Day 9 & 10 - Poland

I’ve got to admit – this blog took me a while to commence writing. I wanted to avoid cliché, and also avoiding writing crap. So here goes.

The train ride from Prague to Krakow via Katowice was pleasant enough. The train station in Prague is sufficiently modern, plus I’m pretty sure the roof doesn’t begin to collapse when they have a hail storm.

We had to change trains in Katowice. The quality of the train stations fell significantly once we entered Poland, and the one in Katowice made the old Spencer St Station appear like Buckingham Palace.

My initial feeling about Poland was it seemed colder and greyer. Our hotel was reasonably close to the train station, but our one bed had to single doonas on it. We stopped by an English themed pub for some dinner. Neither of us seemed game enough to try authentic Polish cuisine, and this continued on the second evening when we had pizza and gnocchi.

The next morning we had breakfast and went to the meeting point for our tour. The town of Oswiecim  is about one hour away from Krakow, and the road is winding and only one lane each way.

It’s not surprising that the road is not a eight lane freeway, as the countryside is mainly dense forest, dotted with smaller towns.

Oswiecim arrives, and the trip was made shorter by a video being shown in the bus during the trip. The documentary was related to the liberation of the Auschwitz camps by the Soviets in January 1945.

Just on the other side of the town centre is the Auschwitz Museum, which was created in 1947 out of the ruins of the first Auschwitz camp. Photography is prohibited inside the buildings, and that is why we don’t have any photos of what was in them. An English speaking guide is provided to us, along with headsets so she doesn’t have to raise her voice speaking to 30 people at once.

On a side note, our group for the tour is mainly made up of middle aged or older English people. We have a World War II veteran on board with his son, and a young teenager with his parents.

The different buildings that made up the Auschwitz A Camp, and are still standing, make up the exhibitions, for want of a more meaningful term. Each of this buildings is devoted to one aspect, such as the deportations of the inhabitants of the camp, made up of Jews, Polish political prisoners, homosexuals, gypsys, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Monks, and Russians, or what happened when they arrived, and so on. Each group or nationality of inhabitants has a building of their own to tell their story.

The most striking room is the collected property of those who died at the camp. A wall of brushes, shaving brushes, combs, and so on. A wall of spectacles. A full room of suitcases, most with addresses written inside in case they were lost and needed to be returned to owners destined never to return. And most harrowing of all, a case, probably two metres deep, three metres high and ten metres long, containing almost two tonnes of human hair, shaved off the prisoners after they arrived, destined to be used in the war effort as socks or stockings. To call it macabre is a gargantuan understatement.

Between two of the buildings is the death wall, where prisoners were summarily executed. One of these buildings was a prison inside this prison, where cellmates were kept four to a room that was a square yard big, thus preventing any prisoner from rest. It also contains the cell where St Maximillian Kolbe gave his life up for one of his fellow inmates after he tried to offer him food. Kolbe was deliberately starved to death.

In another building are the photos of hundreds of dead Polish prisoners, taken early on in the camp’s use when the prisoners arrived. Most look incredibly forlorn, but some have the hint of wry smiles on their faces. The women seemed to last around two months, the men more like six. In most cases they were worked to death.

The last thing we are shown in Auschwitz A is the original gas chamber. Next to it is gallows, created after the war for the express purpose of one execution – Rudolph Herss, the first governor of the camp. A more appropriate setting for an execution of a particular individual one cannot think of.

We are taken inside the chamber. It is dark and cold, and is death made concrete.

How does one turn a place like Auschwitz into a place to visit? The place is teeming with people of all ages and all nationalities. There are no souvenirs, only books, and the cafeteria is modest. We sit around for a little while before our bus returns to take us to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

It is fitting that the Museum is at Auschwitz A. The very worst atrocities happened not here but at Birkenau. Most of the buildings at Auschwitz A were left standing by the Nazis, although some required reconstruction.

Birkenau is where many people met their end. The rail entrance is one of the most famous images of the war, and on the platforms inside, Nazi “doctors” selected those strong enough to work and therefore doomed probably to a long death of hard labour helping the German War effort against their will, or those not strong enough to work, who were all immediately sent to the larger, more efficient gas chambers located at Birkenau. It is said that those entering the chambers thought they were going to get a shower. After they were all dead, the bodies were removed, and things such as gold fillings were removed from the still warm bodies before being cremated. Gruesome stuff.

The living quarters at Birkenau, of which very few buildings remain, were cruel. Prisoners could only use the toilet twice a day, only for a few seconds. As sickness spread, this became more difficult, and sleeping quarters became latrines, only exacerbating the problem.

Finally, we went up to the tower on top of the rail entrance. Just before we enter, I see a young man, probably a teenager, wearing an Israeli flag in the same manner many Aussies wear our flag at the cricket or tennis. This sight picks up my spirits.

The most difficult thing about this place is ensuring an appropriate memorial. Should it be a tourist attraction? Almost certainly not. It wouldn’t surprise me if they bulldozed the place. The memories, for the most part, are too difficult. Another thing I discussed with Rose would be why anyone would want to live here. There are houses 50 metres away from Birkenau.

I know people who were a bit horrified when they found out we were going to Auschwitz, but ever meeting a survivor in Helen Shardey’s electorate office in 2003, along with going to the Holocaust Museum in Elsternwick, I’ve felt compelled to go. Having said that, I wouldn’t begrudge you from keeping your distance. Almost any opinion about this place except glorification is acceptable. Come, don’t come. Commemorate or raze to the ground.

I feel satisfied I went, but unlike Gallipoli, I have no desire to return. One visit is enough. We certainly could have used another day just in Krakow, but we came for one reason only. The next morning we were back at the train station, with another long train trip, this time to Berlin, awaiting us.