auschwitz concentration camp

this post is full of the terrible, the awful, and the ugly of it all. i really didn't want to have more than one post on auschwitz, so i crammed everything into one.
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poland's history is a very heavy one. they have had to endure land-hungry invaders and race annihilators. probably the most well-known place in poland is the auschwitz concentration camp. this was later discovered as an extermination camp used to kill more than 1 million people from may 1940 to january 1945. this was just one of many concentration camps owned and operated by nazi germany during world war 2. of course, the master-mind behind it all was infamous racist, adolf hitler.

at the start of our tour, our same bus driver as yesterday, picked us up from our hotel after breakfast.

we boarded a completely packed bus and began our 1 hour ride towards the camp. during the drive, we watched a video that served as a historic overview of what happened in concentration camps and highlighting auschwitz in particular.

once we arrived at the camp, we were given headphones as to clearly hear our tour guide as we walked around the entire camp. she was an incredibly knowledgeable women who, in my opinion, was the best tour guide on the planet. she remained serious and to the point while filling our brain with every fact that she had skillfully memorized about place and time in history. she helped us to think from a different perspective than we ever had before.

the sign at the entrance into the camp is a german phrase that means labor makes (you) free.

as we walked around the camp, it was eery to imagine the history that took place on the same ground that we were walking on. it was amazing to hear all the details and planning that went into building this place and the other surrounding camps that they would later build. the german nazis were very practical in everything they did. the first part of the camp was used as the administrative center. they took over the polish artillery barracks and used the already built buildings as their own. the whole town was evacuated and forced to leave as to establish and claim the entire surrounding area as their own. they even used the bricks and other housing materials from the evacuated homes to build any new spaces that they saw fit. they would then use the prisoners from the camp as slaves to do all the hard labor.

the camp was very large

everything is kept to it's original condition. they even planted young trees to copy the ones the prisoners were made to plant during their time there.

the amount of human cruelty that was done at this camp is beyond full understanding. even the lucky few who managed to escape the camp were not taken serious. their account of what happened was too outlandish in the eyes of so many. it would take years before they started putting two and two together.

just how the september 11th attacks were considered the unthinkable here in america, so were these camps in europe. they now both serve as reminders in people's hearts to help prevent against the repeat attack on so many innocent lives. if 9/11 was repeated every other day for the next 5 years, it would equal the amount of people who died in the brutal concentration camps just a few generations back.

nobody opened their borders for these people. many of the people themselves didn't even feel jewish, but because someone in their family was, then they too were considered jewish. they searched back 3 generations. (that would affect many people, including myself, in the usa today) in the beginning, people initially didn't know it was information that should be hidden so they would freely tell them their family history. many religious jews would see it as god's will and would not fight against them.

the germans documented everything.

there are many boards and displays filled with documents and items showing evidence of their time there.

people from roma were called gypsy's and were sent to concentration camps as well. jehovah witnesses refused to be war people so they were also sent. homosexuals, p.o.w.'s, criminals, poles, and anyone else that they didn't like were sent to concentration camps.

there are many stories told from behind these walls.

boarded windows blocked the bravery of the executed.

the original intent with concentration camps in general was to change the people and then release them, but that soon began to change. there was no intent to release anyone and what made auschwitz different from the other camps in germany was the fact that they were taking jews directly to the gas chambers and killing them. they didn't even see the camp. they were taken thousands at a time to be killed. the first to go were the women with their children, elderly, and disabled.

execution area

electric fences sometimes aided prisoners in their suicide attempts.

the people were sorted into two lines by a doctor. he chose whether they would live or die that day. people were confused and even switched lines to stay with their families. they didn't know at the time which line was the better one. they just didn't want to be separated in the camp.

during this selection/extermination process, an orchestra was forced to play happy, upbeat music. these musicians had some of the highest suicidal rates of any other prisoner there at the camp.

on their way to be exterminated, the precious people were lied to and told they were merely taking showers before they get settled. instead they forced them into gas chambers and killed after taking everything the owned from them. this included their hair, gold teeth, luggage, clothes, shoes...etc. everything was gone, including their lives and their family's lives. mothers hugged their children and sang to them in the last few minutes they had together. everyone's body heat turned the poisoned pellets on the floor into lethal gas. people panicked and the healthiest ones climbed up as high as they could just to get one last breath of poison free air.

