It is a small compound with two-story red brick buildings. Except for the bricks and the black wrought iron fence, everything is brown: the dirt streets, the roofs, the wooden posts where public hangings occurred. There is a room full of shoes of all shapes and sizes. Small, worn shoes, some with ribbons, some still tied. So many shoes. Another is filled with possessions – combs, shoe polish, eye glasses, bent out of shape and with cracked or missing lenses. The other rooms are empty except for straw mattresses neatly lining the floor. The bathrooms consist of a cold slab of concrete with holes. No shower. The basements are dirty and gray, small slits for light near the ceiling and jail bars on the entryways. The hallways are lined with mugshots of ghosts who came through here long ago, rock faces betraying no emotion. It is a simple place serving a simple purpose.
It started as a prison for intellectuals and political dissidents. Hitler's army invaded Poland and in June of 1940 Polish Barracks in Auschwitz were converted to a prison to which 728 Polish political prisoners were transported. In the spring of 1942 Hitler's army marched 1,000 km into Russia and, believing himself to be on the cusp of victory over the Communist Soviet Union, Hitler gave the order to begin his systematic extermination of Jews.
To accommodate the increase of prisoners, a second, much larger camp was built 2 miles down the road. Unlike Auschwitz 1, which was designed to house prisoners, Birkenau was designed for mass murder. It is a vast plot of land with two hundred evenly spaced wooden horse barracks, each identical in design: rows of bunks three beds tall and a long slab of concrete with holes for excrement cutting down the center. It is built around a railway so that prisoners arrive mere yards from the gas chambers. There is open space for mass graves and the horse stables that housed the survivors are located just far enough from the gas chambers to keep the screams out of earshot. Thousands of prisoners arrived daily and 9 of 10 were immediately sent to the gas chambers. Only those fit to work were kept alive; no children or elderly, and very few women, were deemed fit to work. On the railway platform, confused and scared children were pulled from the arms of their parents and sent to their deaths.
It is the world's largest Jewish graveyard.
A misconception of Auschwitz is that is was a labor camp, but I assure you, it was not. It was a death factory. It was a place where cold-blooded murder was perpetrated in a systematic and efficient way. I use the term “factory” because the corpses were recycled into human product. Human hair was used to make mattresses, pillows and blankets for Nazi soldiers. Human ashes were used as farm fertilizer. Doctors were employed to ensure the most effective killing methods. The only thing that couldn't be recycled were the victims' lives.
The SS were good at giving false hope to the prisoners to keep them calm until their execution. A sign above the entry read “Work will set you free”. Work killed. 18 hour days, scant food supplies and unsanitary conditions meant that few people, even the healthiest, survived more than two months. When Jews were taken from their homes and rounded up they were told they could bring a single suitcase with their most valuable belongings. I see a boy of 6 years old, told by his parents to pack a suitcase of his favorite possessions. I see the boy rifling through a drawer, picking out a toy truck, his favorite red cap, a picture of his family, a ball, and I see him arranging his prized possessions in his bag. I see him look at his room for the last time. I think of his dreams. His joys. His misunderstanding of the world. Then I see him, upon arrival, led to a room with several other boys and girls. I see a guard take his suitcase and toss it aside, the boy still not understanding. I see the canister of gas drop from a hole in the ceiling, and I see fear. I see this a million times over and I can't understand.
10,000 people arrived each day in Auschwitz. 7,500 were killed each day. 2,000 children were killed each day.
The few selected to work often met worse fates. To maintain discipline, prisoners were tortured at random or punished for acts they did not commit. Gynecologists experimented sterilization methods on women and most of the patients died. Prisoners were hung with their arms behind their bodies for hours, their shoulders dislocating immediately. The smallest infraction meant you were placed 4 at a time into standing cells 4 feet wide and long and left to starve to death. When they weren't being tortured, experimented on or executed, the prisoners were employed in the business of death. Bodies needed to be collected, hair needed to be cut, latrines needed to be cleaned, and a boy's suitcase needed to be discarded.
Compassion ran thin, but one story resonates. Maximilian Kolbe was a Catholic priest sent to Auschwitz in 1941. When 2 prisoners escaped, 10 men were selected to be tortured to death in their place. Maximilian volunteered to replace one, a young father and husband. He survived 2 weeks of torture without food or water until finally he was poisoned. The young father survived Auschwitz.
Each gas chamber held 1500 people. There were 4. It took only 30 minutes to kill 6,000 people.
The Battle of Stalingrad marked the turning point in WWII and the beginning of the end of Hitler's Third Reich. Germany swept into Stalingrad and at one point controlled 90% of the city, but a few tenacious Soviet defenders held their positions long enough for reinforcements to flank the German troops. The flank succeeding, German forces were cut off from supplies and starved over a 3-month period. It is one of the bloodiest battles known to mankind, with 2 million people dead in its wake. On January 27th, 1945, Auschwitz was liberated by Soviet forces. Hitler retreated to his bunker in Berlin and denounced Nazi leadership who favored negotiation and surrender. On April 30th, 1945, with Soviet forces blocks away from his bunker, Hitler swallowed a cyanide tablet and shot himself in the head.
1,300,0000 were sent to Auschwitz. 1,100,000 were murdered. Half were murdered in the final 6 months of the war. 90% were Jewish.
I have found the word now, the only word, to describe the atrocities that took place 70 years ago. It is a word that exists in every language and need not ever be translated or assigned another meaning. The word is Auschwitz.
To see a more complete history of Auschwitz, go to http://www.pbs.org/auschwitz/40-45/
Oh.... wow. It is an act of survival just to manage the tour. Unfathomable, the acts that were endured there.
ReplyDeleteAnd a beautifully powerful ending, dear brother. Sent a shiver thru me.