Today when we got on the bus, Beth, our CANDLES trip planner, said, "Yesterday was the physically demanding day. Today is the emotional day." Emily and I exchanged a look. "Uh, I was pretty emotional yesterday..." "Me too!" (But, as always, Beth was right.) So a word of warning: these photos and places which I witnessed today tell a fuller story than yesterday's. Becoming a witness by being at Auschwitz I today was difficult. Many of these things were hard to see, and they are hard photos to look at. Please proceed with caution. (And/or skip to the very bottom where there are happy stories of the end of our evening after an emotional day.)
Yesterday, I said that we would be going to Auschwitz I today, and we went to Auschwitz II-Birkenau yesterday. Auschwitz I was built first, naturally. Originally, the space was built for the Polish military. The SS (Schutzstaffel-Nazis who ran the camps) took it over and began to sending Polish political prisoners there in 1940. The following year, to house more prisoners, they began building Auschwitz II-Birkenau and prisoners began arriving by droves in 1942. There were 40 subcamps/labor satellite camps nearby. Birkenau is HUGE and expansive as you can see in this photo; 90% of people who died in Auschwitz died there. I toured a tiny fraction of it yesterday and return there tomorrow. I explain all of this so you understand the reason I refer to them separately and how they fit in with Eva's story.
Today's schedule mirrored yesterday's. We began following Eva in the morning and followed in the footsteps of her experience there, we had lunch, and then we went with our Auschwitz guide in the afternoon. Eva said to us, "Day one you were enslaved and day two you were liberated. That's pretty good, we took 258 days." (Eva is a sassafras ;)
When we arrived in the morning, we went through airport-level security. I set off the metal detectors repeatedly: it was my hair bun, whoops. We went in to the "Cinema" to watch the liberation video which was filmed by the Soviet army when liberating Auschwitz in January 1945. Eva talked about the filming of this and how they made all the children walk the same path over and over. On my way in to the Cinema I had an interesting conversation about the day before, and we talked about our parents and the power of wonderful, strong mothers.
Then, we got our receivers (I don't think I've mentioned- to be able to hear the guides and Eva, we always have little receivers and headsets to listen) and walked out the door. And there it was. "Arbeit Macht Frei" over the road, "Work Will Make You Free" which is perhaps the greatest lie of all time. Nothing could free these people. Both this sign and the camp itself was much smaller than I expected, though after Birkenau almost anything would seem tiny.
Eva explained that three times a week, they would walk from Birkenau to the medical experiment lab in Block 10. They had to stop at this window before marching in. She noted that she never saw the littlest twins marching, but somehow they got there and surmised that they may have been taken in a car. I will explain more about this later.
Eva said to us, "That's a mentality that I never really understand. What makes a person of having a mentality of 'how many lives have I taken today?' What a goal in life: to kill."
In the middle of the night in January 1945, they were woken up in Birkenau and marched to Auschwitz I. There was a lot of fighting and artillery and Eva believes that some of the holes in the sides of the buildings were from this exchange of fire. Then, the fighting stopped.
She came out of the building and looked to the right and saw people there. They were smiling, which was not something you saw in Auschwitz. And slowly they realized the Germans were gone and they were free.
"We were alive and we were free," Eva told us, "We were able to survive anything. There was a tremendous feeling of triumph. We went to the front entrance of the camp and went in and out a couple of times just to see if we could do it."
Then some Soviets came to the second floor of the barracks and drank vodka and danced in a circle. And it was joyful. Then little Eva got out of the golf cart and showed us the dance they did. There, in the place of all that suffering, you could see the echoes of the feeling of triumph she experiencing being there-even 73 years later-dancing in the jewel of the German's Final Solution because she won when she lived.
She wasn't concerned about finding bread and food. She was concerned about water. So she went to the river, broke the ice, and lowered her cup to get water. She looked up and saw a girl across the river with braids. It affected Eva most of all that the girl, probably Eva's age, was carrying a school bag. "I realized that in this crazy world, children were still going to school. This was my school; survival was my school."
The next day, Miriam and Eva gathered their things together. "We started talking that sometime we would be free. Then, we tied a little square and put in our belongings. And we said, 'We are going home.' In our childish understanding, we thought we were going home." They couldn't. There was no way to get there. It would be a long time and the kindness of another set of twins' mother for them to get home to find there was no one else living from her family. She and Miriam went to live with her Aunt and Uncle.
Next, we all got to take pictures with Eva reenacting the liberation moment. I didn't get mine (Jess from CANDLES took it and will email it to me), but I snapped another.
