Up early and off to the adjacent hotel for our complimentary breakfast, and then off to the meeting place for the coach to Auschwitz. The whole trip takes about 6 hours with an hour at each end just for travel.
The tour is very good and I know exactly what Paul Mercer means when he says that it should be compulsory for everyone on the planet to be marched through the place!
On the way there the coach shows a 20min video that gives you a lot of the basic facts and seems to be intended to get you ready for what you have to come. They do not recomend the tour for children under 12.
The place is well organised but manages to maintain it's reverence and integrity. Our guide was dignified, calm and yet managed to demonstrate a forcefull credibility. The tour itself takes you through the whole process of how Jews, Gypsies, criminals, prisoners of war and homosexuals etc. were managed from being transported to Auschwitz, processed into potentially good workers and the rest, and then kept barely alive or killed straight away.
The overriding issue for the Germans seemed to be to do it as efficiently as possible yet maintain secrecy and control. They achieved this by always maintaining hope in the minds of the victims and also isolating the place from all the local population.
They recycled everything, property, clothes, artificial limbs, spectacles, gold from peoples teeth, hair and even the ashes from the crematoria were used for fertiliser! The Xyclone B gas producing pellets were developed for economy and efficiency of killing people.
The whole experience gradually builds up in your senses and progressively you get more and more shocked at what one set of people can do to another.
The victims were mostly Jews who were transported from all corners of the German occupied territories to Auschwitz in rail cattle trucks. Auschwitz was Nazi Germany's largest and primary concentration camp.
The logistics of killing 3-4 million people in a single camp over 3-4 years is mind blowing at times. The Nazi's just saw it as a series of technical problems that had to be overcome. eg the processing rate of the crematoria not keeping up with developments in gas chambers, warehousing of property/valuables/commodities shoes, suitcases, hair etc.
As an engineer I couldn't help but be drawn to the detail of how they electrified the barbed wire fences, and the construction of the wooden barracks which were a form of pre-fabricated stables. This was because they were readily available to be dismantled from around the occupied territories and could then be easily rebuilt at Auschwitz.
The Auschitz II - Birkenau camp (the worst of the three camps at Auschwitz) catered for 20,000 women in 20 barracks and 60,000 men in 60 barracks at any one time.
This is one of the most shocking things I have seen in my life. Here is a selection of pictures that I hope give a small feel for the horror of the place !!
Entrance gate to Auschwitz I
Pictures of initial reception and segregation
Model of a gas chamber and crematorium
Valuables taken from people as they arrive.
block 11 where summary trials were carried out by Gestapo (1min long) and then people were executed against a firing wall. Executions were done with a small calibre gun from close range. This kept the noise to a minimum so people would not realise what was actually happening.
Electrified fences around the camps
Gas chamber and adjacent crematorium in Auschwitz I
Entrance barracks , reception railway lines where cattle trucks were unloaded, and watch tower for Auschwitz II
Auschwitz II barracks, mostly collapsed because mens barracks were made of wood. 1000 people in each barracks.
After the tour we returned to Krakow and both Savi and myself wandered around town together in fairly silent contemplation of what we had seen. We went to see the Wassel Castle in Krakow and then watched people happy and playing on the river.
Later a nice meal in town, salad and duck breast on a bed of apples. We have been trying out different vodkas, tonight honey then ginger. Very nice
More later
TOR
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