Oshwiem, Poland
May 30, 2004
(Auschwitz)

Very emotional...

Auschwitz I (Oshwiem)

Main Gates
"Work Equals Freedom"

 

 

 

 

 

 

Auschwitz II (Birkenau)

We had just entered the larger, newer Birkenau camp, where most of the prisoners were held and exterminated towards the end of the war, when all of a sudden a tour group member couldn't contain herself any longer.  She stood up in front of the group and asked if she could tell us her story.  Birkenau was actually the largest of 3 camps known (as a conglomerate) as Auschwitz.  This largest camp is where all the Hollywood films go because it's got the famous train tracks built right into the camp (to make extermination more efficient).  Well, this largest camp is also where this old woman was held as a child prisoner in 1944.  I actually couldn't believe it at first.  I immediately went into that "city mode" we all go into when someone crazy starts yelling on your subway car.  I literally thought she was a crazy woman who thought she was there.  Meanwhile she was starting to choke on her words, and cry uncontrollably.  The last bit she sort of made out was that she couldn't even tell her son.  Now, take your guard down, and tell me what would you do?  I mean, the woman was actually at Auschwitz, and is now a frail old woman coming to terms with the reality... 60 YEARS LATER!!  Well, the tour guide hugged her, but I took a step backwards.  I felt really weird, like maybe I never really grasped this reality any more than a Hollywood movie.  The tour guide walked off, then, and started to cry.  She saw this every week.  I felt really awful after all was said and done, for not actually believing her.  Not that she knew, but what does it say about me?  Am I ignorant, or just jaded?  Did I really think this happened so long ago that there couldn't be any REAL people still alive?  Under normal circumstances I wouldn't have hugged a stranger, but now, I feel like the fact that no one in the group hugged her, or even really wanted to look at her (myself included) was subtly a pretty mean and Nazi-sympathetic thing to do to this woman.  I'm no Nazi, but I started wondering if I were in Germany in a different time, if I would be one of those who just turned their head.  Backing away from atrocities just because they didn't directly affect me.  Group Psychology.

Toilets
Each person was give 5 seconds on the toilet

The SS bombed the 2 large capacity gas chambers to destroy the evidence just before the Allied forces arrived