat and I was freezing.  I cannot even imagine how the prisoners survived the -25 degree celcius winter temperature in just a thin pair of pajammas.  Unimaginable. 

                Birkenau was divided into three sections.  As you enter, on the right, is B1, the women’s barracks.  B2 was in the straight back, where the crematoriums were, and B3 was to the left, the men’s barracks.  As you enter, you can see the train tracks that led into the camp.  The train would enter, and prisoners would exit the railcar.  There would be up to 100 people per car for up to days of travel.  People coming from near by, like Poland, would be able to surive the journey, but people that were traveling as far away as Greece would not likely survive the trip.  I found out that people from Greece were even forced to buy their own “train ticket” to hell.  After the war, hundreds of train tickets from Greece to Auschwitz were found by Allied soldiers.  I can’t even imagine what it was like to have to “buy” your own ticket to hell.  It makes the saying, “one way ticket to hell” all the more realistic.  In fact, when I hear people make comments like, “I am in hell,” or other simple everyday phrases, they just have NO idea what it is really like to be in “hell” like the people sent to Birkenau and Auschwitz.  They know what it means to “be in hell.”

                We walked along the tracks and were told that when the people were exiting the train, there was calm among the prisoners.  They were told to leave their luggage and that they would be reunited with it later.  They were put into two lines.  Women and children in one line, and men in the second line.  There was such calm that only 4 SS officers were usually working at the “selection” point.  Along with the SS officers, a doctor was there and he simply pointed to the right or to the left.  With less than a second of observation, the doctor determined if someone was “healthy” enough to work or die.  Not to mention that many of these people had just traveled hundreds of miles with no food, bathroom, fresh air…yet their fate was determined in a matter of a second by a doctor.  Like I mentioned earlier, all children 14 and younger were immediately sent to the gas chambers, elderly, sick, and pregnant women were also killed.  A mother clinging to her child was sent to the gas chamber because it made less of a fuss than trying to take the child away.  It all came down to a direction of a thumb.  The doctor’s thumb either pointed left or right…life…or death.

                The prisoners that survived were cleansed and their hair shaven off.  The Nazis collected so much hair that bags and bags of it were found.  The Germans used the hair to make blankets, hats, and even socks for the soldiers.  Hair was also taken from the corpses and it was the job of prisoners to cut off the hair, clean it, and bag it.

                We went to the women’s barracks on the left.  The women’s barracks are completely original but the men’s barracks were reconstructed for remberance purposes.  Women’s barracks were made out of bricks and had a cement floor, but soon the Nazis realized that it was too expensive to continue using bricks so the men’s barracks were made out of wood and were built upon the ground.  During the rain and cold winter months, the ground in the men’s barracks was an actual swamp.  You could see green grass growing in the camp but we were told that during the 1940’s there was absolutely NO green grass…no color whatsoever.

                When we toured inside the women’s barracks, it finally hit me how horrific those times were.  I was overcome with emotions.  People in my group were taking pictures of themselves infront of the beds, etc but I just couldn’t do it.  I didn’t want my picture in front of ANYTHING.  I didn’t want to be a “tourist” and have a memory of me in that horror.  There was no way you could “smile” as your picture was taken and why would you want to remember yourself in that hell.  I would never “frame” a picture of me there so I felt it was best to just take pictures of the structures to preserve my memory. I also took most pictures in black and white because it seemed unreal to have the pictures in color.

                We were told that up to 8 women were housed in each bunk.  New arrivals got the worst bed, the bunks on the floor and the women had to fight for their own survival.  They were not allowed to use the bathroom at night or during working hours so those suffering from diarehha, or other illnesses had to relieve themselves where they slept.  Even dogs don’t usually go to the bathroom where they sleep….how could people treat people this way???  We were told that maybe every couple months of so, the SS would evacuate everyone and use rat poison to disinfect the barracks and “clean” it out…only to have the pattern repeat itself.  They were given a thin mattress and blanket to use but the winters were so cold that it really didn’t matter.  The blankets were even said to move by themselves because they were so infested with bugs.