after about 5-10 minutes, the real work began. the easiest part was gassing the people, but afterwards they then had to move all the bodies into the crematorium. they made the jewish prisoners do most of the dirty work scaring them mentally for life.

there were so many glass windows like these that were filled with the people's things.

glasses

dishes

they were told to pack one suitcase to take with them. they were promised a new life in a new place. what would you have packed to start a new life?

the pile of goods around the camp was nicknamed "canada" because it means land of plenty.

these were some of the hardest things to see.

baby shoes

halls filled with adult shoes. whatever wasn't taken by the soldiers themselves were sent to german charities back home.

the souls that didn't get sent to the gas chambers their first day arriving the camp, would later suffer from starvation, diseases, abuse, extreme hard labor, suffocation, harsh weather conditions, medical experiments, exhaustion, execution, suicide and many more horrible things.

men's sleeping conditions

a hall full of documented prisoners

 

 red triangle – political

green triangle – professional criminals

black triangle – asocial

purple triangle – catholic clergy

pink triangle – homosexual

violet triangle – jehovah witnesses

yellow star – jewish


the women who were allowed to stay usually didn't last more than a couple of months, but many would not last more than one or two days. they were given worse sleeping conditions than the men. the best chance of surviving the camp would be to work in the kitchen, but even that was no easy task. they were practically given dirt to eat when they were lucky enough to get to eat.

women on one side of the hall are remembered and the men on the other.

she survived one day

the women's sleeping conditions

they even had mock camps set up to appear that the living conditions were great. families would write home explaining how wonderful things were there. once there were new families in the camp, they would send the old ones to the gas chambers and then start the process all over again with the new families. no one feared the camp because they were receiving letters from their loved ones about how great everything was there. it was encouraging others to come to the camp.

the only picture of hitler at the camp

the last standing gas chamber

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we then traveled to the other site down the road a little to visit the second camp of auschwitz called birkenau.
 
the gas chambers were built at the end of the railway. these were very far from the other buildings and the other prisoners staying there didn't know about the gas chambers at first. the camp was very large and you only really knew what was going on in your own building. there were many different languages spoken, which made it hard for people to unite. they also had to fight for their shoes and clothing because not everyone had the same things. the ss did that on purpose to cause division between the prisoners. they also fought to sleep on the top bunk during the few hours they were given to sleep because people were dying from the beds collapsing down onto the people underneath. four prisoners were forced to sleep together on each bunk and they fill the bunkers up to 1,000 at one time. they pretty much made it as miserable on the people as possible.

the place was massive

the poles think hitler's biggest mistake was invading russia. now, i will say that people in poland have strong feelings towards russians in general, but there is no denying that they helped to free the polish people from the german invasion.

goods wagon used for deportation

at the end of the rail was where they built two gas chambers used to kill the jews by the masses

the people who happened to be "freed" from the camp in 1945 were never really "free" from the pain and torture that they were forced to endure. the damage was done and many refuse to come back to poland because of the pain and heartache they suffered.

one gas chamber was destroyed by the revolt

the other was destroyed by the germans in an attempt to cover up their crimes

i think auschwitz affects everyone differently. i myself was most impacted by the 100 ft glass display that held what seemed to be a mountain of hair (this was a no-photo area). many pieces were still braided. almost all the hair came from women who had been victims of this terrible act. it hit home for me and it personalized the experience for me as a woman, a wife, a daughter, and most importantly a mother.

these were the wooden stables that they later used to house more prisoners.

the wooden bunks were built in a poorly way as to fit as many beds in there as possible.

during their stay, it was muddy, wet, and overwhelmingly smelly.

i began to picture what i would be going through if this was happening to me. they were just normal everyday people like us stripped completely of everything. i imagined how tightly i would have held on to my two beautiful girls. i would have promised them that everything was going to be okay knowing very well they we were about to die a cruel and unfair death. staring in their gorgeous but tearful eyes and kissing their sweet freshly shaven heads, i would have to control the anger and sorrowful feeling that their precious futures were being stolen from them and there was nothing i could do to change it. i had imaged a broken-hearted woman failing to keep her babies safe. it was a terrible feeling. i hated it!

the memorial at the end of the rail

this is written in 20 different languages

 

these poor men and women suffered terrible things that no human being should ever have to suffer.

 

 chad and i left that camp changed forever. it made us grateful for the things we have. it made us not want to complain about anything. as hard as it was, we will never forget our experience here.