OSWIECIM, POLAND – At around 5am three parties exited the shuttle van after a long drive from Krakow.
Our host left us to relax as he began the long wait in line for tickets to the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial museum.
It was a very cool morning. Native birds had started their day, busily gathering up some breakfast and frolicking about. Their chirps and caws broke the silence much like home when the sun starts to rise and night-time ends.
Approaching 8am, the line up was way down the street and circling the corner. Our guide and a handful of others who also came very early shepherded their charges into the yard of the facility.
Surprised by the crowds, we were told Constitution Day in Poland is officially May 3, but the country honours it over the course of a weekend. During that time, the Poles celebrate their independence, commitment to reform and the power of democracy.
Remembering the past is part of that.
Our driver made a point, numerous times, that the early departure, wait-times and so on were no doubt inconvenient, but after spending hours learning more about what happened there, he often found guests had a different sense of perspective on the ride home.
In the end he was right.
After Auschwitz-Birkenau had been liberated, survivors, fellow Jews of various sects and the community had different views on its future. An option to raze it to the ground, or at least portions that were already partially destroyed by retreating Germans was considered.
Historians estimate over 1.1 million people were killed at these two sites, with some victims buried in mass graves and the ashes of corpses processed through the crematorium spread across the countryside.
Respect for those lost souls and the need to remember that history resulted in the museum’s ultimate format. It provides a place to mourn, to reflect and for some an opportunity to dedicate effort into educating a public that cannot fathom such monstrous activities.
Auschwitz itself is surrounded by a village, akin to larger centres here that over time have enveloped a cemetery or natural landscape. This location, fenced in to control the prison population, featured brick row housing with each building having a purpose.
The interpreter who toured people through the facility explained the history and provided context to the exhibits and displays. The most striking commentary, in our view, was the depths of the apparatus for locals. He assigned blame to not just the Nazi element, but also academics, engineers, logistics firms, the businesses community and so on. The scale of the operation required many hands to complete.
The only exhibit that didn’t allow any photographs was a sizeable mound of human hair. By a rough guess it would have been 25 feet long and 5 feet deep. This represents a fraction of the volume, shorn from prisoners and then repurposed in mattresses, pillows and textiles. This atrocity symbolizes the obvious disregard captors had for their victims.
Other exhibits featured thousands of shoes and luggage sets (some with hand-painted names on the exterior) as further examples of the contemptuous plundering inflicted on the population involved.
Although the tour moved at a steady pace, there was a moment to reflect on how humans could enact such injustices against other humans. We will never know, for example, what bright mind or talent the world has missed due to this extermination plot. What a waste of humanity.
The Birkenau facility is located a short bus ride from town. The main entry point, immortalized in Steven Spielberg’s epic film Schindler’s List, still stands tall and true. It is a large imposing brick structure, with a tower in the middle atop large doors where trains would enter and exit.
The prisoner barracks, fashioned like horse stables, dot the landscape, and brick chimneys are all that remains of some wood buildings long ago repurposed elsewhere.
The buildings where captives were processed lay in heaps of twisted concrete slabs and brick. The Germans tried to eliminate evidence by bombing facilities where prisoners were gassed and cremated.
That precise spot, at the end of the line, was where our tour concluded, which seemed odd, but in hindsight, a purpose unfolded.
The sun by this time was high in the sky and the heat beat down for the long walk back to the entrance. It allowed for some sombre reflection.
Those very paths where men, women and children had marched to their fate are now walked by survivors, their families and people seeking to understand a horrific period in history.
Depravity is something that can’t be explained away or rationalized. It just can’t.
The challenge for us, in a free society remains being aware and mindful.
And we must value living free.
