Nathan's Insights

Thursday 11 April 2024
Highlights: The confronting truth at Auschwitz and Birkenau Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camps, exploring more of Krakow

When booking this trip, I did it knowing I would be visiting Auschwitz for an educational experience. That day was today and lined up well to expand my knowledge after yesterdays to Oskar Schindler’s Enamel Factory. Back knowing about a place and events and visiting them is on a different emotional level.

We gathered at 6 am to meet our specialist guide to Auschwitz and Birkenau Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camps. Christin had organised breakfast bags for us all to consume on the 45 minute journey there.

We started with Auschwitz Camp. This is the original, and the proving ground for the expansion into Birkenau Camp. While they are collecting known as Auschwitz and had the same Nazi Leadership there were key differences in size and deaths. This original camp started on 20 May 1940 mostly with political prisoners. We saw photos of these prisoners arriving, in these photos the horrors that would grow at not yet fully present.

During our tour in this camp we saw terrible things, clothes, shoes, luggage, and other possessions taken from the victims of this place. Victims who did not know this was their final destination, a place of hell, of no humanity from those in charge. The ruthless efficiency of murder.

We saw the location of arbitrary hangings of random prisoners who died because of others escaping or attempting to escape. This punishment was to ensure no one helped other escape as anyone could be killed as punishment even if no involvement.

We saw sicking photos of Jewish children experimented on by Doctor Josef Rudolf Mengele. These children, often twins, were ‘saved’ from going straight to the gas chamber instead their fate was horrific experimentation and later death.

Doctor Mengele was never held to account for his crimes against humanity, dying in Brazil in 1979. Knowing him was alive while I was a child is chilling on reflection.

We visit in respectful silence the first gas chamber. We learned how slow and painful the gas was. Not far from the Gas Chamber, and his Auschwitz luxury home, we saw the site that Rudolf Hoss was hang for his crimes.

After a short break we drove to the Birkenau Camp.

This was where most of the killings occurred. We saw the entrance that trains delivered victims to this place.

We stood next to one of the four massive Gas Chambers.

We also visited a Childrens Barrack and saw the distressing conditions they had to live in.

Our guide explained the last days of these camps. How the Nazi’s force marched 65,000 prisoners out for a 65 km journey and how less than 15,000 had the energy to survive this march.

A confronting educational experience today, but a necessary one I feel.

In the afternoon back in Krakow I rested for a while in my hotel room reflecting and researching more on what I learned. There were some brave acts to give you a glimmer of hope that human’s worse can’t destroy our humanity, but Auschwitz come close to extinguishing all hope.

Both Darby and I then did do a little more exploring of Krakow later in the day in particular viewing the Town Hall Tower, visiting St Florian’s Gate Tower (build in 1200s), seeing The Barbican (a defensive structure) and just generally wandering around.

In the evening Darby joined several members of the group on a vodka tasting experience while I reflected on the day. When Darby returned, she was very happy having survived 11 shots of local vodka.