Auschwitz
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I may have learned my lesson about springtime travel in northern/central Europe - it certainly isn't spring in California or fall in Australia. I've developed a serious cold/sore throat and lost my voice this afternoon, probably due to overexposure to the elements. Tomorrow I'll have a bit of catching up to do - haven't seen much of Krakow because of the rain and my cold. It sucks, though, that it had to happen here in Krakow (and Budapest coming up next), two of the cities I was looking forward to the most. Krakow seems to be the most touristy of all of the cities I've visited so far, though not quite as much as Prague. Today I went to Auschwitz, as well as Birkenau, the second camp (or Auschwitz II) where most of the killing actually took place. Seriously, no book or documentary on the Holocaust will compare with the experience of walking the grounds where it happened. It was the most chilling travel experience I've ever endured. I'd thought about visiting Dachau when I was in Munich, but I felt I wasn't ready for an experience like that yet. As you enter Auschwitz, you walk under the gate with the message "Arbeit Macht Frei" - Work Makes You Free. Around the grounds are placards describing some of the atrocities that would take place at that very location. What was most shocking was seeing some of the objects that belonged to the victims - piles of human hair (some of it used to make cloth, but was tainted with cyclone B), striped uniforms held up by wiring, eyeglasses, prosthetic legs and crutches, bowls, you name it. To me, that was just as if not more creepy than seeing the crematorium or barracks where 8 people would be crammed into a single bunker. For most people, Birkenau is more powerful because it is so much larger. The train tracks are still in place, but some of the crematoriums were destroyed by the Nazis as they retreated. One feature I found interesting was an international memorial to the Holocaust, where I came across some flowers presented by the Iranian Dialogue Group in Berlin recently (interesting considering their president's denial of the Holocaust). Obviously, it's difficult to comprehend how human beings can inflict such injustice on other humans, both adults and children alike. None of the victims had any idea what they were in for when they were sent here, and had no choice but to suffer their fate. Tomorrow will (hopefully) be a better day for me - check out the castle on Wawel Hill and a walk through Kasimierz (the Jewish quarter, and setting of Schindler's List). |
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I was 12 years old when we took a trip to Dachau, it leaves a print on your life forever. I still at 39 years old can smell the death smell from the oven rooms, gas chambers and barracks. I can still feel the cold chill running up my back and the pictures in my mind are like I went yesterday. It is a lesson from history never forgotten.
Thanks for your responses. And Lauren, I know what you mean by proximity to modern life - there are farms and houses right by Birkenau. I can't imagine what it's like to have a death camp right in your backyard.
I imagine I'll experience the same feelings if/when I go to Cambodia. Not the kind of place that will bring you pleasure, but it's an important place to visit if you want to understand human history.
One of the reasons I saved Poland for another trip, on my big Euro-trek: I didn't feel ready to see Auschwitz, but didn't feel able to pass through Krakow just pretending the camps weren't there...
The best Holocaust memoir I've read (of many - my college course selection always had a pretty dark and twisted bent to it) is Primo Levi's "Survival in Auschwitz", because alongside the horror of it he offers something to cling to: roughly paraphrased, he says that everyone knows perfect happiness is impossible, but few people realize that the reverse is also true, and that perfect unhappiness, no matter the circumstances, is equally impossible.
Definitely feel you. I remember going to Auschwitz and one of the travelers with me broke down at the gates and won't set foot on the premises. What got me were the piles of prosthetic limbs and eye glasses.
Not everyone wore prosthetic limbs or glasses back then!
Wrote a little post about torture - http://matadortravel.com/travel-blog/cambodia/geotraveler/staring-death-with-a-smirk
(Tuol Sleng & Terror Museum)
Actually, the strangest thing about visiting Majdanek (concentration camp) in Lublin was its proximity to modern life - it's next to a freeway and there are apartment blocks edging in on the fields surrounding it. I wonder what it's like to look out your window every morning and see a concentration camp? And the worst, the absolute worst thing for me there was seeing the individual ovens for human bodies.
Krakow's tourism turned me off to the point where I began to like Warsaw because it never goes out of its way to serve anyone - tourist or inhabitant. Also, I couldn't comprehend the lack of falafel carts in the Jewish quarter. :) If you haven't yet, you should try those round pretzel bagel breads that they sell all over on the streets - Krakow's the only place I've been to in Poland that has these. They're surprisingly good plain.
Finally, I'm with you on the weather. WHERE IS SPRING?!!
The hair haunted me, too. Piles and piles.
Interesting post. I've never been to Auschwitz, but I had a similar experience touring the Tuol Sleng prison and Killing Fields in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. There were rows upon rows of photos on display, records kept with Nazi-like precision by the Khmer Rouge. Those pictures were absolutely haunting, looking into the eyes of emaciated people who were almost certainly killed a short time later. There are some places you'd really rather not visit, but they must be seen.
Incidentally, I've also shared your experience of April in Central Europe. I naively imagined the weather being similar to a previous trip I'd taken during August. I wound up huddled outside the Vienna train station at 4am trying not to freeze to death.