Auschwitz and Birkenau

Indescribable. The only word that accurately captures my feelings after experiencing Auschwitz and Birkenau on Saturday. Prior to my trip people would always ask me what I was most excited for during my time abroad. My most common answer was always that I was going to be able to visit Auschwitz and Birkenau. When I told someone this it always took him or her aback. They would ask me why I was excited to see such a dark time in our world. Excited was never the right word to use and I struggled actually finding the right word that described my feelings. Excited comes with a connotation of joy and pleasure. These words of course were not the right ones to use. I searched and searched for the right word to describe my feelings, but would always just come up with words that never did my feelings any justice.

Saturday morning I loaded the bus and started the three-hour journey into Poland. I had never really thought about how I would feel or react to seeing this place. Looking back, I would have guessed that at some point I would have thought about my feelings related to this place of inhumane horror. As we approached closer and closer to Auschwitz I was very surprised. In my head I imagined these barrack and brick buildings out in the countryside far away from civilization. To my amazement, Auschwitz is right across the street from a restaurant, café, and other modern structures. I wonder why anyone would want to own a business this close or why the country would let them. Nonetheless, I was anxious to finally get off the bus and into the camp.

Entrance into Auschwitz

As we approached closer and closer I could start to sense everyone’s mood change. I slipped on my headphones and soon enough our tour had begun. When my eyes caught the first glance of the barbed wire fence and old brick building, my eyes were lost. Constantly, my eyes were scanning and doing their best to take in as much as I could. The tour guides soft voice would ring through my ears, as my eyes were fixated on everything around me.

A look down the barbed wire fence

We began to walk through a few buildings with various uses and strolled the abandoned streets. The first few buildings were filled with pictures of prisoners and a few artifacts. Near the half way mark was where my emotions started to really talk to me. Our tour guide took us into the room filled with enormous piles of hair, glasses, clothes, luggage and utensils that were all confiscated. The very first pile we saw was the large pile of hair. Officials were to cut of the hair in order to make the cremation process more efficient. This pile of hair was massive and unfathomable. After seeing this, my gut felt like it was twisted and punched repeatedly. During the tour of each building, all that was on my mind was picturing how these prisoners lived daily and survived. There is no possible way to ever know how horrific these concentration camps were.

Pile of utensils

Briefcases of prisoners

There was a second time where a wave of emotions came over me. This was when we entered one of the still standing crematoriums. The whole time all I could think to myself was how many people walked in and did not see another ray of daylight. I was fortunate enough to walk outside and continue live the life I do, with the people I am grateful for. Standing where thousands of prisoners had stood before me was an overwhelming feeling. The whole I was trying to imagine this crematorium full of people. No matter what images run through my head, I know it will never compare to what actually took place in that crematorium. I then looked up at a square hole in the ceiling. This square hole is where another human being poured the substance that was killing hundreds at a time below them. Multiple gassing took place each day as if it was a normal routine.

Entrance into the crematorium

Hole in the ceiling where the substance was poured in on prisoners 

By this time I was overwhelmed and was almost numb to what truly happened here. We then toured a few more buildings and made our way back to our bus to then visit Birkenau. The layout and setting of Birkenau was more of what I expected. It was situated near the outskirts of the town there today. Birkenau is very expansive, lined with buildings over a large plot of land. All of the prisoners were transported to their death camps in boxcars. This was the first thing we visited at Birkenau. These were wooden train cars, not quite as large as today's train cars. Approximately 100 prisoners were stuffed into these cars shoulder to shoulder, waiting their arrival for at least two days. The conditions of these cars were inhumane and often filled with feces among other things. Upon arrival, prisoners were unloaded and quite frequently passengers were found to be dead standing up not having room to fall to the floor of the boxcar. To think that I stood in the exact place where thousands of prisoners had stood before was once again mind blowing.

Entrance into Birkenau

One of the original boxcars 

We continued to walk a few hundred feet to see crematorium two and three. These two crematoriums were destroyed once the Nazis got word of the approaching Red Army. Further on down our walk we entered one of the women’s barracks. The living conditions were once again something indescribable. Bunk were three levels high, and maybe five feet wide. Sometimes there would be ten prisoners on one level lying on their side. This means you were constantly breathing down the neck of someone and another was breathing down your neck.

This was the final stop of our tour and then we were free to make our way back to our bus and head back home to Olomouc. While sitting on the bus I attempted to debrief what my day had consisted of. I struggled to string thoughts together about how this could have happened. To think that man was capable of such a horrific event is unfathomable. Visiting Auschwitz once, might be enough to leave an impact on you for the rest of your life.  As I’m writing this blog, it is still difficult to put words and thoughts together to accurately depict my visit. In the hours and days after our visit others and myself still sporadically question what we just saw and try to understand how this happened. I know I’ll never fully understand what I experienced on that day. This visit did teach me to cherish what I have each and every day.