Auschwitz

Today we were booked on a guided visit around the Auschwitz concentration camp starting at 2:30 pm. So we were up fairly early for a good breakfast at our hotel near Warsaw airport before setting off on the four hour drive to the town Oświęcim where the nazis created the Auschwitz I camp and later, a little distance away, Auschwitz II - Birkenau, the two camps that we were to visit.

After a few wrong turns leaving Warsaw the drive was fairly straight forward and we arrived in good time after stopping for lunch first at a local McDonalds in Oświęcim.  In the office just outside the camp we registered and were given headphones and wireless receivers. These were really good because you could hear what the guide was saying without having to keep too close. Also the guide didn't have to talk too loudly. And so it was we passed under the "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign and into the Auschwitz I.

I expect like myself most people are well aware of what to expect, the huge piles, of human hair, of spectacles, of brushes of all different types: shaving, clothes, scrubbing, of the enamel pots and jugs that the arrivals had brought with them and then, the pile of empty cans of Zyklon-B poison.

There were walls lined with photos of individual Polish inmates, male and female, many showing their professions. There were accountants, teachers lawyers, clerks etc., ordinary people like ourselves and in fact like their tormentors had been in private life. Then there were the punishment cells and the shooting wall for the executions by firing squad. Finally we walked through the remaining gas chamber, maintaining a respectful silence. An opening in the ceiling was almost within reach. Through this opening and others in the chamber ceiling, the cyanide impregnated granules looking something like cat-litter, were poured to release their venom.

Then we were to take a bus for the short drive to Auschwitz II, Birkenau to meet up again there with the guide. We dawdled and missed the bus but caught the next one. Because of the scale of birkenau with it's dozens of barracks buildings, some intact others with only foundations and chimney remaining, it wasn't easy for us to find our group again. The weather was bitterly cold but thankfully the air was still. A palid sun shone weakly through the cloud. Even more than Auschwitz I, this huge cold barren dead landscape of Birkenau put me in mind of how cold barren and dead the souls of those responsible must have been.

My hands were blue at times, with the temperature probably only a couple of degrees below zero, but I was well wrapped up. What must it have been like in the middle of a really harsh winter with only pyjamas and perhaps no shoes? Even the accomodation buildings were about as sparse as it was possible to be while still being called a shelter. Single skin brick walls, no ceiling, no roof insulation beneath the tiles, no flooring, unless created by the inmates. At the end of the day though it was not the bricks and mortar that were the villains, nor the place. Sadly it was us, humans.

Shortly after both my camera and phone batteries had packed up early because of the cold it was time for us to make our departure, passing back under the entrance arch of Birkenau, as so many thousands of others before us had been unable to do.

We caught the bus back to Auschwitz I, picked up the car and then headed for Krakow, where we would be staying for a couple of nights.

We were to be staying in the old town, on Ulica Floriańska (St. Florian's Street). We found the apartment and in the evening went to the Czarna Kaczka (Black Duck) restaurant, a recommendation by one of C's friends who was on an Erasmus exchange here recently.

The food was excellent and a welcome boost after a sombre day. Dumplings to start, a half duck each, a carafe of wine, free liquers at the end, all costing about £30 for the three of us.

Then back to the flat, read a few more pages of "Schindler's Krakow - The City Under the Nazis", before bed. Tomorrow will be our one day in Poland where we're not travelling anywhere and can have a relaxing day exploring the city.