Auschwitz Concentration Camp

WARNING: Post not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach!

When my dad was in town we took a tour of Auschwitz, a nearby concentration camp from World War II. It was depressing and horrific but almost an “historical obligation” one must see. This past weekend I visited it again with a class group. We were there for over 12 hours… Here is a brief history and some of my observations.

The first concentration camp of WWII was built in 1933 in Dachau, Germany. Originally concentration camps were used by Germans to house political prisoners, common criminals, and other minorities who were a threat to the Nazi mentality. For example, many homosexuals were sent to these camps to be “reoriented” so that they would become heterosexuals and reproduce Aryan children for Germany. Several years later, after Germany invaded Poland, the Nazi’s wanted to have a concentration camp in the Southern section of Poland to act as a “main” camp in a very centralized location. They choose the city of Oswiecim because it was near Germany, close to two rivers, and most importantly, in the middle of nowhere. In 1939 they renamed the town “Auschwitz” and turned the Polish military barracks housed there into a concentration camp.

Auschwitz I is a place of contrasts. The barracks, being originally for military, had a strange character to them that was complimented by the trees and greenery that grew around the camp. Walking around on a warm, sunny summer day it was hard to imagine the horror that went on behind the gates. The arch at the front of the camp welcomes you with “ARBEIT MACHT FREI” (work makes one free). Barrack after barrack are packed in tight to each other and tall trees line the gravel paths in between. The entire camp is surrounded by a barbed wire fence that turned into an electric fence at night. Most of the barracks today do not have the original interior, especially since the camp was used as a displacement camp after the war and the living conditions were improved then.

Thus, the camp has now been turned into a museum. You go into these barracks and see pictures of starving people, deformed children, and people’s “mug shots” upon entering the camp. You see glass rooms FILLED with human hair, luggage boxes, pots and pans, glasses, and shoes… all taken from those entering the camp and then separated into storage barracks. You hear about the 3 hour roll calls and how they had to keep standing come rain or shine or snow. You hear how each prisoner was marked according to their “crime,” whether Jew or Pole or a common criminal. You see the method of identifying people by tattooing a number upon their skin (btw, this technique is unique to Auschwitz). You stand in the crematoria and look up to see the “chimneys” where they dropped the Zyklon B gas down to kill the people inside. As you stand here you realize about 70,000 people (mostly Poles and Soviet prisoners of war) were murdered here.

After all this and much more, we headed to Birkenau or “Auschwitz II” down the road. When people imagine a concentration camp they think of a barren land with rows and rows of crumbling barracks, bleak and desolate… this is Birkenau. The pictures I’ve posted don’t even being to do it justice. This place is MASSIVE and even though many of the barracks were burned by the fleeing Nazis, the chimney’s still stand giving the place an eerie, dead feeling. It was built in 1941 specifically as an extermination camp. You enter the gate where the train tracks would bring “new loads” in and then leave on the same track, empty. Within Birkenau there was a men’s camp, a women’s camp, a camp for families, a camp for Gypsies and a holding camp for those on their way to another camp. Hundreds of people were packed into disgusting barracks with muddy floors and unsanitary living conditions. The residents of this camp were here to die. If they didn’t die from disease, starvation, or horrible medical experiments then they were most likely sent to the gas chambers. In all about 1.1 million Jews, 75,000 Poles, and 19,000 Gypsies died at Birkenau.

There are so many stories of bravery and cowardice, kindness and cruelty, glory and humiliation, pride and shame. It was such an ugly mark upon the history of humanity however on a somewhat optimistic note, it did eventually come to an end. And as years past and people attempted to heal their physical and mental wounds, stories began surfacing of men who sacrificed themselves for an unknown other, friends bringing food to those being punished in the standing cells, nurses smuggling small children out of the camp and countless other stories of bravery.

One great story takes place in Birkenau. One of the best/worst jobs of the camp was that of the “sonderkommandos”. These were prisoners, normally young athletic men, who worked at the crematoria and would collect and burn the corpses after each gassing. The sonderkommando were given more food and better conditions however their job was especially horrific and normally they were “replaced” after a few months since they were witnesses to the mass murder. One particular group of sonderkommandos began to plan a mutiny. Over several months they smuggled in explosives with the help of some women prisoners working at a nearby factory. Sadly something went wrong (it was believed word leaked to the SS guards) and the plan backfired, although they did manage to blow up one of the crematoria! Perhaps it was a small victory, but it was still a victory.

To me, the Holocaust is not horrific because of the numbers. Indeed the details of the Holocaust are nauseating, but to me the most disturbing aspect was the process. How does one go from having a concentration camp to a death camp? Concentration camps are not uncommon during a time of war. We even had internment camps in the United States during WWII for Japanese and Japanese Americans in California. However the difference is, these camps went from being strict to cruel to beyond horrific. But why? What was the turning point, why did it escalate to that, how did they possibly justify it, and most importantly, how could they actually follow through with it!?!

After seeing Auschwitz and Birkenau we went to the site of Monowitz or “Auschwitz III.” It was a former work camp bombed during an air raid and is now a subdivision of houses with a monument in the center. We then drove back to Krakow, all of us exhausted physically and emotionally. As I said, it’s not a fun or easy place to go, but it feels necessary. And now, after having a tour with my class that lasted over 12 hours, I probably know more than I ever wanted to about Auschwitz.