I don't think I can do this post justice, but I'm going to try my best.
I've known since before we moved here that I wanted to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau. But when we first moved here, the kids were entirely to young to understand the gravity of what happened here. They have visited Dachau and Flossenberg, but neither of those were death camps. Yes, people died there, but they were both work camps. (Not that death is better in that situation.) But people weren't put in gas chambers by the hundreds and murdered within minutes. That's what happened at Auschwitz.
Auschwitz-Birkenau is a series of three camps about an hour west of Krakow. Most people simply know it as Auschwitz, but the real atrocities happened at the Birkenau camp. We started the day pretty early with a van picking us up at 7 am at our apartment. We picked a few more people up and continued on to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The camps are located in the city of Oświęcim, Poland. As we entered the first camp, Auschwitz I, you see this. Everyone knows this famous sign, "Arbeit Macht Frei" or "Work will set you free." But everyone also knows that was a lie.
People say it's best to enter Auschwitz with a guide, and you'll find almost everyone there was with one. You first visit Auschwitz I, which consisted of 22 buildings built before the war. It was originally designed to be a quarantine camp, which never actually happened. Instead, it became a death camp, where initially most people died from starvation and sickness. The extermination of mostly Jews - along with Poles, Gypsies and the LGBTQ community began in early 1942, although most of that did not happen here at Auschwitz I. Auschwitz I was mainly used as a labor camp - but they did have one gas chamber here, and I'll talk more about that below.
Halt! Stop! Trying to escape will get you killed. Staying here might, also.
Today, Auschwitz I serves as a history museum to the entire Auschwitz Birkenau camp. Block 4 is now a museum to the extermination of the residents of this camp. This was originally housing for male prisoners, but in March 1942, it became one of the many housing blocks for women. Between March and August of 1942, several thousand women were either sent to the gas chamber or they died of unsanitary conditions or slave labor. If you survived until August 1942, you were sent over to Birkenau.
Our guide gave us a great overview of the atrocities that happened at Auschwitz. Here, she tells us about the arrival of the Jews from Hungary. Upon arrival, the men were separated from the women and children. The women and children were immediately sent to the gas chambers (particularly at Birkenau). The men were then subdivided between those who could work and those who could not. Those who could work, lived (for now.) Those who could not were sent to the gas chambers.
The mementos that were saved are an incredible reminder of what happened here. This is a pile of glasses, of which the owners were sent to the gas chambers. Some of them were reused or recycled.
As I mentioned, if you could not perform manual labor, you were immediately sent to the gas chambers. Those with physical disabilities were among those who did not get a chance to live.
When those who were taken to Auschwitz were captured by the SS and put on the slow trains to Poland, they had been told that they were going to a wonderful camp where they would stay with their families. They were told to bring their valuables. They were told to bring the comforts of home. They were told to do all of this so that they didn't fear what was coming to them. "Oh it will all be fine. You will be with your family. Bring your things. Bring your kitchen supplies." Of course, all of their pots and pans were taken from them upon their arrival with the promise that they would be returned. And then they never were returned.
"How will I know which bag is mine after I come out of the showers?" "Just put your name on it and some identifying marker, like your birthday or where you are from."
This woman was born on Todd's birthday in 1918.
43,000 pair of shoes were found at Auschwitz at its liberation by the Soviets in January 1945. The shoes are not in the best condition and appear to be disintegrating.
Most people who first arrived at Auschwitz did not get to sleep on beds. They slept on crowded hay.
On the walls of the washrooms, some of the inmates painted pictures on the wall. Just a small thing to look at to bring up the morale.
We learned a bit about the Capo's when we were in Flossenburg, but they had them at Auschwitz, too. They slept in much better and much more private conditions. They were all German criminal prisoners, and they received this role because it wasn't an easy one to do. I spoke to our guide (and the guy who walked around with us to answer any questions) and they said you only got that role if you were a tough guy without a soul (basically.) People would try to convince the SS that they were tough enough to be a Capo but in reality, very few were able to do this job. You had to be pretty ruthless to do it.
Eventually, triple stacked bunk beds were introduced to Auschwitz I. But they were incredibly crowded and often held way more than the three prisoners they were originally designed to sleep on each level.
Inmates could only go to the bathroom twice a day - once in the morning and once in the evening and they only had a VERY short amount of time to go. And you couldn't just pop a squat somewhere on the grounds and go - if you were caught doing this, you were punished. Toilets and washrooms were only installed inside of the buildings in 1944. Prior to that, inmates had to walk to the outdoor facilities. When they had to take a shower, they had to walk naked to the washrooms, which were also outside. There was no electricity in the beginning, and there was only a very small heating system (a ceramic fireplace) which was insufficient for heating the entire floor.
Nowadays, the camp is very clean and peaceful and it's hard to imagine the atrocities that went on here.
There are 28 two story buildings that mostly housed inmates in Auschwitz I. They were designed to hold 700 people each, but in reality held about 1200.
From 1941 to 1943, there was a "Death Wall" near cell block 11. Cell block 11 was the very worst. You could be housed in a regular cell where you slept on the floor, perhaps awaiting your death, or the following could happen (from the Auschwitz website): "From the beginning of 1942, prisoners were also punished by confinement in standing cells. These were four spaces measuring less than 1 sq. m. each. The only source of air was a 5 x 5 cm. opening covered with a metal grille. Entry to the standing cell was through a small opening at floor level, closed with bars and a wooden hatch. Four prisoners were confined in each of these spaces for the night. They had to go to work in the morning. The punishment was applied for periods from several nights up to several weeks in a row."