                Outside the women’s barracks we walked to B2 where the crematory was.  I was told that all bodies were burned and no bodies were just buried in mass graves.  I had seen in so many movies that bodies were just dumped in mass graves.  I assumed that they were buried like that.  I was wrong.  All bodied dumped into the pits were then taken by prisoners and burned in the crematorium.  There are no bones buried at Auschwitz or Birkenau but their ashes were spread everywhere.  They had so many ashes that they were just spread on the ground for everyone to walk upon like it was nothing…The Nazis again tried to destroy the crematorium at the end of the war, but it all couldn’t be destroyed.  The Nazis wanted to keep all their evils a secret, yet they were maticulous about keeping records and photographs that it was impossible to destroy everything at the end of the war.  My tears started to fall as I left the women’s barracks.  It really hit me.  It is amazing what the human spirit will do to surive even though everything around you is determined to destroy it.

                B3 is the men’s barracks and most of them were destroyed or broken down for materials at the end of the war.  They reconstructed a couple buildings to perserve history and we had time to go look in them but I just couldn’t do it.

                The chill in the air was unblievable.  It was at least 10 degrees colder than at Auschwitz and it was a constant reminder of the conditions during the war.  They say that spirits/ghosts make themselves known by dropping the temperature of the room.  I am not sure if I was unbelievably cold because the weather was simply cold or because I was

Memorial

surrounded by the spirits of those that lost their lives.  Many people don’t believe in ghosts or spirits but after visiting this place, I cannot see how you cannot believe in them.  The only sounds you hear is silence and all you feel is cold.  Just like Auschwitz, the feelings I had were overwhelming, even more so than Auschwitz.  It wasn't a happy day, but it was a life changing day.  We cannot EVER forget what happened during the Holocaust and it is sad that genocides are still taking place in the world.  If we don’t learn from our past, we are doomed to repeat it!

Memorial

Memorial Plaque

men's side

               

                

Auschwitz

Monday Feb 28, 2011

Woke up again to blue skies which I was happy about because I would be going to such a depressing place and it would be nice to have some sun.  It is hard to be excited for today since I am going to Auschwitz and Birkenau but as a persuer of knowledge I am excited to go.

                The tour company, Escape 2 Poland, picked me up outside my hostel at 9 am and we proceeded to pick up the rest of the group.  Next to be picked up was Michael from London, then Neil and Sue from Mancester, followed by a man from UK and finally two ladies from Liverpool.  In the beginning of the trip we were eagerly getting to know each other and share information, but after 30 minutes of our journey, the driver put in the video of Auschwitz and for the remaining hour drive, no one said a word.  What words would you say???  “Wow, great video”…no…”what did you think about that???”…no….silence was the only option.

                The drive took about an hour and half from Krakow to Auschwitz.  When we arrived, we met our tour guide and began the tour.  There were people there but since it was winter, far fewer than in the summer season.  I appreciated the fact that there weren’t that many people there because I wanted to take some pictures to show my students at home, and pictures with tourists in them would not have held the authencity. 

                My first impression was of amazement.  I was amazed that I was actually here.  I have been teaching about Auschwitz for about ten years but my only experience with the concentration camp was through movies and text books.  I was amazed that I was actually about to walk through the entrance to history myself and attempt to embrace the horrors that took place here.  I was also amazed at the normalcy of the place.  It looked “normal”.  It seems so weird to say that but it looked like a regular military base…except for the barb wire that constantly reminded you where you actually were. 

                Our guide told us that the Nazis picked Auschwitz for three reasons.  The first and most important reason was because Auschwitz is located between two rivers and the location was perfectly isolated from the rest of civilization.  The second reason was because it was already built.  It was originally built as a Polish Military Base before the war.  Third reason is because of the train system.  All tracks led to Auschwitz so it would be easy to transport prisoner to and from.

                Life span of prisoners was around 6 months.  The harsh winters, no food, starvation, diseases, you name it, took the life of many prisoners within 6 months.  Every prisoner, which was not selected to be killed right away, was forced to work.  There was no other option.  They were to be slave labor for the Germans and they had to work.  That was the only reason they were kept alive.      In fact, Auschwitz was too “small” to house all the prisoners, so the prisoners were forced to build Birkenau to hold all the future prisoners.  Auschwitz held about 100,000 prisoners and Birkenau was 30 times larger.  I cannot even fathom what it must have been like to build your own “hell”.

