Auschwitz- There are no words to truly describe it.

Week 4: Auschwitz

When I sat down to write about our trip to Auschwitz, I found myself at a complete loss for words. There is not a correct way to describe the sights that we saw. This will be my best attempt to tell all of you about what we saw yesterday at Auschwitz, but I know that I will not do it justice. This is just one of those things that you have to experience on your own to really get the full effect.

When I found out that we would be going to Auschwitz on our program, I was very excited. I have always had an interest in the Holocaust and I was looking forward to this trip the most. I knew that it would be a very heavy and emotional day, but I was ready to see the place that left such a big mark in history.

It was a very cold, rainy, and gloomy day, which fit the mood. We first walked through the gate, which said, “ARBIT MACHT FREI” meaning “work makes you free.” This was not true at all though. All of the prisoners worked all day long, yet they were never free. This camp was were people came to die. About 1,300,000 people were deported to Auschwitz, and about 1,100,000 people died there. It is just unimaginably to hear those numbers.

The gate entering Auschwitz.

We visited many of the barracks were the prisoners stayed. Inside we got to see all of possessions that belonged to the prisoners. Seeing all of the possessions made it all too real and almost unbearable to look at. There were millions of shoes just stacked up. The unending amount of women’s hair, the baby clothes, the suitcases with names of real people on them, the glasses, the hairbrushes, the pots and pans, everything that the people owned was just stripped away from them and then piled up. I was in complete shock. Next we entered the gas chamber and crematorium. The Nazis often told the prisoners that they were going to take showers to disinfect them in order to calm all of them down, but really they just dropped Zyklon B in from above to poison them. There were fingernail starches along all of the walls. To think of all of the people who suffered here was unbearable.

The barracks where the prisoners stayed.

A pile of glasses that used to belong to the prisoners.

Their pots and pans.

It was sickening to see the baby clothes.

Millions of hairbrushes.

Suitcases with names of real people on them.

The unending amount of shoes.

Zyklon B cans that were found.

Inside the gas chamber.

These are finger nail scratches that lined the wall of the gas chamber.

The crematorium. 

After we visited Auschwitz I, we traveled over to Auschwitz II- Birkenau. The prisoners built this entire camp, and it is massive. The barracks just keep going on and on and on.  One side of the camp was for women and the other side was for men and in the middle of the camp is the railroad platform where all of the prisoners arrived. When the prisoners arrived to Auschwitz, they came in small train carts. Hundreds of people were packed into these tiny carts and they would be traveling for days. Our tour guide told us that so many people were all packed inside so tightly and had to stand up the entire way. Some people had died on the train, but because their bodies had no room to fall, nobody knew of it until they arrived at the camp and were let out of the train. Unimaginable.

One of the train carts that prisoners were transported in.

The unending amount of barracks.

One of the gas chambers that was destroyed.

Right when the prisoners arrived, they were examined to see if they were fit enough to work, if not they were sent straight to the gas chambers. The tour guide also told of us of a story of a woman that arrived with her two sons. One of her sons and her were sent to the gas chambers, while her other son was being sent into the camp to work. She did not want her son to be split from here, so she begged a solider to let her son come with her and his brother. She had no clue that they were being sent to the gas chambers, and the solider of course let her son join them. They had plenty of workers at the camp and they knew that more were coming daily. To the Nazis it was just a point of a finger whether you went to the gas chambers, or into the camp to work. It meant nothing to them.

I will never forget what I saw at Auschwitz. As I left in complete shock that day, I realized how blessed and privileged I am. These prisoners were tortured, beaten, and suffered. It is still unbelievable to think of the millions of people who died during this horrible event in history. Like I said at the beginning, there are no words to truly describe it, you just have to see it for yourself.