Our last post tackled the perspective change that comes with a visit to one of the most moving and harrowing places one could ever visit. In school we learn about World War II and snippets about the holocaust, although nothing can prepare you for the first hand experience that comes with visiting one of the many concentration camps spread throughout Europe.
What you experience and learn, with physical evidence right there in front of you, is overwhelmingly powerful. And how there are people in the world that can deny the holocaust even happened is beyond me!
A visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp is compulsory for all Polish students, it should be compulsory for everyone, and the reason this terrible place has been preserved and continues to stay open is so people NEVER FORGET, so that this part of history is never repeated. This aim is met, as our visit is something that will stay with us forever.
Tours are run in a few different languages throughout the day, taking in the main camp Auschwitz and the larger secondary camp Birkenau. Your tour, depending on the time of day you visit, will start or finish with a short documentary.
Walking under the infamous “Arbeit Macht Frei” archway, indescribable, through the double barbed wire fences, between the barracks and into the first exhibit our tour guide tells the facts. Calm, respectful and informative, she only spoke fact and our respect for her is enormous. How hard it would be to relive this horrendous account everyday.
We were surprised at the behavior of some tourists on our tour, treating Auschwitz like any other site to see. There are two places in the whole tour where there are no photos allowed but they would be clicking away. When they got outside they didn’t hesitate in lighting their cigarettes and they asked some very insensitive, pointless questions. The way they could disrespect this place, our guide and the rest of the people in the group was appalling. When you visit please don’t be one of these people!
We moved over to Birkenau or Auschwitz II and, though our time here was cut short by a lightning storm that rolled in during the short bus ride over, the view from the tower here is one of the most powerful where you get a full appreciation of the sheer size of the camp. As far as the eye can see, barracks, the train tracks running underneath the tower to the center of the camp.
After the remote listening devices were disconnected, the reason we know what those inappropriate questions were from insensitive visitors, we approached our guide. We thanked her for such an excellent account of life, or death, at Auschwitz, but even more importantly we congratulated her for her ability to stand tall and calm under the obvious stress caused by some of our group. She explained that she had given these tours for 12 years and that in the years following the camps first opening the ex inmates had been the guides. Such a job can not be easy as to relive this part of history is a strain just once let alone every day. To our guide we will be forever thankful. If you have the chance to visit go there with respect, silence and decorum, you will come away changed, humbled and forever greatful that you did not have to endure.
To finish we caught the documentary in English, the same one that has been playing since the camp was opened as a memorial in 1955 and mostly real video footage showing how prisoners that had survived were found. Footage of men and women, deathly thin from starvation walking amongst the corpses of those who had been starving too long. As well as footage of those who had been experimented on, women and children, and that of conditions in the camp during liberation.
After spending at least 5 hours here we realized that we might have had to spend the night here as we had left Vincent’s headlights on all day, big mistake. Resigned we turned them off and hoped for the best before walking to a nearby restaurant for a very late lunch come early dinner, delicious and much needed!
Luckily Vincent started with no problems, miracle, and we were able to set off towards Prague and the Czech Republic.
We took two photos at Auschwitz that can be seen in the album POLAND on our Facebook page along with the rest of our time in Poland. This is a place to experience with ones own eyes and not through the lens. We are changed by all our adventures but this place has an instant affect and a lasting one.
Here We Come World 