AUSCHWITZ BIRKENAU

Our last day in Krakow was spent touring Auschwitz and Birkenau.  We were lucky enough to have a private guide who was also a preservationist at the camps.  She was excellent and we learned a lot from her.

We first went to Auschwitz.  

This camp has been turned into a museum with many of the rooms holding personal effects of the victims, including clothing, shoes, luggage, shoe polish and shaving items.  These items show that those who were sent here really thought they were just being relocated.  The items show the optimism the victims still possessed. There was even a room that held two tons of human hair that had been shaved off those who had died in the gas chamber prior to being sent to the crematorium.  The Germans used this hair to make hair cloth which was then made into uniforms and blankets.  

Anyway, I just couldn't bring myself to take pictures of these things - they were just too personal.  I did, however, take a picture of the gate,

the Killing Wall, now a memorial site, where prisoners were taken to be shot if they broke a rule,

and the room that holds the names of the 1,100,000 men, women and children who were killed in Auschwitz and Birkenau.

Then we went to Birkenau.

Birkenau has been preserved as a memorial.  All of the buildings and everything in the buildings are as they were when it was in operation.  It is truly a chilling a place.

To walk you through it, here is the main gate.  The picture is taken from the sorting station.  As the victims got off the train they were first separated into men and women and children.  Those healthy enough were sent to the barracks where they were faced with hard labor.  The conditions were so harsh that the average life span once there was less than six months.  Those too old, most of the children and those to infirm were sent immediately to the gas chambers of which there were four.

 This picture is taken at the sorting station looking back toward the front entrance of the camp - it is truly the end of the line in Birkenau.

All of the gas chambers/crematoriums were blown up by the Germans just prior to liberation of the camps.  This was done to try to hide the hideous crimes that they committed here.

This is Crematorium No 2.  The rubble was left as it was found when the camps were liberated.

The women's barracks were primarily brick as Birkenau had been a cavalry camp for the Polish military.  You can see them in the background of this photo.

The men's barracks, however, were all constructed of wood.  Many of them were broken up after liberation and the wood was used for fuel.  All that stands today of many of them are the brick chimneys.

Here is a shot of the interior of one of the barracks.  The bunks are three tiered with about six men to a bunk.  The barrack housed about 1,000 men.  You can see the wood stove in the foreground that was  used to provide heat.  But, you can also see the space between wall and ceiling where it was open.  There were so many openings in these barracks that the stoves couldn't adequately heat the space and many prisoners died of exposure.

This is a shot of the latrine/shower.  There was one of these for each row of barracks - thousands of men - not nearly enough for all the prisoners and the Germans allowed very little time for their use.

There is much to the story of Auschwitz/Birkenau that I can't possibly tell in this post.  We have all read, seen movies, and heard about the atrocities that the Nazi's committed against the Jews and others but until one walks these grounds one will never understand the magnitude of the crimes.  Truly, there are no words.

This is the memorial that was constructed at the terminus of the rail line in Birkenau.  In plaques written in every language it reads:

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