Possibly the saddest place on earth but a symbol of courage and survival (Auschwitz)

Member Name: lm09

Product:	Auschwitz
Date:	03/02/09 (155 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to get to from Krakow

Disadvantages: Such a sad place

Firstly before you read this this is to be a visitors / travel review rather than a historical essay just to set my stall out.

Oswiecim is a mid sized town around 50 kilometres to the West of Krakow, which was my base for my trip. I got the first train out of Krakow at 6.20 in the morning armed with a bottle of water and a slab of black bread for breakfast. The train ticket cost 11zl (zloty) and the hour or so of the trip took me away from the tourist city of Krakow and gave me a glimpse of rural South Poland.

The railway station in Oswiecim is around 2 kilometres from the camps and about 1 kilometre from the centre of town. Again for me I enjoy walking and walking in the bright blue early morning sun somewhere new was so nice. Having left so early I was just about the only person about and being in a place with such a disturbed modern history this gave me plenty of time to think.

The walk from the station down Wiezniow Oswiecimia leads you to the visitors centre for the smaller of the two camps and most complete, Auschwitz. Access to the site opens from 8am and as the site is a cemetery and not a museum is free.

Whatever you feelings about the war, religion or humanity it is impossible not to feel something as you enter the site. I love photography and did take plenty of photos at the site but please if you do visit please be discrete. This is not Disneyland it is the site of mass Genocide and the largest cemetery in the world.

Quick bit of history then. The camp was established by the Germans in 1940 and was initially only intended to house Polish political prisoners. The larger site of Birkenau or Auschwitz II was established in 1941 and its sole purpose and usage was as a concentration camp. It is estimated that around 1.8 million people of 27 nationalities died at the camp. 1.1 million Jews but also 150,000 Poles. After the fall of the Nazi army the Germans tried to destroy the camps and much of Birkenau was destroyed. Auschwitz remained largely intact with around half of the 30 blocks standing as they were.

From the visitors centre the first thing that hits you is the miles of barded wire and the fence that runs along the camp. You enter under the infamous gate with the words "Arbeit Macht Frei (work Brings Freedom). This is an image I have seen hundreds of times in prep for my tour of Poland and from reading about Polish history but to actually see the gate and the camp is so sad.

Being just about first there the camp was empty. To be walking around the blocks where such horrors took place alone was eerie but somehow to me more special that it felt like a solemn sad place and not a tourist site (hypocritical I know). To have absolute silence to think was a blessing.

The camp has plaques and information signs in Polish, English and German which give excellent detail and information. As you walk past the outdoor gallows, a rusty metal girder crudely suspended you see pictures of some of the victims. The gallows were kept only for those who disobeyed or tried to escape. The bodies often left to decay as a warming to anyone else that felt escape was better.

By the gallows you see a guard watch hut. In here the German troops could stand watching the prisoners of the camp on wet, snowy cold parade days. They were often made to stand for hours in any weather whilst the roll call was done.

The worst acts on the smaller site took place in blocks 10 and 11. The cells include the standing cells no bigger than a broom cupboard in which up to 10 people were locked together made to stand. Most horrific to me the starvation cell, just a bare cell with no washing or toilet facilities where people were just left to starve. What kind of people could do this to other human beings?

In between cells 10 and 11 is the execution wall where as a rule political prisons were shot often having spent time in the starvation cells or standing cells. The wall itself still has signs of the bullets and the scars.

Most of the blocks have museums but what got me most were the simple blocks that just contained black and white photos of people that were held in the camp. At first look they all look the same with shaven hair and the same blue and white uniform but if you look closer they are all different, all people....Men, women and children all of them photographed. More that this some of the photos had flowers woven into them. What must it be like to visit the site knowing a relative / friend was executed there?

Auschwitz also contains pretty much intact the original gas chamber that was so efficiently rolled out across at Birkeneua. Behind this gas chamber are small gallows where in 1947 Rudolf Hess was hung.

Leaving the site I chose to walk to Birkenau. This is a walk of maybe 2 kilometres and there is a bus service between the two sites. For me the walk gave me time to think and reflect.

As you approach Birkenau the first thing you see if the railway line. For me I was able to see one of the starting points of this line in Warsaw "the going away place" so was nice for me to see both ends of this line.

The railway line runs directly into the camp under the watchtower and the gate "death gate". Anyone who has seen Schindlers list will be familiar with the gate. The line runs directly through the camp splitting it in two. At the lines end are the partially destroyed gas chambers and crems. Jews and Roma's from all over Europe were "processed" within 1 hours of getting of the train thousands were dead.

I would recommend that everyone visits this site to remember one of the worst acts of brutality on man kind. It is important that people visit the site and as one of the plaques notes.

"The one who does not remember history is bound to live through it again" George Santayana.

Summary: Everyone shouild visit this site. Polish history is a story of sadness but still such a proud nation