Last with Eva, we went to Block 10, the building where they did medical experiments on her. They were stripped down to be naked. When talking about thinking about leaving, Eva said, "If I would have walked out of there all naked...? No. I just wanted to survive. It was a very demanding situation because you cannot function normally under those conditions. One thing I didn't understand is we didn't get anything to eat or drink in those eight hours. The whole eight hours was experiment. Once the experiments started, I went into a mode of blank.If you have been a situation which you didn't want to be in, how do you really cope? And you know it's going to comee back and you'll have to do it again. You just have to survive. In some pictures, we look like we are covered in something black on us. They did one experiment where they covered us in something black. I don't know what it was. I don't know what it was. And slowly I realized I couldn't breathe. And this is when I realized that we breathe as much through our skin as we do through our mouths. Then slowly they would take it off. They did it once a week or so. They also had charts and they wanted to see how close each twin was to the other. Then, they would compare it to how close we were to the Aryans." (Several medical professionals talked with Eva about the possibility that the Nazis had applied a compounded medicine topically which affected their bronchial tubes. They thought they may have been testing the medicine for themselves in war and it was black so they could see it. Again, we don't know because Mengele's records have never been released publicly.)
Then, Sarah and I sat down to lunch and were happily surprised when Eva joined our table. We had fun talking about being silly Americans: there were noodles and vegatables in bowls on the table when we arrived, and we all ate them because we were hungry but commented that it wasn't very soup-y soup... Thennnn, the waitress brought the broth to pour into it to make it soup. So, I joked that it was Second Soup and we were lunch- we only paid for one soup and we got two. But Eva said, "No, it's just Auschwitz special soup."
At one point I looked up, and noticed that as we chatted away and enjoyed our lunch with her, there she sat. This powerhouse of a woman, who to anyone else just looked like a little old lady. And there, at a table being served food in Auschwitz was her tattooed numbers on her left hand. You can see the dark outline of them here. I would say that yes Eva, you won.
After lunch, we headed back into the camps in our same groups from the day before, and we were back with Szymon. He often introduces topics and says "Never forget..." And that has certainly been ingrained in us throughout this experience: we never will. The first place we saw pictured here is the spot just inside the front gate (Arbeit Macht Frei) to the right, where a Jewish orchestra was forced to play for their second job. They often also had a work detail, but played their instruments for the pleasure of the Nazis.
We went into a block to see an exhibit. Szymon showed us this map: all of the ghettos, transit camps, and prisons which filtered into Auschwitz.
Note the words "at least" in this picture. For a million people, 800,000 were sent directly to the gas chambers, 200,000 were laborers. Those who were sent to die were not recorded or registered, just killed, so exact numbers aren't known.
Human ashes from some of the victims of Auschwitz.
Szymon showed us these to emphasize: this was a well organized Nazi machine. They could find any excuse to send people to Auschwitz. These were personal files explaining the reasons people were sent there: aiding the Jews, listening to a foreign radio station, escaping from work, reading illegal leaflets, attempting to join counterintelligence, smuggling food to Jew, hostility towards Germans, absence of work...
There were many images blown up larger than life for us to see and understand the linear history. This is a picture from the first transport of political prisoners, and even from that first, there were Jews in Auschwitz.
Jews from Hungary arrive at Birkenau.
Szymon showing us what it looked like for many Jews after being removed from the train before selection by the doctors.
A family with children on their way to their death in the crematoriums.
After the selection, SS officers smiling and the leftover things from the transport which would soon be sorted through. The Nazis wasted nothing.
A model of the crematorium. There are three of these models made: one is here, one in Yad Vashem, and one in the US Holocaust Museum and Memorial in D.C.
A Sonderkommando man stole a camera from a transport and took pictures. Only three developed, but they provide incredible insight into the camps.
Zyklon B capsules. It took fifteen pounds per group of 2,000 Jews in the gas chambers.
Empty Zyklon B canisters. Zyklon B was brought to Auschwitz as a way to delouse. It was originally designed by, of all people, a German Jew.
Clothing, suitcases, pillows, etc. pulled off a transport.
Szymon pointing to where we were in Auschwitz I. Again, you can see the expanse of Birkenau at the top. This picture was taken by an Allied plane, which flew low enough that Eva could see the American flag on the tails of some of the planes. When I saw this picture, and probably for the rest of my life, I will always think of Eva's question: "Why didn't the Allied troops bomb the railways? Think of how many lives could have been saved."
This wiring is thin, and still this big of a ball of glasses was found when the camps were liberated.
We saw human hair, several tons of it. But pictures are not allowed. I was struck by the loss of pigmentation, but every once in awhile, the white braids which you could see.
A small sampling of the suitcases which were taken from people when they got off the transports. People often listed their names and birthdays on the outside. The SS was very smart: rather than go into their houses and raid, tell the people to bring only one suitcase, allow them to fill them with their valuables and bring the valuables to us. Nothing went to waste.
This room was unbelievably long, and incredibly deep. Families packed their most important food materials. Szymon told us that for Kosher Jews at the time: red was for meats, blue was for milk, and white was for the rest of the food served.
We then walked through a room with 40,000 pairs of shoes. This was 1/32nd of the mimimum possible number of people who were killed at Auschwitz. This was along room that went all the way down and all the way back, pictured here is probably a fourth of the shoe mountains.