                Auschwitz is maintained as a museum.  All the buildings are original but the insides have been reconstructed to house museums and historical belongings.   Auschwitz was actually the “Ritz” of the camps and prisoners there were much luckier than those housed at Birkenau.  We toured a couple buildings and actual artifacts were displayed and it was so deflating to see the magnitude of belongings.  When prisoners arrived at Auschwitz their belongings were taken from them, sorted by the Nazis, and housed in warehouses called Canada 1 and Canada 2.  They were called that because Canada seemed as the land of “plenty” and that is what the Nazis felt about the prisoner’s belongings.  There were “plenty” of items to sell and make money from.  In one room, there was a glass case the length of the building and inside were 80,000 pairs of shoes.  Shoes in good condition were sold or used by the Germans.  The unusable ones were stored in the warehouse and the Nazis didn’t have enough time to destroy the evidence at the end of the war.  You can see the types of shoes indicated that the prisoners didn’t know where they were going or for how long they would be gone.  Many pairs of “summer shoes” and high heels and shoes you wouldn’t wear if you thought you would be out in the harsh winter weather for long.  Regardless if they knew or not, they would not have been able to keep their shoes anyway so it is kind of a mute point.

                Another part of the museum we saw Jewish Prayer Shalls, hair brushes, eye glasses, cooking supplies, children’s clothes/toys, and many other personal items taken from the prisoners.  The prisoners were told they could take up to 50 kilos of belongings when they were taken from their homes so of course, they packed their best items, jewelrey, personal possessions, which were later stolen or sold by the Germans.

Cookware

glasses

hairbrushes

Luggage

braces










Starvation was a major cruelty to the prisoners.  They were fed only 1500 calories a day.  Breakfast entailed water with some sort of coffee powder.  Dinner was meatless soup and a piece of black bread.  Prisoners were slave labor so it was cheaper to starve them and save money on food because if they died, there would be plenty of new prisoners to take their place.

                We toured Building 11.  Building 11 is significant because it actually maintained the original interior and it was the horror building of the prisoners.  It was the “Prison” of the prisoners.  For no other reason, than looking sick, prisoners could be sent to the “prison” building.  Inside an eerie chill filled the air and it was very hard to stay in one place very long.  I am claustrophobic anyway, but my tolerance of the closed spaces was abnormally low.  We went down into the basement and saw the “cells”.  Cell 18 was where prisoners were put without food.  It was known as the Hungar Cell.  Cell 20 was the cell where they would cram up to 40 prisoners at once and they were forced to serve their “sentence” within that cell.  The final cell we saw was at the end of the hall.  They were known as the “standing cells.”  Inside the small room were 4 smaller cells.  The prisoners were forced to enter the small confined space through a door at the bottom of the cell that was no higher than my knees.  The cell was only the size to stand in.  Four prisoners were put together in the “standing cell” and forced to stay standing over night.  I couldn’t stay in that room very long.  Immediately I became claustrophobic and couldn’t breathe.  I had to get out and left my tour group to view it a bit longer.  We were told that during the experimentation with the Zyclone B gas, the put about 100 prisoners in the basement and dropped gas on them to kill them.  After they were dead, the Nazis stressed about how to “explain” their mass death.  Since they were trying to hide the truth, they wrote down that those 100 people died from a heart attack.  100 people all “died from a heart attack” the same day and time. Really??????

                After going through Building 11 we went next door to the “shooting gallery.”  Prisoners were taken to the basement of Building 11, told to undress and then taken out the side door to the shooting gallery.  The windows on Building 10 and 11 were boarded up so prisoners could not see what was happening but there was no way to cover the sound.  Also in the shooting gallery were two poles.  Prisoners were hung from the poles with their hands tied behind their backs. After an hour of hanging, their arms were dislocated and they were no longer able to work, so they were shot.

Wall where prisoners where shot

These are the two poles they would hang prisoners with their hands tied behind their backs

           

   Next we walked to Crematorium 1.  Along the way, we were pointed out Rudolph Hoss’s (two dots over the O) house.  His house was feet away from the Crematorium.  He lived there with his wife and child and his child would play in their garden, just feet away from the inhumanity.  The movie, Boy in the Stripped Pajamas was based off of him and his proximity to the camp. I can’t imagine how he explained the smell to his wife and child, who were unaware of what was really going on at Auschwitz.  How could she not know??

