Today we went to Auschwitz. There. I said it. I have been toiling over how to even start writing a blog about one of the most horrific places I have ever visited. Job one, done.
The infamous sign that greets you to Auschwitz I roughly translates to English as “Work shall set you free”. It’s one of the many empty promises that were given to the prisoners of this concentration camp.
Originally, this was a Polish army barracks before Nazis took the camp over after they invaded in 1939. These are some of the only remaining pictures of concentration camp victims.
We toured around the outside of the camp and were taken into many of the buildings which were set up with displays of documents, photographs, and camp population/death statistics. As the tour went on the exhibits became much more intimate. Enormous piles of hair brushes, eye glasses, shoes, and even human hair were showcased to give us a sense of the countless number of human lives that passed through that miserable place.
Auschwitz I was known as a work camp, while a few kilometres away Auschwitz II-Birkenau was known as the death camp.
The first thing that struck me about Birkenau was the shear size of the camp. Most of the structures have either been dismantled, like the wooden barracks, or destroyed, like the gas chambers. The latter was demolished by the Nazis as an attempt to eradicate evidence of the mass killings.
When we decided to come to Poland it was obvious to me that we would visit Auschwitz. I never gave it a second thought. After we booked our tickets some people asked me why we would want to come here. At the time I responded with the line that I’ve heard many times before. If we don’t remind ourselves of the mistakes of the past, we run the risk of repeating them.
While that is true, I would be lying if I didn’t start asking myself that question. It was hard to come up with an answer that didn’t feel like a cliché. I was hoping that I would find my own answer once we visited the camps. When prisoners arrived to the death camps all of their belongings were in the one suitcase they were allowed to bring with them from home. These suitcases were taken to warehouses to be sorted and sifted though for valuables. This section of the camp was referred to as “Canada”. This was because they believed Canada was a land of plenty. This story gave me my answer. I visited Auschwitz-Berkenau to be reminded how lucky I am to live where I do in the time that I do surrounded by loving family and friends. I hope reading this will encourage you to visit too.
very sobering to see those places. Hard to understand how horrible people can be to one another
Great post! I am surprised by the question "Why would you want to go there?" If you hadn't gone, my immediate question would have been "How could you not?" I visited here when I was a teenager with my family, so I really didn't have much of a choice, but I am so glad that I was there. I still remember to this day the feeling I had as we were led around the grounds. Definitely not a warm, fuzzy feeling! Like you, it made me appreciate where I had been born, but also further shaped my belief (that was developing at that time) that difference is to be understood and celebrated, not feared. Fear and not taking the time to understand is what leads the way to horrors such as these.