Auschwitz Birkenau

Birkenau-
The three of us decided to go to Birkenau first. Mark, who lives in Poland, had never been to the camps, so he was just as interested in going as Erik and I were.

I can write and write and write to you about what I saw, but I could never encapsulate the horror of that place. Ever.

The most surprising and eerie feeling of Birkenau was the size. The sheer size. I want to compare it to multiple city blocks, but I know it was even larger than that. You scan the entire camp, and think you view it all, enter and walk through a block and realize that just at the edge of your peripheral, an entire new stretch emerged.

The camp was maticuliously planned, which adds to the disgust. There were barracks for every person and every 'category'- homosexuals, gypsies, political activists, women and children, elderly, sick, and of course, Jews as a whole.

After seeing this in person, I do not buy that people simply didn't know they exist. The size is astounding.

When the Nazis knew that they were going to be defeated, they burned down nearly everything at Birkenau. Records, crematoriums, gas chambers, barracks... All that is left in a majority of the camp are the chimneys. Rows and rows of chimneys.

Each barrack was made to hold roughly FIFTY HORSES, and instead housed over 400 people. Several public toilets (literally in between the rows of bunks) lined the barrack.

One thing that was quite visible were the 'expansion plans'. The Nazi's were in the middle of building larger sewage systems and more barracks to maximize the amount of killing they could do on a daily basis.

After walking for over an hour (in a new direction), we came to the back of the camp. The shower building was perfectly in tact. We walked through where the prisoners where scoured with scalding hot water and forced to sit in the freezing cold. We were able to see where there clothes were stored (and eventually sold to civilians). All of this was horrifying. You felt as if you were walking through a nightmare.

At the end of the showers was a museum. Thousands and thousands of pictures and faces. Beautiful and happy faces. Babies, families, grandparents.. people.

PEOPLE.



Auschwitz

Auschwitz, which gets a majority of the attention between the two camps is considerably more preserved. While Birkenau was actually the major camp in which all killing occured, Auschwitz was condensed and of absolutely graphic proportions.

The death hangs in the air in Auschwitz. As you walk underneath the infamous sign, there is a building to your slight right. Public executions and tortures would occur there. If a prisoner escaped, they'd find their whole family and make them stand there -without food or water- regardless of weather- until the prisoner returned home.

Of the buildings that were preserved, none were as horrid as the gas chambers. The gas chamber was build in a dome shape, partially into the ground. There was a place for public hanging directly outside of the front (scare tactics and 'examples). I wish I could put to words what I felt and still feel. It was the most horrific and angering feeling. Standing inside of the gas chamber, seeing the very spots where poison gas entered this small space. The silence was so loud it was nearly unbearable. History, in this case, was not the least bit objective. You knew the screams, and the terror, and how frightened these people were.






This is an experience I would recommend to anyone. I do feel it was life changing. This happened SIXTY FIVE years ago. The time of my grandparents. Other mass genocides have occurred much more recently than this. I think that the proximity of this event was what sparked me to take pictures.

Pictures were allowed outside of all buildings. I did ALOT of research about taking pictures. Most importantly, this place is a burial ground to millions, and I wanted to be respectful of that. But everyone- from Anne Frank to Ellie Wiesel to Otto Frank wants it to be remembered, and talked about, and documented.