Brushes taken from luggage.
Pictures like this one, drawn by cartoonist Wladyslaw Siwek, were incredibly important records for historians to understand what life at Auschwitz was like.
Auschwitz was the only camp which tattooed its prisoners, and they did it to have an easier time tracking prisoners and deaths. They began tattooing with a heated charcoal pen on the chest in 1941, but then moved to tattooing as we know it in 1943. Those sent straight to the gas chambers were not tattooed, only those intended for prison/labor/medical experiment, etc. They tattooed on the arm starting later.
Prisoner uniforms.
Until this point in the day, I had been emotionally stirred, of course, but not shaken or crying. And then I saw the caption of this photo which loomed large on the wall: "A two-year-old Jewish girl from Hungary, a triple, experiments were conducted on her by Dr. Mengele." I was a mess, and it's not hard to know why. I saw my baby girl, my sweet, full of life two-year-old Lilia. Who laughs and plays and runs, just as this little girl once did.
An example of a daily ration for a prisoner. "Coffee" for breakfast, "soup" for lunch, and "bread" for dinner. 300 calories a day.
We went down this hallway and saw many examples of prisoner's photos taken.
This is Jozef Kowalski who was beatified by Pope John Paul II. He was a priest who would absolve condemned victims. He was ordered by an SS guard to trample his rosary and he refused. He was assigned to penal company (which is essentially a death sentence) and drowned in excrement.
Children's clothes.
This shoe was Lilia's size. Another very difficult moment for me.
Then, on the other side of the same room (themed about the children of Auschwitz) was our Eva. She sat there waiting for all of us to go through and greeting other people visiting that day and taking pictures with them. She sat by her picture, which was an enlarged frame from the Liberation video she was in, and took a photo with each of us. She's pointing to herself. Man, I love this lady.
Then, onward to Block 11, next door to where the medical experiments on Eva had been. Block 11 was built for prisoners and punishment.
The SS officer's room. He executed the orders from the court across the hall.
The Gestapo Court Room. These courts were a sham, they knew the punishment. Death or torture. Each prisoner's court took 5 minutes or less.
The Kapo's room. They helped carry out the orders.
The Death Wall. This place appears how it would have at the time, though the background is a recreation. The black wall was there to prevent ricochet back on the firing squad. Szymon said that there was always liters and liters of blood on the ground.
On the long side of the same courtyard, and behind it is Block 10 where Eva and the twins were experimented on, were 11 stands like the two pictured here. At the top is a small hook. Prisoner's arms were tied behind their backs and then prisoners were faced inward and they lifted their arms up onto the hooks... We also went into the basement where torture cells were, but pictures are not allowed there.
Looking into the death courtyard between Blocks 10 and 11.
You can see what buildings are oldest by looking at the architecture. The oldest buildings which were there when the SS took over were single story, and prisoners added a second story. You can tell these buildings because of the different colored brick.
An instrument which would have been used to smooth paved roads. Several prisoners would have had to pull it, often with a Kapo standing on top.
This area is The Square. It's less of a square once they added more buildings for space purposes. This is where prisoners were counted every day, and where public hangings were frequently held.
At this time we looked back. Szymon said, "Look a storm is coming." I had a chill. The storm has been here for a long time.
We saw a photography gallery of survivor's stories. This man was the barber of Rudolf Hess, the Commandant of Auschwitz. Many people would ask him, "Why didn't you kill him and slit his throat?" And he replied that another person would just have been sent to replace him, and retribution would have been worse.
I will let this next story and photo speak for itself. But I urge caution at reading it the caption.
MWe then left the grounds through the double barbed wire. This was the clinic and well stocked place to eat for the SS.
This was the SS administration building.
This is difficult to see because of the leaves in the summer, but if you look at the center of the picture you can make out a light colored roof. That is the home of Commandant Rudolf Hess. It is privately owned.
After his attempt to escape after the war, Hess was bput on trial in Germany and then in Poland. He was sentenced in Warsaw to die. Though this gallows is a recreation, this is the place he was hanged.The first crematorium at Auschwitz.
The place where the Zyklon B was dropped in.
The ovens.
After a long day, we headed back to the hotel. I was able to FaceTime Mike and Lilia which significantly raised my spirits. Then, we went out to a beautiful dinner at the Galacia Jewish Museum. There was much joy and laughter at my table as we shared stories and enjoye each others' company. There was even three-piece band playing Jewish traditional music! It was lovely.
Then, I had the unforgettable honor of dancing to Hava Naglia while holding hands with Eva. She showed us what to do, and laughed as we danced. It was cathartic and joyful. It reminded us that above all, it's important to remember Eva's message: hate has not won. We all have the power to win with our love and forgiveness.
A few friends and I headed to the Jewish Quarter for, according to Emily and Sarah who had had it, "the best ice cream in Krakow" - and we've all become Polish ice cream addicts... They were right. chocolate that was light and airy and melted in my mouth. The perfect end to the day.
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