It has taken us a few days to digest this experience and here finally are a few notes.
First, there are the physical facts of the site. What most people think of as Auschwitz – the place with the sign that says “Arbeit Macht Ffrei” - is the smaller of three sites, although it is by far and away the most intact. Auschwitz II Birkenau is the largest and it covers acres and acres of ground.
It was also the main killing center. It was the place where the rains would pull up; there would be a selection on the platform where – if the labour was needed – the fit and healthy people would be pulled out of the line. The “unfit”were the old people, the pregnant women and the children . An SS doctor decided your fate in seconds.
The place killed 6000 people in a day. You would be marched off to a changing room where you'd leave your clothes all neatly bundled so you could collect it when you came out of the showers, only you never came out. The shower-heads were dummies and instead of water you got Zyklon-B, an agent which was used to disinfect clothing, but was basically cyanide gas.
Today there are displays explaining the process in detail. Hardest to take there are the piles of booty stolen from the dead.
Some of us found different things upsetting. Some found the 'suffocation” cells bad where were kept four people at a time as punishment. For others, it was the huge pile of spectacle frames. For others it was the human hair the Germans made into a coarse canvas-like textile. Others yet again were disturbed by the pile of children's shoes.
There were other things too.
We both agree that one of the most terrible things about this dreadful place is that the people going to their deaths here had no idea what was going on. They were tricked from start to finish by ruthless, men who told them to pay for their train tickets, to label their luggage, to fold up their clothing, to make sure they kept their shoes together so they could pick them up afterwards.
First, there are the physical facts of the site. What most people think of as Auschwitz – the place with the sign that says “Arbeit Macht Ffrei” - is the smaller of three sites, although it is by far and away the most intact. Auschwitz II Birkenau is the largest and it covers acres and acres of ground.
It was also the main killing center. It was the place where the rains would pull up; there would be a selection on the platform where – if the labour was needed – the fit and healthy people would be pulled out of the line. The “unfit”were the old people, the pregnant women and the children . An SS doctor decided your fate in seconds.
The place killed 6000 people in a day. You would be marched off to a changing room where you'd leave your clothes all neatly bundled so you could collect it when you came out of the showers, only you never came out. The shower-heads were dummies and instead of water you got Zyklon-B, an agent which was used to disinfect clothing, but was basically cyanide gas.
Today there are displays explaining the process in detail. Hardest to take there are the piles of booty stolen from the dead.
Some of us found different things upsetting. Some found the 'suffocation” cells bad where were kept four people at a time as punishment. For others, it was the huge pile of spectacle frames. For others it was the human hair the Germans made into a coarse canvas-like textile. Others yet again were disturbed by the pile of children's shoes.
There were other things too.
We both agree that one of the most terrible things about this dreadful place is that the people going to their deaths here had no idea what was going on. They were tricked from start to finish by ruthless, men who told them to pay for their train tickets, to label their luggage, to fold up their clothing, to make sure they kept their shoes together so they could pick them up afterwards.
1 comment:
Not a pleasant experience to even read about it. Awful.
-- Jeff
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