The seven hour long
journey across the border from Prague to Poland took its toll on all of us, as
we disembarked in Oswiecim. Although fearing the worst in regards to weather, it turned
out quite pleasantly warm and sunny. The main square brimmed over with many international buses and the crowds were excited to see the infamous remnants of Hitler´s past. We were separated
into smaller groups at our arrival and given a tour guide and set of headphones
each. As we walked through the arrival gate that used to open up to millions of
Jews, making them feel ´at home´ by its profane sign „Arbeit macht frei“ (work makes you free), one
could feel the odd shiver down the spine as it slowly started dawning on him.
The houses made of red bricks looked meticulously perfect, fitting with the German
orderliness, although you could feel the underlying despondency about the
whole place, once you imagined what sort of horrors must have occurred behind all those neatly built walls and fastened windows. The small village
felt more like a ghost town with its dusty roads empty and hollow, intertwining
with tens of other roads that housed copies of exactly the same buildings. Only
their numbers were different. Block 11, Block 15, Block 9....
We walked into several
brick houses being brought to many thematically diverse rooms with exhibitions
of photographs with Jews marching to their death, rooms full of shocking items
like heaps of shoes, suitcases, hair, prosthetics, children´s toys and other
personal items. We were taken down into the prison chambers that served for various
punishments. Bare walls with scarcely any light. Dampness and fear still
permeating through the pores of the cold surface. We were shown a place where
the recruited band of musicians used to play happy tunes for all the incomers
in the hope of presenting itself as a regular working camp, that will offer new
possibilities and beginnings. Only a sick mind could have constructed such a devious plan. We walked around the gallows where Rudolph Hess hung after war, but
many will agree that he didn´t deserve
such an easy escape. He was the mastermind behind the means of mass
murder, finding the cans with poisonous insect killer Zyklon B, which he
methodically used on millions of innocent people, in order to exterminate them
inside the gas chambers. That takes me to the most feared place of all; the
chambers.
The houses with low ceilings and the appearance of pigpens, with
darkness swallowing every ounce of light coming through the tiny main entrance.
People who entered, escaped only through the chimney. They were lied about the
purpose right from the start, being given a piece of soap and told to take off
their clothes in the main hall, only to be showered later. They were even told
to remember the number of their hooks they hung their clothes on. How
immaculate, how cunning. These Nazis, they could not have been more
proud of their achievement and efficiency. As we slowly moved outside the
perimeters of Auschwitz territory and headed three kilometres towards the Birkenau camp, the mood shifted rapidly, as we saw the enormous sight that had
a chilling resonance. The fields behind the electric wires told the story of a
real hellish nightmare. There were no more splendidly built brick houses, but
shabby, desolate and gloomy buildings looking like horse stalls that used to shelter waves of prisoners. Greeks, Polish, Czechs, Hungarians, Slovaks, French,
all of them mostly Jews and some political figures as well as criminals, who
used to guard over the lot. The most impressive was the pathway along the
railway track that runs through the middle like a river, only leading to the
centre of the camp, having nowhere else to go; the final destination. Standing
on the platform, where the fates of millions had been decided upon, I imagined
the multiple feet that must have touched this very ground and waddled along, exhausted
by their long journey, only to come for their death certificate.
Birkenau was the strictest
and most brutal camp of all. Your
chances of survival were almost none. If you were lucky to survive the initial journey
where you were squeezed like a cattle without having eaten for days; if you
survived the following selections directed by Dr Mengele, who by whim chose the
ones fit for work and the ones who were older and sick sent off to their last
march into gas chambers. If you miraculously survived even then, you probably
didn´t make it through months of the hardest labour, food and water deprivation, or
disease epidemics, not mentioning cold or extreme heat.
We walked the path of the
doomed ones which is so often portrayed in many historical photographs –
the path turning to the right – from where nobody returned alive. It was
peculiar to retrace the steps of so many souls that lacked the slightest notion
of what´s awaiting them at the furthest end. It felt like walking my last steps
too. I imagined I´m one of them and whenever I looked behind me, I could see
the train, the people remaining on the platform, the watch towers of Birkenau
and the vast space beyond that belonged to the world. This was the entrapment
of innocent souls inside the wired fields of death. This was the perimeter of a world that got cut off by the hands of the evil men only to snuff out the life for
no good reason. I wanted so much to grab the imaginary souls and take them all
back towards the gates, take them out of this hell and make it all disappear. If
only time could go back. I felt incredible sadness over this loss. There is no
replacement for those good, intelligent, inspiring people that could have lived and made a difference in their times. They left so many things behind; their families, their loved ones, their children, their youth, their never
fulfilled dreams and hopes, their freedom. The injustice that has occurred was
beating in my chest 70 years later, although I was just a silent witness now,
who could barely comprehend the ferocity of it all. I tried to find some hope
in there, some little speck of meaning, so that all these women, men and
children wouldn´t lose their lives in vain. I imagined that maybe, maybe they
were all around us now in the form of angels, trying to guard us and warn us
against the same mistakes. Perhaps their
death was the only exclamation mark on our conscience, keeping us constantly
alert and saying aloud – don´t let this happen again. This wasn´t injustice
perpetrated on Jews. This was injustice perpetrated on all humankind.