                800 people were killed at a time in Crematorium 1.  They were led inside the gas chamber and gas was dropped from three openings in the celing.  After being gassed, their bodies were loaded into the ovens by other prisoners and they were burned so as to “hide” the evidence.  It was overwhelmingly emotional for me to stand in front of the ovens.  When the war was ending, the Nazi’s destroyed the chimney and ovens, thinking they would be able to “hide” the evidence.  They didn’t destroy the actual building.  The chimney and ovens were reconstructed to perseve history.  Did they think, that the allies would just “walk by” the crematorium and never discover what was happening inside?  I was actually standing where millions of people were killed.  That thought still brings a lump to my chest.

            Inside the gas chamber

  Gas cans used

Ovens

Ovens

    At the end of our tour at Auschwitz we were told that in the beginning Poles were the ones brought to Auschwitz. Polish people, for no other reason than the Nazi’s needed their house, were put into the camp.  Then Jewish people were brought in.  All pregnant women, children under 14, and anyone unable to work, were immediately sent to the Crematorium.  At the beginning they tried to separate mothers from their babies, but the mothers were putting up such a fuss, that the Nazis found it easier to just kill the mothers and the babies instead of dealing with the “headache” of trying to separate them.  How could a mother willingly let go of her child???  Prisoners told incoming women to give their babies to the elderly so as to save their life.  The baby and elderly would die anyways so a mother could survive if she wasn’t holding her baby.  Again…how could a mother just hand over her child???

Roll Call area

                Final point we found out at Auschwitz was that EVERY SINGLE SS soldier working at Auschwitz volunteered to work there.  It was the “best” job they could have and they wanted to be there.  After the war, some SS soldiers tried to claim that they were “brain washed” by Hitler and forced to do what they did….uh…they VOLUNTEERED to do what they did.  No one forced them to do anything!!!!!!

                Oh…also criminals were also sent to Auschwitz…murders, etc.  The criminals were allowed to do anything they wanted to the other prisoners, including the Jewish prisoners.  If they happened to kill a Jewish prisoner, they were “rewarded”.

                I have been asked what my feelings were at Auschwitz and I really don’t know how to answer that.  It was a life changing experience and it will make me a better teacher because I will be able to teach it with first hand experience.  My mom commented earlier that  I am lucky that I can walk through Auschwitz freely and learn from what happened there because there was a time that men’s darkest evils took place at that camp.

                I thought Auschwitz was life changing but it was nothing compared to the feelings that I felt at Birkenau.

Sunny Days in Krakow

So after I got a couple more hours of sleep from the drunken Australian incident, I set off to get some fresh air.  Blue skies greeted me and everything always looks better when it is sunny outside.  Since I basically saw most of Krakow yesterday on my all day exploration tour, I set off to see the sights again but this time with blue skies framing them.  I went back to Wawel Castle and then I walked walked down to the river and have an amazing walk.  There is a beautiful path along the river and many people were taking advantage of the weather and fresh air.  I walked for awhile along the river and took a bridge across to the older part of Krakow and explored a bit there.

Definitely not the touristy side so I walked back and took a much needed nap at the hostel.

    After my nap, my new friend Katherine and I walked to the Jewish Quarter and found a restaurant to have a couple drinks at.  My first drink was called the Polskie Martini and it was just pure heaven in a glass.  The main ingredient is honey vodka, which my mom says we don't have in the states, and a splash of apple juice and lime juice.  The next drink was called Pinky B and it was also made with honey vodka but this time, lemon juice, pineapple juice, and grenadine syrup were added.  Again, heaven in a glass.  During our drinks, Katherine and I shared life stories and we both agreed that our favorite cities are the ones where we meet people and make new connections.  Katherine is 26 and traveling on her own from Australia for 6 months.  She has been in Krakow since last Thursday and is leaving for Spain tomorrow.  It was awesome to meet her and make a new friend.  I know we will keep in contact.
     After drinks we headed back to the hostel for a cozy night in.  I am getting up early to go to Auschwitz tomorrow and since the drunken idiots have been kicked out, hopefully tonight I can actually get some sleep.

Lesson Learned:  honey sticks are purely an American thing :)