4 October 2023 Auschwitz

 

4 October 2023                 Auschwitz

Today we are taking a Viator Tour of the Auschwitz concentration camp, located outside of Krakow.

Auschwitz – Birkenau

Auschwitz I was constructed in 1940, receiving its first deported Polish political prisoners on 14 June 1940.  It soon became the largest of the Nazi concentration camps and extermination centers.  From 1940 to the beginning of 1942, it was only a concentration camp, although thousands of prisoners died due to starvation and inhuman living conditions.  From early 1942 until October 1944, while it still functioned as a concentration camp for various ethnic groups (largely Jews, Poles, and Gypsies), it also became the largest extermination center with the opening of Birkenau, a sub-camp of Auschwitz, often referred to as Auschwitz II, in March 1942.  Of the over 1.1 million killed at Auschwitz, approximately 90% of the deaths occurred at Birkenau inside its four crematories.

Layout of Auschwitz and Birkenau

With the impending arrival of the Soviet army in January 1945, Germany ordered Auschwitz to be abandoned and its detainees were forced to march to the Polish towns of Gliwice or Wodzislaw.  Those who survived this march (and many did not) were then sent by trains to concentration camps inside Germany.  Before leaving Auschwitz, the Germans destroyed many of the buildings in an attempt to hide the horrors that took place there.  When Soviet troops arrived, they were greeted by about 7,600 sick and emaciated detainees, mounds of corpses, hundreds of thousands of pieces of clothing and shoes, eyeglasses, toothbrushes, and seven tons of human hair (that had been shaved off before the detainees were killed).

Today this site is the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum.  The site of Auschwitz I is now a museum.  Most of Auschwitz I has remained largely unchanged since its liberation in 1945, where historic artifacts and personal items left behind by the prisoners are now housed in the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.  Birkenau has been maintained as a memorial to those who died and not as a museum or educational center.  It remains much the same way it was when it was liberated.  However, only a few structures remain in Birkenau, as it was constructed only to be a temporary camp and thus much of the materials used have decayed over the years.  Steps are being taken to preserve and strengthen those structures that still remain. Out of respect of the many victims of Auschwitz, many of the sites we visited restricted the taking of pictures.

One of the Many Prisoner Barracks

Orchestra Playing as Prisoners Marched

Entering an Extermination Center Now a Museum

Memorial to the Victimsd

Display of a Gas Chamber

Pile of Eye Glasses

Pile of Pots and Pans

Pile of Shoes

Photos of the Victims

Bathroom in the Barracks

Sleeping Quarters in the Barracks

Entering a Gas Chamber

Inside one of the Gas Chambers

Entrance to  Birkenau

Train Tracks Through  Birkenau

Barracks in  Birkenau

Barracks in  Birkenau

Layout of Aushwitz

After such a horrify and gut-wrenching emotional tour, it was nice to be back on the bus for a very quiet 1-hour drive back to Krakow.  I have now visited two concentration camps – Dachau and Auschwitz.  They are both horrific examples of what extremism and elitism in the wrong hands can do to other human beings.  I hope I am not being overly optimistic when I say II sincerely hope the world never has to witness something like this ever again.