Hello world, I am finally back from Poland and on Holiday for a week!Visiting Auschwitz was quite an experience. So, as promised I shall now start a pretty long blog in which I tell you about my trip to Poland and what I learned from it. I left on Sunday 7th of February and we took the plane really early in the morning to Katowice in Poland. From there it was about an hour bus ride to Krakow, where our hotel was. I must say the first day we didn't really do much, but I also can't remember much of it, because for various reasons I wasn't feeling too good (read previous posts to guess why).
On Monday the 8th, we took the bus towards Oświęcim, which was translated into Auschwitz by the Germans. As the bus approached the camp, we started to see this massive piece of land surrounded by what looked like an electric fence. Our hearts sank for a moment as we realized exactly where we were. It was Auschwitz II- Birkenau, the biggest of the three parts of Auschwitz and 25 times bigger than Auschwitz I. The horrible thing is, the camp was never built to it's full size. This was merely half of what it was meant to become. So the first thing we saw when we walked in was the railway track with that dead end. Thousands of people had walked on the same ground and never gotten out of there alive, but I was there knowing that once I'd finished this trip, I'd be heading home to my family.
The cold and the snow just made it seem more realistic. Our guide told us that we could never know the exact number of people who were forced to go through this horrible place. All we know is that about 18% of them were registered, whilst the rest were sent straight to the gas chambers and no one can know whether they had actually been there, because according to papers, those 82% had never stepped foot on the grounds of Auschwitz because they had not been registered. Those numbers are ridiculous. I cannot begin to comprehend how and why a human being could do something like that to another of its kind. It's inhumane.
What probably hit me hardest was seeing pictures of little kids, not knowing what they were about to face. Small, innocent children being killed. Seeing their clothes was really hard; it always made me think about my niece who's only 1 and a half years old and I could not imagine anyone wanting to hurt her.
Look at the little girl in the bottom left corner..
Words simply can't explain how we all felt when we saw these pictures and were able to see the conditions they were in with out own eyes. If i could have given my life to save all those people, I would have. But unfortunately that wouldn't have been possible.
In the afternoon, we went to visit Auschwitz I which is the smaller camp with the infamous entrance gate with the writing "Arbeit macht frei", or "Work makes free". Many of the prisoners who were destined to go directly to the gas chambers were made to believe everything was going to be alright and that they'd be coming back from the "showers" soon to check on their family. The elderly were told to hang their clothes up on a peg and remember the number so that they could pick up their belongings on the way back. They were also told to tie their shoes together, because it was easy to lose them with so many people around. This way, the prisoners walked into the gas chamber with calmness and had no reason to be worried.
For me, the impact this place had on me still hasn't managed to sink in. It isn't possible for my mind to even imagine a human being killing such a huge number of innocent people. They had no mercy. If you were old, you died right away. If you were too young or weak, off you went with the elderly. If you were pregnant or injured, or otherwise unable to work you weren't going to waste the Nazi's time and space by wandering around their precious hell on earth. I thought this sort of stuff could only happen in movies, or maybe not even a screenwriter in their right mind would suggest such a story..but it's the most horrible truth ever told. That is how I can describe what it is. Wherever you are and whoever you are, that is the truth you ought to know and see with your own eyes, because otherwise you will never understand what millions of Jews and other innocent people had to go through. Of course, there is no way to fully understand unless, God forbid, History will in fact repeat itself. But I am glad I went and paid my respect to not only the 1 and a half million people that died in the concentration camps of Auschwitz alone, but to all the 6 million people that were killed overall in concentration camps all over the world.
Rest in Peace.
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For more pictures check out this video on The Squirrel Rebellion channel.