People were also shot here at this wall. Perhaps this was a more benevolent way of dying at Auschwitz. There isn't a lot of information about how many people died here but it's estimated to be around 1,000. More people were shot here at Auschwitz, but not necessarily here.
We continued on the tour and our guide told us more about what humans were used for at Auschwitz. There were quite a few doctors who performed medical experiments on humans, such as sterilization, experiments on twins, the effects of starvation, the effects of toxic substances on the skin, and the effects of new drugs on the human body.
It was nearly impossible to escape from Auschwitz as you needed to get through two layers of barbed wire and past the guards in the towers who kept watch over these areas 24/7/365. A total of 928 people attempted to escape (about half of which were Polish) and only 196 people were ever successful. The first person to escape from Auschwitz coincidentally caused the first death at Auschwitz. It was June of 1940 when Tadeusz Wiejowski arrived at Auschwitz. He was a Polish cobbler who friended some other local Polish civilian electricians who were at the camp to do some electric work. In the early days, this was normal as contractors of this sort came and went. They provided him with an electricians uniform and one day, he just walked out of the camp with the others. As a result, over 1300 people were made to stand for 20 hours. Dawid Wongczewski, a Polish Jew who was sick at the time with tuberculosis could not stand for that long and he collapsed and died. Wiejowski went into hiding but was caught in the fall of 1941 and shot.
The Crematorium at Auschwitz I became a gas chamber (the only one here) in the fall of 1941. Here, the SS poured Zyklon B through holes in the roof to kill those inside, which was mainly composed of Soviet POWs, Jews and those too sick or old to work. In December 1942 it ended at Auschwitz I as Auschwitz Birkenau took over all of the mass killings. In November 1944, the mass extermination of the Jews ceased across all of the camps. Knowing the Allies were closing in, they began to dismantle the gas chambers in an attempt to cover up their crimes.
I didn't take any pictures inside the gas chambers as I found that to be very disrespectful. Those who arrived sick - or too old or young to work - were immediately sent to the gas chambers, without even registering at the camps. Thus it's impossible to give a completely accurate figure with regard to the number of deaths - but it's estimated to be around 1.1 million people. In total, it's thought that 6 millions Jews and an estimated 11 million people from other groups (Gypsies, Non Jewish Poles, Serbs, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses and Soviets/Soviet POWs) were murdered during the Holocaust.
Auschwitz II - Birkenau was our next stop on the tour. Birkenau was much, much larger than any of the other camps here. According to the Auschwitz website, "The Germans managed to build a total of approximately 300 housing, administrative, and infrastructure barracks and buildings, 13 km. of drainage ditches, 16 km. of barbed-wire fencing, and more than 10 km. of roads within an area of about 140 hectares at Birkenau." Not much is left of any of these buildings. Much of the land had been "taken" by the Germans from the locals.
A sign at the main administrative building at Auschwitz Birkenau.
In the background behind the train tracks, you can see the remnants of some of the barracks that were at Auschwitz Birkenau. After the war, museum personnel rebuilt the chimneys of these wooden buildings, and that is just about all that remains of the camp.
A guard tower (some of these are original, not sure about this one though) and a few rebuilt brick buildings at Birkenau.
We walked through the administration building and into the camp, walking along the railroad tracks that led down to where the gas chambers were. There are no longer any gas chambers at Birkenau as they were all destroyed at the end of the war, before liberation. There are some ruins of Crematoria II, III, IV and V, but we did not go far enough down the tracks to see them.
One example of a railroad car sits on the tracks at Birkenau. Prisoners would get out of the crammed railroad cars and were lined up based on gender. Generally, women and children were immediately sent to the gas chambers in Crematoria II and III. You might have survived if you were deemed fit to work in the camps. Around 900,000 people met their death this way at Auschwitz- if they made it there at all. The rail cars were crammed full of people (80-100 people per car) and conditions were dark and unsanitary.
Guard tower at Auschwitz Birkenau.
As I mentioned before, these chimney stacks were rebuilt after the war. Some are reinforced to prevent further demise. Their goal was to preserve the chimneys as well as the foundation walls of the buildings, so that all could get a sense of scale.
Our last stop was the "Death Barrack" where women who could not work were kept before they were sent to the gas chambers. Those who got upper bunks were lucky - they got to sleep on wood. Those who slept on the bottom bunk were forced to sleep on rocks.
Each of these buildings was heated by (not shown in this picture) a small ceramic fireplace - probably half the size of the one we have in our small home. Of course, it was insufficient and many women got sick and died. There was no food or water in this barrack, and when it was full, women just had to stay outside in the elements in a locked yard.
Many women died in here before they could even be sent to the gas chambers. Women slept 7 or so across in each bunk.
One of the most gut wrenching things I learned on this day was that the starvation and illness brought about many cases of diarrhea. Those who were on the bottom bunks often found themselves covered in feces that had leaked through the upper wooden bunks. As if dying at the hands of monsters wasn't enough, they were forced to die without dignity.
Until next time, Auschwitz. We must never forget.
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