Auschwitz

We had not planned on visiting Poland, but a young Hungarian couple we met in Salzburg persuaded us that Cracow in particular was not to be missed. Auschwitz is just a hour's drive or so short of Cracow, and so we stopped there at a stellplatz in the visitor center parking lot. Vicki has read or taught a good bit of Holocaust literature and so was intent on the visit. It was a beautiful sunny day; it seemed almost wrong to visit this place of unimaginable suffering and perversion on such a day. There were thousands of other visitors, mostly tours from Cracow or Prague. People visit such places for many different reasons, I suppose. Some were carrying flowers for relatives lost at Auschwitz. Most, like us, come out of a sense of obligation, to witness, to share in the sense of despair, perhaps to gain some understanding or hope. But the Holocaust is not even the most recent instance of genocide.

Auschwitz was originally a Polish army base, taken by the

Germans in 1939 and thereafter converted first to a

concentration camp for Polish political prisoners, then

Russian POWs, then Jews, Gypsies, and others from all

over Europe; "arbeit macht frei" conveyed only this truth:

as long as you could work, you could live; life expectancy

was 3-4 months, although some few survived; when the

Red Army arrived, in January, 1945, Auschwitz had been

closed for several months; only 7000 or so inmmates

remained, most near death

The four-hour tour (English and many other language

choices) begins at Auschwitz I, the original camp, which

could house 15,000 or so; the gas chamber was first used

here; these are canisters of Xyklon B found by the Russians

Eyeglasses of those murdered

Suitcases; the lie propounded was that everyone was being

"re-settled" and thus encouraged to bring along up to 50kg

of valuables per person; later "confiscated" and sent back

to the Reich

Shoes

Guardhouse

In the midst of the 30 or so barracks

The barbed wire fences, everywhere, were

electrified