A Somber Day in Auschwitz

This trip isn't all fun and games. I decided to take a day yesterday to visit the World War II concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, an essential trip when one is so close. Krakow is about 90 minutes by bus from Oświęcim, the town known for hosting the camps. I woke up early to catch a 7:50am bus to the city and arrived with plenty of time to spare before my 10am tour. When I got there, however, I decided that I should use one of the guides, pushing my tour time back to 10:30.

Auschwitz is the fourth major Holocaust remembrance site I've been to, after Yad Vashem in Israel and the Holocaust museums in Washington, DC, and New York. As such, I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting from this visit, but I don't think it met my undefined expectations. More than a day later, I'm still trying to put my finger on what it is that seemed off with the way the camps were presented. This by no means is a way to take away from the horrors that happened there, but the three memorial museums took time to explain what happened, whereas Auschwitz's approach seemed to be more, "This happened here. Period." Other than what looked like a makeshift memorial site set up at the end of the train tracks in Birkenau, there didn't seem to be any focus on the people; more focused on the operation.

Between two barracks in Auschwitz I.

The tour itself took us through some of the old barracks in Auschwitz I, the original part of the camp, and showed some of the things recovered after the war, such as the tons of hair, eyeglasses, suitcases, shoes, etc. There was also a walk through the torture chambers the Nazis used, and a walk past photographs of hundreds of the victims. After circling Auschwitz I, which I found much smaller than I expected, we took the bus to Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the famous part of the camp. It was at Birkenau that the Nazis built the mass gas chambers, had the train unloading platforms, and planned on housing hundreds of thousands of people. This side was bigger than I expected, and walking the length of the camp and around to some of the restored barracks gave a sense of the scope of the killing.

The memorial at the end of the train tracks.

 

I'm glad I went; I would have been very upset had I not taken the journey out to Auschwitz. It was definitely a full day trip and is something that every person should be forced to see so that the line "Never Again" sinks in. Today I took my Jewish tourism to a happier note by going around Kazmierz, the former Jewish district of Krakow. A few synagogues and Jewish-themed places, but sadly, that to me seemed like the extent of the district's Jewishness.


A synagogue in Kazmierz

Kazmierz is Krakow's Jewish District.

 And for today's video, some live music outside a restaurant in Kazmierz today: