Oswięcim

It has been quite a while since last I posted, and for that I am sorry and will attempt to remedy with a host of posts in the weeks to come. Today though, I took a trip that I knew I was unable to put off any longer and now that it is over, I know that I cannot delay writing this, lest I lose a bit of the sensation of it all. Today I went to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

I have been expecting/dreading this trip for a while. I don't like dwelling on these stains of the past and I remember quite strongly the raw emotion I felt when visiting Bergen-Belsen with Father Pitstick back in 2005. I knew it was something I had an obligation to visit, especially considering how close I live to the camp. Bielsko-Biała is only about 15 miles away from the town of Oswięcim (which is the Polish name for Auschwitz) but because of its location, it's actually a bit difficult to get to. Bielsko is part of an industrial triangle in Southern Poland and all the rail lines go along that triangle...Osięcim is about equidistant from the other points (Katowice and Krakow) but is still a bit tricky to get to. Anyway, between transportation issues and months of cold weather, I haven't really felt like making the trek, but today it seemed right and so I went.

I arrived at the museum at about 2PM and got myself a tour. In afterthought, I think I would have preferred just to explore it on my own. Though I liked the additional information, I think I might have enjoyed a bit more freedom on how much time I chose to spend in the different exhibits. We started by watching a movie produced by the Soviets shortly after the war but it didn't really seem that impactful. The Auschwitz 1 camp was in great condition, and I was glad to see that the "Arbeit macht Frei" sign was back in its spot. There was yet to be any special marking showing what had happened to the sign but I'm sure there will be one there soon.

There were many interesting displays that showed the history of the museum, but what got me the most was the collections of things stolen from prisoners. All of the things that they showed were just the remains left in the camp, 90% of the goods had already been processed and re-used or destroyed. There was an entire room just of human hair...2 tons of it. What was the most interesting to me though, was the room filled with baggage. On the baggage, many of the deceased had written their addresses and contact information...but one bag in particular stood out to me. It had been from Vienna, the address was on a street near where I had stayed when I lived there. I knew that my area had been a ghetto but it kind of completed a circuit in my mind of how complex and personal the "Final Solution" really was. I could have met that person or their children at a market or sat across from them on the subway...
Even worse was when I walked into the crematorium there. There was rail equipment inside...I knew in my head that a lot of people where burned at this camp...but for some reason I had always thought that it was a manual job of tossing people into the ovens. Don't get me wrong...that by itself is horrible...but just knowing that they had used what looked like mining equipment to do all of it...it was just another circuit bridged. It just magnified how disturbed I already was by the whole thing

The Auschwitz 1 camp itself was not that startling. The camp was originally a Polish Army Barracks before being acquired by the SS.The bunkers were relatively neat and orderly. Inside some bunkers were different exhibits about the different ethnic groups affected, exhibits about conditions in the camp, different prisoners, and the aforementioned collections. It was all very neat and informational but it didn't really prepare me for visiting Birkenau.

Auschwitz was the original camp, built outside the suburbs of Oswięcim. It was mainly used for political prisoners and was truly just a concentration camp...not wonderful but people survived the entire war there...Birkenau on the other hand was truly a death camp. It's located about 2 miles away from the main Auschwitz camp. The first thing you see though, is this big tower with a railway leading right underneath it. No matter where you go in the camp, you have this haunting tower in your peripheral vision. Truly spooky. In Birkenau, there aren't exhibits but rather you are just encouraged to walk around and look at an occasional guidepost. It's the size of it all that first gets you.

The Birkenau Camp was 500 square acres. To put that in perspective: that's almost the size of the entire UW Seattle Campus...or the entire city of East Omak...that's one square mile...almost the size of Central Park. It's just huge. On your right when you walk in, there are some of the preserved housing for the inmates. I walked in and I felt sick. It was exactly like the cow barns at the County Fairgrounds in Okanogan...exactly the same construction. There were even rings in the walls for animals to be tethered. Evidently the Germans just used prefab horse stables to house all of the people in Birkenau. The first building was just the latrines but it was just 100 holes right in a line...I can't even imagine what it would have been like having a BM with 100 other people, much less the rest of the horrors they went through.

After checking out some of the stables, I looked out and saw a field of just chimneys. Each of the barracks had two chimneys for heating. After the war, most of the barns were torn down, but the chimneys all remained...and you just look and for ages and ages...all it is is barbed wire and chimneys...chimneys. I think the skeletal remains of these buildings are almost more powerful now than if they had been left standing.

I walked up the main stretch in the camp, following the railroad tracks. It was really creepy just thinking back about how inhuman it all was, but then you get to the crematoria. These building were destroyed by the SS when they were dismantling the camp to hide the evidence. It's so chilling, looking up at ruins of these buildings. Bricks lying askew. Twisted bits of iron and rebar. The steel beams in the ceiling all warped and corroding. It was awful just knowing how many people died there...it was even worse seeing the place where it happened.

Just a few yards away from the crematoria were these big round tanks. I was confused by what they were until I saw the holes in the ground next to them...these were sewage treatment vats. I had never really thought about what the Germans did with all the sewage that 100,000 prisoners produced...but it was just kind of unsettling knowing that it was all part of the plan. On the plans right next to the place to get rid of humans was a place to process human waste. Just the engineering precision of it all was quite unsettling.

After another long walk, I found myself in a grove of trees. On one side was a pond where they had disposed of some of the ashes from the incinerators....but on the other side was a just nice and peaceful. I even saw a deer walking around in the grove. And then I read the sign that said this was where many people were forced to wait while the crematoria were full...just waiting to die. And there was a picture with a little girl standing next to a tree...and you could look at the tree in the picture and realize that it was the tree right in front of you...and it was like staring at a ghost. In this spot...next to this tree...this little girl once sat. She just looked so innocent in the picture...but then you turn around and see the pond of ashes and the remains of that furnace...and you just feel simultaneously victimized and horrified at the same time. It's really a violating experience.

To sum all of this up: I really wasn't sure quite what to expect. I was thinking maybe I felt a little bit immune after having visited other camps...but it really hit me in a different way than I had imagined. It was like a giant game of connect-the-dots that ended up being something completely different than what I had expected. I felt kind of empty...almost high...just kind of floating in a haze while I was walking around. I had seen it all before in school or in movies...but just the raw size and in-your-face-ness of it all hit me.

I'm sure I'll solidify my opinion of this all in a few days, but right now my mind is all kind of a mess. I hope that you understood more or less what I was trying to convey. I'm also sorry for the inconsistency of the voice and how long it's been since my last post. I'll try to put some more up and hopefully add some photos.