Poland (Auschwitz-Birkenau)

Auschwitz-Birkenau

by JAMIE BROWN KIRKBY STEPHEN, UK

Hush, my child,
Heaven waits.
Only our Lord decides our fates.
Hold my hand - but not too tight!
Don't let the soldiers see your fright.

Hide those teardrops.
Stand up tall.
Soon you'll hear the angels call.
Huddle close, don't be afraid,
Our memory will never fade.

Do not struggle.
Do not weep.
Dignity is yours to keep.
Yellow star against your heart,
Prepare, my darling, to depart.

We go now to a better place,
Where people are not judged by race.
Flowers may not mark your grave,
But, my child, you must be brave.

The only time that it rained on us throughout or trip (besides England of course) was during the morning at Auschwitz-Birkenau. I actually found it very fitting and was glad that we were not viewing one of the worst places on earth in the bright and wonderful sunshine. 
When the idea of going to Poland was first put on the table, Leigh and I definitely latched on to that one. Both of us had always thought it was necessary to go to this concentration camp, not just us, but everyone.
Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest concentration and extermination camp established by the Nazi regime and specifically designed to carry the extermination of European Jews but also Poles, Gypsies, Russian POWs and people of other nations. It consisted of three main camps: Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II (Birkenau) and Auschwitz III (Monowitz). A few years after WW2 the Polish government restored Auschwitz and turned it into a museum. 
I had been to Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany, but this was was even worse. It's hard to even explain the things that I saw because it's hard to comprehend them. But I feel I must try for those I know will never get to Poland.

"To implement the Final Solution, the Nazis needed an efficient system for mass extermination. Although trains took valuable track space away, they sped up the scale and duration over which the extermination needed to take place...The trains consisted of formations of either third class passenger carriages, but mainly freight cars or cattle cars—the latter were packed, according to SS regulations, with 50, but sometimes up to 150 occupants. No food or water was provided, while the freight cars were only provided with a bucket latrine. A small barred window provided irregular ventilation, which sometimes resulted in deaths from either suffocation or the exposure to the elements...
Sometimes the Germans did not have enough cars to make it worth their while to do a major shipment of Jews to the camps, so the victims were stuck in a switching yard—'standing room only'—sometimes for days. At other times, the trains had to wait for more important military trains to pass. An average transport took about four and a half days. The longest transport of the war, from Corfu, took 18 days. When the train got to the camps and the doors were opened, everyone was already dead. The armed guards shot anyone trying to escape.
Due to cramped conditions, many deportees died in transit. On 18 August 1940, a Waffen SS officer later wrote that he had witnessed (the arrival of) '45 wagons with 6,700 people of whom 1,450 were already dead on arrival.' To avoid contamination between loads, at times the floor of the freight cars had a layer of quick line, which burned the feet of the human cargo.

50 people in a freight car × 50 cars = 2,500 people in each train.

Since normally the trains were loaded to 150 to 200% capacity, this results in the following:

100 people in a freight car × 50 cars = 5,000 people in each train

 " Between the tenth and eleventh block stood the death wall (reconstructed after the war) where thousands of prisoners were lined up for execution by firing squad."

One of the things that will forever be in my brain, are the different rooms with personal belongings in them. The magnitude of these things are incomprehensible. Considering that over 6 million people died, and over 1 million of them died at Auschwitz-Berkenau, the amount is mind blowing. There was a room with millions of shoes. There was a room with hundreds of suitcases. There was a room with prosthetic limbs and braces. There was a room full of combs and brushes. There was a room with just eye glasses. There was a room full of human hair. I found this one to be the worse. And they say that it is not even a fraction of the hair, because the Nazi's starting making clothing out of the human hair.

Our tour guide was very good. She was a young Polish woman who was very knowledgeable and fair. She carried herself in a very somber, but professional way. I can only imagine how hard it is to work at a place like that and relive the horror all day everyday. 
The speech that she said at the end had me in tears. We must learn from our history so that we do not repeat it in the future. Eve was not wanting to go to the Concentration Camp, but I think in the end that she found it very like we did- something that needs to be seen by everyone...