Auschwitz memorial
 

I will be traveling to Krakow in mid-October. I'd appreciate forum comments regarding the Auschwitz memorial.

Birkenau is much more evocative IMO - this is where the unfortunate victims were unloaded from cattle car trains and either selected for work or sent straight away to the 'showers'

the rail siding and platforms and remains of gas chambers are still there.

Auschwitz is sobering too but not nearly so horrific, though all here was indeed horrific

I found Auschwitz and Birkenau incredibly evocative and therefore incredibly depressing. I did not go back when I revisited Krakow, but I would not have missed it the first time. They count the visitors, imagine if no-one went.

I would recommend going with someone - join a tour if you're traveling alone. I went by myself, and I think it would have been better to have some company to temper the impact.

What is it that you want to know? Comments? It- Words fail me. Everyone should see it. The other posters sentiments are accurate, but you just have to see it for yourself. Its vast, and spooky and evil and heartbreaking. The Auschwitz side has exhibits like hair, eyeglasses and suitcases. Because all these are organic, they will degrade and be gone someday. Seeing all this while it still exists is as important as seeing the gas chambers and train tracks. And take a tour. I didn't think I would need one or even want one. It just seemed too touristy. I'm glad I changed my mind, I would have missed a lot of information, and I knew a lot going in.

HI im,

>I'd appreciate forum comments regarding the Auschwitz memorial.<

You must go.

((I))

There are a handfull of memorials in the world that are moving beyond description. They aren't Disneyland, but people should go to at least a few of them to appreciate life.

I have been to some, including other Holocaust sites, but I have not yet made it to Auschwitz, but it is on my list.

If you don't go there, go to another one.

I have never heard of anyone regret going.

Take the train from Krakow -- its a very emotional journey. I have visited Auschwitz on each of my three trips to Krakow, and as others mentioned, you should visit Auschwitz and Birkenau (its a short taxi between the two). While at Birkenau, take time to wander around the grounds and into the barracks -- its chilling and frightening, but an essential part of a trip to that part of Poland.

If you have time, you may also want to visit Kazimierz (sp?), the Jewish quarter of Krakow -- you can walk from the old town square, and also the salt mines (which can be reached by minibus from outside the train station).

I agree with all above comments. I also think it is good that it was established as a memorial a while ago, because it just presents what was. I think if a memorial was being made today, it would have whiz-bang technology and interactive displays that are totally not necessary for this experience.

we did not take a tour, just guided ourselves.

Auschwitz is known as Auschwitz 1 and Burkenau is Auschwitz 2. You go to "1" first, and then a bus, or long walk, to "2" (Burkenau). You have to imagine the thousands of slaves/victims there. It's clean now.

We saw old German words written on the wall inside one of the buildings where the victims slept. We took a picure of it and we got it translated when we got home: "Rest in Peace". Too sick.

There is a local contretemps brewing between those who want to change the name of the 'memorial' and those who do not.

I don't fully understand the issue - can anyone explain?

I'd also advise taking the train from Krakow. You can join a tour - or not - when you get to the site. There is an English tour every morning at 10 or 11 (I forget which). Tours include Auschwitz and Birkenau and last about two hours. Auschwitz is more of a museum, with photographs, exhibits, and such. Birkenau is vast and oddly peaceful, and, as others have said, is more evocative. It is sobering, to say the least, to find yourself standing on the spot where the fate of so many thousands was determined, based on whether or not they looked suitable for work.
After the tour ends you can - and should - spend more time in both camps on your own for reflection. If you take a bus tour from Krakow you will not have any time on your own - which, IMO, is an important part of the experience.

I've taken the train but many people advise that buses are more convenient and even quicker in many cases.

I did it by bus, which was easy enough but packed coming back. I was there in August 2004, and was surprised by how many people were visiting the site. Everyone was very quiet - it has that much impact. I felt that even the grass had a hard time growing in such a place.

imw:

For my comment to your important question, may I offer these two pieces on K-camps, several of which I've visited since the late 70's:

* * * * *

OSWIECIM

(Auschwitz 1 and 2)

approaching Oswiecim from the east
one is suddenly and rudely stunned
by the sight of giant smokestacks
spewing forth their brownish venom -
this is the way this living hell
has always been described
on thousands of tear-filled pages
and in the graphic words of Levi,
Frankl and Wiesel,
emerging from the shadows of
history's darkest hour

but...
nearly forty years have passed!

why are the crematoria
still belching
ashes of death into the sky?

a welcome reality comes to light
as the chemical plants of Oswiecim,
the main industry of this noted town,
quickly emerge,
quieting this state of disbelief
(so this is what
the chimneys represent?)
an auspiciously bizzare beginning
to this sobering pilgrimage

busloads of tourists
and school children,
quiet, orderly and chaperoned,
from all over Poland, some
from neighboring lands,
pour into the bowels of infamy,
filing under the notorious
wrought-iron entrance sign
("ARBEIT MACHT FREI")
into the chilling morning mist
well-clothed against the elements,
they tramp the mud-gravel streets,
alongside the once-electrified
barbed fences and stilted towers
in and out of the dreary brick
barracks,
as did the millions in threadbare
rags
when humankind crashed to its
lowest ebb.

