The torrential rain had poured down from early morning. It seemed fitting due to where I was visiting. I was on my way to Auschwitz, a name synonymous with the Holocaust of World War 2. There have been other concentration camps such as Belsen, but none strikes fear and dread into the heart quite like Auschwitz.
Auschwitz-Birkenau as it is officially known, lies 50 kilometres away from the city of Cracow in Southern Poland. Split into three camps, there is the notorious first camp known as Auschwitz, the second Birkenau (If you've ever seen the iconic image of the so-called 'death gate' at the end of train tracks, you'll know it), and the third, Monowice.
On arriving, I am surprised to see that we enter via a main road. This 'death-camp' is not the sort of place you expect to find at the side of a busy road. Fear and dread don't hit you straight away, as the first port of call is a visitor's centre. Here it is possible to buy books about the camp and peruse a brief history of the camp on the wall. It doesn't quite prepare you for what is to follow.
Our guide gets the group together and proceeds to talk about how and why the camp was constructed. As we enter, a large sign hangs over the gate with the words, 'Arbeit Macht Frei' (Work Will Set You Free). This is to say that if you work for the Nazi cause, then you will be a free man. But the only free men ever to leave this place escaped or were liberated by the Soviets.
The camp grounds remain as they were from the 1940s, broken and stony, the buildings the same drab colour.
As a wheelchair user, the terrain does not make it a comfortable visit for me, but to complain seems trivial given where we are. I don't.
Groups run regularly through the camp, and we encounter people at every turn. Considering the amount of people about there is an unusually small amount of noise; you wouldn't know anyone was there unless you actually saw them.
It's not possible to get into every building on the camp as only some are open to the public, but the ones that are hold the most horrors. We first go to see the notorious Block 11, 'The Block of Death'. It's here where people were taken to die in the most horrible ways imaginable. On entering, we file past doors, all with window panes to peek in. A glimpse into the living conditions is allowed. Sparsely decorated rooms, most with just a table and chair, some filled with mattresses for sleeping. Anyone looking can only imagine the hell.
In the basement, people were frequently put there to starve to death. One of these was St Maximillian Kolbe.
Kolbe was a Polish priest who volunteered to die along with nine others in the basement of Block 11, to save a family man. He and two others survived starvation for three weeks, at which time he was killed by an injection of carbolic acid. It's amazing how he survived that long and is now a saint, canonised in 1982.
The worst was yet to come.
The next block we visited had what was left of the belongings of those who died. To reach this block required being lifted up stairs, but it was well worth it. As you enter a room, it looks empty. Not so. Encased behind glass in the wall, objects of generations long since wiped out are on show for all to see. Behind one case, spectacles lie tangled together on a heap. It's hard to actually realise what they are until you look closely. The eyes those spectacles adorned must have seen horrors we can only imagine.
In the next room, mounds of what is obviously human hair lie in a mass. Old and young had their heads shaved as they entered the gas chambers to be executed. It doesn't get any easier as the next few rooms show glass tombs of shoes and suitcases. Families packed away their suitcases, with the expectant hope, nay promise, of being let go once the war was over. How wrong they were. Suitcases are graffitied with white chalk, names of long dead people scrawled on them. I would wager it's possible to count on one hand how many of those families still have a bloodline alive today.
One of the most heartbreaking items is a casing with children's clothes. A white cardigan alongside a dress, socks and shoes are encased on one side of a room. A red rose lies on the glass. Many weep as they walk by this, a baby, wiped out just for being Jewish.
Other glass cases carry documents, some of hope, some of evil. Letters written by inmates of the camp and letters of execution written by their captors are on show for all to see.
On some walls there are blown up pictures of life in the camp, showing the terrible conditions that people had to live in. Even though the cremation of any bodies usually took place at the Birkenau, a giant urn filled with human ash adorns one of the rooms, a reminder of the amount of people that died. As if one was needed.
A monument is erected outside, carrying the names of the dead. Groups stand by it silently in reverence.
Our tour was not over.
Three kilometres away is the Birkenau camp. A camp more deadly than that of its neighbour. It was larger than Auschwitz I, and more people passed through its gates than did those of Auschwitz I. It was the site of imprisonment of hundreds of thousands, and of the killing of over one million people, mainly Jews but also large numbers of Poles, and Gypsies, mostly through gassing.
Birkenau had four gas chambers, designed to resemble showers, and four crematoria, used to incinerate bodies. These crematoria survive today, although unused. A reminder of Europe's tragic past.
In the Birkenau camp, a memorial stands for all those who perished. The walk is about half a mile away from the imposing 'death gates' that people know so well, but it truly is a thing worth seeing. Tears should be shed, if they haven't been already at the monument.
If I had my way I would have had the place torn down after the war. Although it survives as a reminder to those still alive what happened during the war, it's my feeling we don't need reminded. In saying that, Auschwitz is a place I haven't forgotten or never will. A truly humbling experience.
