Auschwitz Experience

I’m sorry this blog couldn’t be another happy one. My classmates and I had the opportunity to do something that I believe everybody should do once in their lives, and I thought it was something that really needed to be reflected on. Today I visited the Auschwitz / Birkenau Death Camps outside of Krakow, Poland.

The gates of Auschwitz. Photo Credit : Dane Schmitt

As we all hopped off the bus, a somber feeling filled the air that contrasted the bright sunny day. Our usually happy and loud group had fallen silent and melancholy. From the beginning, all I could think about was how strange it was that thousands of people a day walk through these grounds knowing that they’re going to walk out again, only 70 years ago – this wasn’t the case. I chose not to take any photos during this experience because I wanted to be fully present and respect the situation, so the photos being used in this blog have been borrowed from classmates. As we passed on to the grounds, over our heads stretch the infamous saying “arbeit macht frei”, which translates to “work sets you free”. Perhaps the greatest lie in history, as many Jews, and other groups of people the Nazis viewed as inferior, did not make it off the premises with their lives.

The buildings of Auschwitz weren’t really what I was expecting. They were large brick buildings that felt oddly schoolhouse like to me. As some of it was redone, it was hard to grasp how bad it really must have been. Inside one of the buildings we were able to see just a small fraction of the belongings of the individuals who were prisoners here. There was piles and piles of hairbrushes, pots and pans, and even human hair that the Nazis had planned to sell to textile factories. One of the most emotional points for me was when we looked at the walls lined with the photographs of those imprisoned. Outside we walked past gallows, and the wall where people were forced to strip down out in the open just to be shot. I felt tears well up in my eyes when we stood in the gas chamber and our tour guide explained that those closest to the source of the gas passed away almost immediately, while those on the other end of the room suffered a very slow and painful death.

Railway entry where thousands of Jewish families from all over Europe entered the gates of Birkenau. Photo Credit : Dane Schmitt

Many people say that once you visit Auschwitz you think that nothing could possible be worse, and then when you see Birkenau its even worse. We walked up to the entrance of Auschwitz II, otherwise known as Birkenau, and were greeted by a set of railway tracks. Here thousands of Jews were shipped on several day long journeys in cramped cars with scarce amounts of food and water. Many people didn’t even survive the transportation. Upon arrival they went through a selection process where they split up men, women, and children. They picked the strongest to stay and work until they would eventually die of exhaustion or starvation. The rest were sent almost immediately to the gas chambers.

The Birkenau grounds were a lot more what I pictured when I thought of concentration camps. It was lined with rows and rows of long brick/ wooden buildings that were built by the prisoners with materials from abandoned Polish homes in the area. We got to go into one of the buildings, which was the one designated for the children. On the walls you could still see some of the children’s drawings. The walls were lined with wooden “beds” in which they had to sleep. It was hard to imagine being a child in these circumstances, unaware of why these things were happening when you had once lived a normal, comfortable European lifestyle.

Children's bunks in the Birkenau Death Camp. Photo Credit : Dane Schmitt

By the end of the tour, I was able to walk out of the camp with the rest of my life ahead of me, a right stolen from so many others. The experience gave me a deeper appreciation for the time and place that I had the privilege to grow up. I want believe that all humans are born with good hearts, and that nobody could ever let anything like this happen again. However, I know that it is still possible. I can only pray for the souls of those involved, my heart aches for them and I hope they have all found peace in the arms of the Lord.

For ever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity, where the Nazis murdered about one and a half million men, women, and children, mainly Jews from various countries of Europe. Auschwitz-Birkenau 1940-1945