walking on the birch-lined path
from main camp to Birkenau,
the railroad platform so well-known
in countless versions and visions
where the final 'selektsions' were
made,
(you to the left, you to the right)
sits in a field covered with the mass
of wild, yellow margaritkes, blooming
in the early spring -

and you think a wretched thought...
this scene borders on the blasphemous
in this countryside of tranquility,
standing amid a bunch of damned
daisies,
slender white trees and gawking chldren,
burning questions seeking answers
fill my groping mind
in a desperate search for meaning -

can a school child in Des Moines or
Boston,
DallasMadridSydneyBombay
come to an understanding of this?
of what transpired here in these
killing fields of Poland?
can anyone who has not lived it,
who has not observed it,
this epitome of genocide
ever even begin to realize
that the victims were not alone,
that all of civilization perished
each time a Zyklon-B can was opened
each time blue crystals were dropped
each time the ovens were fired up?

nearing the iron gate, about to leave,
the only words that seem to issue forth
from quivering throat and bone-dry lips
begin with
an affirmation of faith
and end with
words of renewal and awe
(I whisper amen, O let it be!)

I drift back into a void of silence....

(1983)

* * * * * *


TREBLINKA
(a name that lives in perpetual infamy)

the sun has set beyond the pines
we are quite alone amid the mass
of chiseled stone in rolling fields
atop the consecrated ash
as stillness permeates the dusk -
a rail stop in the countryside
appearing so pastoral and serene
where boxcars of human cargo
fom Warsaw and Bialystok
fueled the furnaces of finality
stoked by mercenary hordes

boldly inscribed,
"never again" screams forth
from the monument upon the hill

while two days travel to the south

Yugoslavia burns...

(1993)

(From "Withered Roots: The Remnants of
Eastern European Jewry", Isaac Nathan
Publishing, 1994)

Stu T.

Thanks Stu!

I was particularly struck by the grove of trees near one of the crematoria at Birkenau. I thought they must be post-war, but no - this was where people waited when the place was overloaded.

This is what I wrote the day I visited:
This is out of sequence, but it's a cri de coeur rather than a travelog. I'm in
Krakow - fairytale church spires, stunning Art Nouveau stained glass, good food, too many people - but today I stepped out of time and went to Oswiecim, otherwise Auschwitz-Birkenau. I expected to be depressed, and I was. I expected to be angry, but I was too busy being depressed. I also didn't realize how deeply I would be affected. When I was growing up (50s and 60s in England) the comforting myth was that the holocaust could only have happened "there", could only have been perpetrated by "them". It was never true of course, imagine what the Mongols could have done with Industrial Revolution tools and techniques. And we
surely can't fool ourselves that way anymore, not after Cambodia, Ruanda, Yugoslavia... It could happen anywhere. "All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good [people] to do nothing." What did I do about Cambodia? Nothing. About Ruanda? Nothing. What should I be doing now?

By the way, Auschwitz is the name everyone remembers but Birkenau is worse. It's HUGE - 425 acres, 300 buildings, 100,000 inmates, four crematoria - Auschwitz was just a trial run. I could almost hear the screams, I felt the ground was rejecting what
happened there. I cannot imagine what it was like to 'survive' Auschwitz - I guess I'm a coward, I'd sooner have gone to the gas chamber when I arrived.

I contacted the Jewish bookstore in Kasimerz, the old Jewish quarter - you can do an internet search, I forget the name - and they hooked me up with an Auschwitz survivor to take me there. He picked me up at my hotel in his car and drove to Auschwitz - awesome listening to his thoughts and memories - then we drove to Birkenau, the only concentration camp the Nazis actually built - its only purpose was to kill the Auschwitz overflow. Then on the way home we stopped for a late lunch in Wadowice, the home town of Pope John Paul II and went to JP's boyhood home, etc - a FANTASTIC experience. The whole day cost me $100, paid in cash to Mike staner, the tour guide who was not only a survivor but his wife was killed in Auschwitz. Auschwitz was actually a Polish army barricks before the Nazis took it over, so strangely, it's quite pretty - it could be an apartment cpmplex with lovely grounds. But as you tour the buildings and look within, you get it - what happened. Do go, you'll never forget it.

We were there in 2004. Drove from Krakow in about an hour. We had a private guide for the six of us and it was well worthwhile. The suggestion posted earlier about going to Kasimierz (the bookstore) and asking if they could set you up with a guide is a most interesting idea. Kasimierz is easy to get to and the bookstore is quite obvious. The earlier postings have been on target. Auschwitz I was a Polish army barracks which the Nazis took over as the first phase of the death camp. Auschwitz II is Birkenau, which is massive but was never completed. The displays are in Auschwitz I. It's a long walk between I and II and you must go to II. Both are quite crowded, even though more than 60 years have passed. When you get to Birkenau, walk all the way in and proceed past what remains of the crematorium into the woods. As you walk in, look closely at what you're walking on. I need be no more specific, but am reasonably sure you will understand. Take your time and be very aware of where you are. You won't forget your visit.