As we passed by the most
infamous gas chambers that remained standing (as the Nazis didn´t have enough time to bring them down once the
Red Army started approaching), we encircled the debris of the chambers only to
reach the little remote and quiet pond. How shocking to be told its floor is still
covered with tons of human ashes; the ashes that remained of the people. These
were sometimes used by Nazis instead of dust, when the ground was frozen solid,
so that they didn´t slip over. I stared
at the water and saw the grey layers sitting down like ashes from lava. I
couldn´t fathom what kind of horror must have happened here. It was too far- fetched, too barbaric to even accept as real. Thankfully, the sun was shining as if it
apprehended our vulnerable journey back in time, and shone as if trying to take
away disquiet from our hearts. The loneliness and the ghastly perception would
have been much worse if it rained. We peeked inside the female building,
which reminded me of a haunted farm, with all its claustrophobic narrowness, the
three-floor cubicles for sleeping, where the bodies of eight people had to fit all
at once, and its crumbled floors, dark corners and dampness penetrating the
lungs like a heavy cloud.
If being here all by
myself, I would freak out only by standing inside. Imagining that these women
had to live here for several years, sleep on the cold floors quite unprovided
for, without any medical help, this went beyond anyone´s wildest imagination.
Thinking of how good we
live these days, how protected and sheltered we are, what food and medicine we have
and the comfort we live in, we would not be able to deal with as much as they
did. We would perish within a single day. I always think of situations like being
cut off from water for one day or electricity, or even not having been able to
get a hot meal once a day, and I feel deeply frustrated and a sense of
trepidation comes over me. These people kept hanging on threads, losing all
their human dignity, starving out and dying out like flies by the thousands. The
enormity of it all made them immune to their surroundings and living
conditions. They got used to sleeping next to dead bodies, or bodies twitching
in agony. They were so hungry they had to eat the grass or pieces of clothes.
They were so thirsty they had to drink the water containing their own excrement.
They were so cold they had to huddle together, clinging to their neighbours´
skeletons to warm up. Adding the fear of whatever the Nazis decided to do to them with
their rifles, beatings, kickings, public punishments... they didn´t have much
more to live for.
As we walked out of the
barracks and came closer to the main gates, we were taken inside the huge
wooden shed that could hold thousands of horses and cattle, only this one
served quite a different purpose. It used to be the only communal latrines.
Thousands of holes cut out in the concrete slab underneath which were the
shafts for human excrement. There were stories about Jews and inhabitants of the camp, who tried to hide inside the smelly dump, only to avoid the cruel Nazis
for at least a while. The Nazis wouldn´t go near the latrines; that would be way
too unimaginable a torment for them to endure. They left that in the hands of
commando, the criminals, who were partially favored and partially doomed to be
eliminated sooner or later as well as the Jews.
This was the last stop on
our journey through human hell that once has taken a place on this very earth.
A place that shouldn´t be forgotten, but left at the back of our conscience. It
should be the constant reminder of what humans are capable of if the wrong
person is given the power to rule the world. After all,
this part of history is about all of us.
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Arbeit Macht Frei - The work will set you free |
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Auschwitz looking deserted now 70 years later |
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leftover prosthetics of those who didn´t make it to the camp and were sent straight to Gas |
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That´s where the band was situated (also mentioned in "Sophia´s choice") |
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Dr. Mengele´s experiments on children |
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Birkenau from the inside - this railway track had to be crossed by every single living Jew |
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the path towards death -millions of people walked to their deaths, unsuspecting anything |
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their last view while alive - believing they are going to take shower, they were slaughtered |
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Female barracks - they slept everywhere, squeezed together in rows |
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public latrines - they had only 20 seconds each to do their stuff |
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the beds they slept on - mass chicken house |