During my time on Monday at Auschwitz-Birkenau, all I could think about was something historian Robert Jan van Pelt said in a lecture when asked what was done with the ashes of the victims. What could they do with the ashes of over a million people? The answer was heartbreaking: It was used as fertilizer, and as a way to prevent the grounds from becoming slick when they would get icy in the winter. I walked on ashes. The photo to the right is a daisy with the ruins of Crematorium 2 at Birkenau. The contrast was so striking. Here was a daisy, a flower which represents innocence, purity. Behind it, the remnants of a place where thousands of innocents perished. The fact that ashes litter the ground here, yet something so pure can spring from the dirt is so symbolic to me |
It's taken me a couple days to feel ready to write about the time I spent at Auschwitz-Birkenau. I wrote down what we did in my personal journal the morning after, but I could not yet bring myself to reflect on the feelings I had while walking through the two parts of the camp system.
I spent the last semester researching the camp's architecture and its evolution as the war and the Final Solution progressed. In the weeks leading up to this trip, I was "looking forward" to seeing the place I had learned so much about, although I was never sure if that was the right phrase to use when speaking about such a place.
By the time we got off the bus at Auschwitz I, the main camp, I was nervous. I wasn't sure if I was really ready to see this place, a place of such inhumanity. But there I was. As I walked towards the main gate, walked under the "Arbeit Macht Frei" hanging mockingly over my head, I began to cry. They were tears of disbelief of a place in which so many horrific decisions were made. Most of the main camp, though, was set up in sort of museum like rooms in some of the old prisoner blocks. One had rooms with shoes piled to the cieling on both sides. Another with suitcases. Rooms filled with pots, pans, and hair brushes. Yet another room filled with the hair of female victims which was to be used to create fabric or netting. Perhaps what hit me the most was the idea that my boyfriend's grandparent's were in this camp - their things could be in these rooms.
Auschwitz II, Birkenau, was a completely different experience. It's massiveness can be spoken about in books, documented in pictures, and even shown in blueprints. But its overwhelming size is nothing until it is experienced. Seeing - and walking on - the railroad tracks which go under the main gate, constructed in 1944 and signaling a new phase of the camp with the arrival of the Hungarian Jews... I cried once again. The permanence of the structures at both parts of the camp is unique. This main gate, built of brick, was constructed to remain and endure. Which it does as a reminder of thousands of people who went through it, never to see freedom again. Walking down the platform past the remaining barracks and those that were taken apart by neighboring Poles who needed to rebuild after the war was striking. Over 700 people could live in each barracks - if you can still call it living. The remains of the destroyed Crematorias was another moment in which I felt like I couldn't hold my emotions in. Between 2 and 3, there is a memorial calling us to remember those who perished here, as we rightly need to. Beyond the first two crematorias is Kanada and the sauna, which I did not have time to see; but I hope I will one day.
Near the very back of the camp is the outline of the "little white house," where one of the first gas chambers was, and behind it was the field in which the bodies were burned. This place looked almost pretty, though. It was hauntingly beautiful; peaceful, and yet I know the chaos that went on here. Heading back towards the barraks were crematrias 4 and 5, the former being the location of the revolt of the Sonderkommando. The field behind 5 was where, when the crematoria was to capacity and there were too many bodies, they were burnt again in the open. Most of the victims there were Hungarian Jews, as documented in pictures waiting for their fate in these fields in the Auschwitz Album. The fields look almost familiar to me, perhaps because I've seen those photos so many times.
At this point in the camp, it is hard to see the main gate. In fact, if the rest of the barracks were still up, seeing it would likely be impossible. To imagine being here, this far back in the camp - it would seem hopeless. It took probably a half hour to get back to the main gate - and that was not walking slowly. Passing the barracks which were likely part of the quarantine block, there was one which looked like a reconstruction (the wood color did not match the others), and I looked inside. The size, once again, was overwhelming. To think 700 people could have been in there... Unfortunately, I did not get to see the brick barracks of the womens camp, and I suppose that's another reason to go back to this place.
