Auschwitz

"Words cannot describe the horrors of Auschwitz. Pass through its gates and you become a witness to mankind's ultimate capacity for wickedness."

Disclaimer – Read at your own risk. This post (and the pictures) may be graphic to some.

Saturday, June 21 - On this day, I decided to go to a site that probably everyone has heard of at one point or another – the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Situated 1.5 hours outside of Krakow, it was here that German soldiers carried out their “final solution to the Jewish problem” – the systematic murder of more than 1.5 million people. No other camp was larger, or killed more people, than Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Stepping into Auschwitz sends a chill down your back, as the atrocities that occurred here slowly come into perspective. Everything has been preserved exactly as it was found when the Soviets liberated the camp in 1945. Even the original double-barbed wire fences were present, which still surround the entire camp. When the camp was in use, these barbed wires were electrified, to make sure that no one ever escaped. The original warning signs stand in front of the fence, letting prisoners know what will happen to them if they get too close. Just to be sure, Nazis would man guard towers with rifles, ready to shoot anyone who thought about escaping.

As you enter the inner part of the camp, you pass through the chilling main gate. Atop the gate is the cynical slogan of all the Nazi death camps – “Arbeit macht frei,” which means “Work brings freedom.” Unfortunately, work would never bring freedom at Auschwitz. In fact, the camp commandant, Rudolf Hoss, told each new group of prisoners that they shouldn’t bother with trying to escape, for the only way to leave Auschwitz was “through the incinerator chimney.” Even though many prisoners did perform back-breaking labor each day, Auschwitz was not a labor camp; it was a death camp. Endless physical labor was just one more way that the Nazis could slowly kill a person.

The camp is filled with row upon row of “blocks” – multi-level structures where prisoners lived and slept. If I remember correctly, there are 28 total, and each one held between 700 and 1000 people. Now, most of the blocks house exhibitions focusing on a particular part of the camp’s history. In block 4, there is an urn containing unidentified ashes recovered during excavations at the Birkenau camp. Block 4 also contained the original “Book of Deaths,” where for the first few years the Nazis recorded each person that had died, making up fictitious causes of death and recording them at 5-minute intervals. After a few years, however, Auschwitz’s capacity was so large that they were simply killing too many people to keep track of. Thus, the book is vastly incomplete.

Most people are aware that the main way that the Nazis used to kill was that of poison gas. People were herded into a chamber, where they were told that they would be getting a shower. Fake showerheads and drains on the floor completed the illusion. Once all were inside, the doors were sealed and canisters of a chemical called Zyklon-B were poured into holes in the ceiling. The active component in Zyklon-B, hydrogen cyanide, would claim its victims in 15 to 20 minutes. 5-7 kilograms was enough to kill approximately 1,500 people. On display in the upstairs of Block 4 were hundreds of original Zyklon-B canisters, empty.

Block 5 contained probably the most profound displays of the entire camp. The exhibit, titled “Material Evidence of Crimes,” is designed to put everything in perspective for visitors. When the Soviets liberated the camp, they found thirty warehouses that had been burnt down by the retreating Nazis. Today, we realize that this was an attempt to cover up what they had done, as those warehouses had contained pile after pile of personal effects of the people they had killed. However, the Nazis forgot or were unable to destroy a number of warehouses, and the contents of those warehouses is the “Material Evidence” on display in this exhibit. A display case 100 feet long filled with shoes stacked five feet high – thousands upon thousands of them. A jumbled heap of thin metal, which upon closer look, is actually thousands of pairs of eyeglasses, some with the lenses still in the frames. Hundreds of suitcases piled atop one another, most bearing the last name of their former owner, or even the star of David. Thousands of hair and make-up brushes. The Nazis even plundered artificial limbs. In the hallways, pictures of the victims cover the walls, taken on their first day that they arrived at Auschwitz. On some of the pictures hung wilted flowers, presumably left by relatives visiting the grave of their loved one.

Because the Nazis told their victims that they were being “relocated” to the East, they brought with them only the most important of their worldly possessions – the things that they would use to start their new life. And the Nazis stole every last piece once they were gone. Not a single gold tooth went un-extracted. Seeing all of their possessions piled high, only a thin layer of dust to show the time that’s passed, really puts the number of people that had passed through Auschwitz into perspective.

As mentioned earlier, the Nazis didn’t allow anything to go to waste. Even human hair was made use of. Upon arrival, each prisoner’s hair would be cut, and the clippings saved. The Nazis would then collect and sell the hair as raw material for the German textile industry. That’s right – the Germans sold people’s hair to be made into cloth and carpet. An example of such a cloth is on display, and the way you can tell that it’s made from hair is that you can see the tiny hairs sticking out from the fringe of the cloth. Years later, scientists tested the hair and found that it contained trace amounts of hydrogen cyanide, confirming what the Nazis had done. Upon liberation, the Soviets found sack upon sack of human hair, which had been collected but not yet sold. The contents of those sacks was also on display here – 14,000 pounds of hair. It took up an absolutely massive display case, and you could still see braids that had been cut off entirely. They still held their form after 60 years.

Further down the line was Block 11 – the “Death Block.” Between blocks 10 and 11 was a courtyard where thousands of people were shot, or tortured to death. At the front of the courtyard was a reconstruction of what was called the death wall, a large concrete slab that was designed to absorb the bullets from the Nazis' guns. Thus, it was always in front of the death wall that people were shot. You have to maintain silence in the courtyard, but people are allowed to break silence if it is for prayer. When I was there, a group of about 50 people or so recited a prayer in a language I couldn’t understand. At the foot of the wall, there were flowers, candles, and hand-written letters. A sad sight, indeed.

Just outside the barbed-wire fence on the eastern side of the camp, was the gas chamber and crematorium. Inside were two out of three original furnaces, which could burn approximately 350 bodies daily. Once the bodies were burned, the ashes were used as fertilizer, or dumped into a nearby pond, which is still an eerie gray color because of the amount of ash it contains.

Although I spent hours wandering through the various exhibits of Auschwitz, the absolutely massive amount of information there is impossible to recollect or convey. I usually try to give a fair amount of background information with each post, but there is simply too much to recount with Auschwitz. You really do need to see it to believe it, and to comprehend it. Thus, I only talked about a few of the most profound things that I saw throughout the camp. I thought I knew a fair amount about the Holocaust before I went, but the museum at Auschwitz tells the story like a book never could. If you get a chance, go. It won’t be fun, but it’ll give you a much better perspective on one of the worst tragedies of human history. If you'd like more information on Auschwitz and its role in the holocaust, please click here.