I originally thought of just putting a title and then
posting some photographs with no narrative, in a ‘What can be said?' sort of way. And indeed, just what words are appropriate? However,
that just seems too gimmicky really and a bit of a cop out and, somehow, a
disservice to the hundreds of thousands of people that were executed. As the
time between then and now increases, there is the danger that the Holocaust
fades from the collective memory as real events in time which happened to real
people and becomes instead a sort of metaphysical abstract, an embodiment of
the idea of evil, which discounts the lived reality of each of those lives
systematically extinguished. Silence then and now, is dangerous. Silence was
the aim of the Nazi programme – the removal of the ability to speak, to
think, to proclaim the self, to object, to pray, to love, to be. On reflection,
silence is not appropriate.
I leave the Tatra Mountains at 6:45am and arrive in Oswiecim,
about 80 miles away, at 9am. There are two main sites: Auschwitz-Birkenau II
and Auschwitz I, about 4km separating the two. By chance, I probably make the
right choice, although logically, it would make sense to start at the original
site first, rather than the larger, more ‘efficient’ and later extension. I
head to Birkenau. As it’s early on a Sunday, it’s very quiet. The car park is almost empty. Entrance is free, through an open metal gate. I pretty much have the place to
myself, apart from a few groups of Jewish school children, who have Star of
David flags draped over their shoulders and who are, poignantly, walking in a single
file along the railway track. It is Passover holiday, so they have taken the
opportunity to travel and contemplate.
The site is vast, some 175 hectares, with discreet direction
arrows guiding you gently around the site and information boards interspersed along the route. It is not touristy at all (only a bookshop and toilet
at the entrance). Just quiet. The land is flat and green. The sky is a bright
blue, with feathery cirrus clouds very high up. There are butterflies, birds singing, Spring flowers growing in the shade of the many wooden look out posts and
in the distance, the mountains. In the far corner of the compound I’m in, I
catch sight of the bobbing white tail of a brown deer. There are rows of once
electrified barbed wire fences, ditches, a large number of remaining wooden
barrack huts, originally designed for the German Army to house 52 horses in
each, but instead used to house more than 400 prisoners. There are hundreds of
chimney stacks, the remains of the now removed barracks, two chimneys per
building. I follow the railway track to the disembarkation point, and I stand
where survivors of the train journey to the camp (many died of suffocation or
where crushed, particularly children, as their parent became too weak to
protect them) were separated, women/girls in one group, men/boys in another and
then within that, those fit to work and those not. Those not fit to work were
sent directly to the gas chambers: the old, the young, the infirm, the
pregnant. Within those fit to work, further subdivision: women from Hungary,
women from the Warsaw uprising, Gypsies, men from Bohemia, from Holland,
Greece, France, each to separate barracks. Others, particularly twins, cripples, the
mentally ill for example were not all assigned to the gas chambers but were sent to
the Infirmary, where Dr Joseph Mengele performed his experiments. There
is a brick shower block, where people were stripped of their possessions, their
clothes, their dignity, their identity, (names replaced with a number tattooed
on their forearm) and their body hair. The removal of all body hair was so
brutal and quick, that people died from their injuries. To be face to face with someone and sadistically mutilate
them with a pair of scissors or electric razor. That is something else, more intimate, personal and therefore more frightening as a result. Here, on this very spot, in this
beautiful countryside, only 72 years ago. There are the remains of the gas
chambers and incinerators, which the Nazis destroyed as the Russian Army advanced. There
is the site where, as pressure grew to kill more people than the incinerators
could handle, bodies were piled up, doused with petrol and burnt in the open
air. Across the two sites, 1.2 million people were slaughtered. This is killing on
an industrial, inhumane, unimaginable scale. It is almost too much to
comprehend in any meaningful way. In one room in the shower block, there are
pictures of families and individuals before their imprisonment and murder.
Photos carried by people as part of their possessions: a family on holiday at
the seaside, children and parents laughing, a formal family group portrait,
grandparents with grandchildren. The photos of individuals make it more graspable,
more human and more terrible. People just like you and me. At various points, not prompted by any particular building or fact, but by the
general, cumulative weight of this place in the light Spring sunshine, I am
overwhelmed by waves of sadness and I cry, periodically, silently, tears
running down my face. I’m glad it’s quiet. I’m not the first person to cry
here.
Auschwitz I, the original site of the first concentration
camp, couldn't be more different. Geared to mass tourism with lines of coaches from
Krakow, lots of people, a queue for tickets. You can’t enter as an individual after
10am or before 3pm, so I pay some money and wait for the next English speaking
group to start. I try to keep up, but give up after about 45 minutes. The
group, sandwiched between a Spanish speaking group in front and a German
speaking group behind, cracks on at a pace which doesn't allow time to just
look and think and reflect. The site is very small by comparison to Birkenau,
with about 40 buildings. Blocks of squat, three storey tenements of warm brown
brick in the sunshine and internally, steps worn down into two curves, left and
right, through heavy use. The contrast between the ordinariness of the
buildings and the atrocities committed inside is stark. We enter some of the
blocks. Block 5 – Material Proof of Crimes, where there are displays of personal
belongings taken from the prisoners: a room full of children’s clothes, a room full
of pots and pans and multi-coloured crockery still anticipating the next meal, a selection of shoes, piled high behind glass, leather, canvas, high heeled, flat
soled, boots, children’s shoes. Some look expensive. With a minimum carry allowance,
people wore their best clothes to save carrying them. There is a collection of thousands
of spidery spectacles, like some macabre modern art installation and, perhaps 7
metres long, about 2 metres high and 2 metres deep, hair, which was used to
stuff mattresses and pillows, make blankets and weave socks. 1,950 kilos of
hair were found. People reduced to the level of commodity. Block 10 - Gynaecological Experiments,
Block 11 - Heart of the Mechanism of Terror, where the very first inmates were
gassed in September 1941. Outside the blocks, the wall used for executions by
firing squad, in another spot, posts for hangings. I tag onto another group and
walk through the gas chamber and incinerator areas, still intact, the name of the makers, Topf und
Sohn, just still readable. Around 17,000 people were killed here, before ‘production’
switched to the larger camp at Birkenau. I have stopped taking photos and
making notes in my pocket book a little while ago now. I need to see and experience,
rather than distance myself through the camera or with a pen.
When I return to the hotel, the owner, Christophe asks in
broken English what I thought. I can only sigh and touch my heart with my hand.
He indicates that he has visited twice and he too, raises his eyes to the sky,
sighs and touches his heart with his hand. I notice he has had his hair cut.
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| Entrance to Auschwitz-Birkenau II |
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| Jewish school children at the disembarkation and separation point |
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| In the shadow of a look out post |
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| Here people were stripped of everything before being showered |
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| Photos taken from prisoners on their arrival |
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| The steps down to one of the gas chambers |
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| Camp Layout |
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| Legend to the Camp Layout |
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| By contrast, the entrance to Auschwitz I |
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| Across the whole area, there were a number of camps and a factory |
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| 'Arbeit Macht Frei', translated means Work Makes you Free. The upside down B in Arbeit (not really visible in my photo, unfortunately) is interpreted as an act of defiance by the prisoners that made it. |
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| This was a Pan-European programme, with people transported from many different countries |
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| Shoes |
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| People |
Incomplete list of children killed in The Holocaust