In the end, I'm still not sure what to think. I took photos, but the pictures do no justice to this place's size or the feelings it gave me. I'm thankful for Jamie being with us to explain parts of the camp which I surely would not have known without him. His influence on me as my professor in Aspects of the Holocaust last semester is something that has changed me as a historian, and I appreciate it so much.
After seeing this place, I feel even more of a need to research it, although I may never understand it fully. And can I ever really understand what took place here? I'm really not sure. But I'm sure I walked on ashes. The ashes of people whose story needs to be told. The ashes of people who must never be forgotten.
Katrina Stack
I spent the last semester researching the camp's architecture and its evolution as the war and the Final Solution progressed. In the weeks leading up to this trip, I was "looking forward" to seeing the place I had learned so much about, although I was never sure if that was the right phrase to use when speaking about such a place.
By the time we got off the bus at Auschwitz I, the main camp, I was nervous. I wasn't sure if I was really ready to see this place, a place of such inhumanity. But there I was. As I walked towards the main gate, walked under the "Arbeit Macht Frei" hanging mockingly over my head, I began to cry. They were tears of disbelief of a place in which so many horrific decisions were made. Most of the main camp, though, was set up in sort of museum like rooms in some of the old prisoner blocks. One had rooms with shoes piled to the cieling on both sides. Another with suitcases. Rooms filled with pots, pans, and hair brushes. Yet another room filled with the hair of female victims which was to be used to create fabric or netting. Perhaps what hit me the most was the idea that my boyfriend's grandparent's were in this camp - their things could be in these rooms.
Auschwitz II, Birkenau, was a completely different experience. It's massiveness can be spoken about in books, documented in pictures, and even shown in blueprints. But its overwhelming size is nothing until it is experienced. Seeing - and walking on - the railroad tracks which go under the main gate, constructed in 1944 and signaling a new phase of the camp with the arrival of the Hungarian Jews... I cried once again. The permanence of the structures at both parts of the camp is unique. This main gate, built of brick, was constructed to remain and endure. Which it does as a reminder of thousands of people who went through it, never to see freedom again. Walking down the platform past the remaining barracks and those that were taken apart by neighboring Poles who needed to rebuild after the war was striking. Over 700 people could live in each barracks - if you can still call it living. The remains of the destroyed Crematorias was another moment in which I felt like I couldn't hold my emotions in. Between 2 and 3, there is a memorial calling us to remember those who perished here, as we rightly need to. Beyond the first two crematorias is Kanada and the sauna, which I did not have time to see; but I hope I will one day.
Near the very back of the camp is the outline of the "little white house," where one of the first gas chambers was, and behind it was the field in which the bodies were burned. This place looked almost pretty, though. It was hauntingly beautiful; peaceful, and yet I know the chaos that went on here. Heading back towards the barraks were crematrias 4 and 5, the former being the location of the revolt of the Sonderkommando. The field behind 5 was where, when the crematoria was to capacity and there were too many bodies, they were burnt again in the open. Most of the victims there were Hungarian Jews, as documented in pictures waiting for their fate in these fields in the Auschwitz Album. The fields look almost familiar to me, perhaps because I've seen those photos so many times.
At this point in the camp, it is hard to see the main gate. In fact, if the rest of the barracks were still up, seeing it would likely be impossible. To imagine being here, this far back in the camp - it would seem hopeless. It took probably a half hour to get back to the main gate - and that was not walking slowly. Passing the barracks which were likely part of the quarantine block, there was one which looked like a reconstruction (the wood color did not match the others), and I looked inside. The size, once again, was overwhelming. To think 700 people could have been in there... Unfortunately, I did not get to see the brick barracks of the womens camp, and I suppose that's another reason to go back to this place.
In the end, I'm still not sure what to think. I took photos, but the pictures do no justice to this place's size or the feelings it gave me. I'm thankful for Jamie being with us to explain parts of the camp which I surely would not have known without him. His influence on me as my professor in Aspects of the Holocaust last semester is something that has changed me as a historian, and I appreciate it so much.
After seeing this place, I feel even more of a need to research it, although I may never understand it fully. And can I ever really understand what took place here? I'm really not sure. But I'm sure I walked on ashes. The ashes of people whose story needs to be told. The ashes of people who must never be forgotten.
Katrina Stack