Auschwitz.
photo from Chris
I have been trying to work out this post in my head for close to 2 weeks.
After we left there, we were trying to talk about it, how we felt and what we saw. The word we came back to is "indescribable". Nothing I say can truly explain the feeling of being there. Seeing this place that should be barren and wasted, with no sunshine, no life at all. But, it was still there. The grass was green, the sky was blue, the air was cold and fresh. After all the horrors that land had seen, it still went on.
The tour began in Auschwitz. We were led by a guide through buildings that held possessions of the victims. Rooms filled with adult and children's shoes, clothing, hairbrushes, shaving brushes, piles of eye glasses, prosthetic limbs and suitcases covered with their owners names. The names were there because the Nazis told them that they would need to claim their items after their shower. There was also a room full of human hair, taken from the victims. Long, short, curly, straight, black, brown, grey; every kind you can think of. Hair was taken and made into fabric, some of which was used to make socks for submariners.
We saw the prison cells where prisoners were held in isolation, starvation, light deprivation, standing cells and suffocation cells. The commandant had his home right next to this building.
We were then taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
This camp is 30x's bigger than Auschwitz. When you walk in, the place seems to be too big. Almost like there is no way that something this big happened. On the right is the Men's side, where there were over 300 barracks, in which men slept 9 to a bunk, 4 bunks to a bed, 20+ beds to a barrack. One the right side is the Women's, where at one time they put 700 women in a barrack and barred the doors.
When the prisoners arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau, they arrived in train carts. When they exited the carts, they were immediately put through "Selection". A SS Doctor looked at each person and said either "right" or "left". Labor or death. Those told to go Left, 3/4 of the arrivals, were then sent down Death Road. Which led to the gas chambers.
Walking down that road was surreal. We were in a place were thousands of people literally took their last breaths, saw the sun for the last time, held their children's hands for the last time. We were just walking there. Our mood was somber, in fact the whole place was quiet. Our tour guide spoke just above a whisper. Every once in a while a child would make a noise, and it was almost shocking that someone could break the silence.
Then we came to the crematoriums.
Before liberation, the Nazi blew up the 2 remaining crematoriums, leaving the ruins. Those ruins are still there. Untouched. There is now a large memorial between them, with messages in many different languages, asking that the world not forget what happened here.
What sticks with me the most is how incredibly green the grass surrounding the crematoriums was.
