Auschwitz

On our way back to Prague, we made the hour and 1/2 side trip to Auschwitz. It was fitting that it began to rain again as we toured this site.

Although Auschwitz is perhaps most infamous because of the numbers of Jews tortured and murdered here, we learned that the same fate was meted out to thousands of Polish intelligentsia ( those "thinking people" who might organize revolts against the Germans), Russian soldiers, and even members of gypsy tribes.


Photographs were only allowed outside. This is one of the block barracks where those considered fit enough to work were housed.





On the way to the gas chamber. The guide explained that prisoners were executed in many ways in the early years of the camp - by firing squad, mass hangings, torture/neglect, and untreated disease. These methods weren't fast enough to handle the huge numbers of people that needed to be exterminated, so experiments were conducted using poisonous gas. That method proved to be very effective and efficient, so the partially underground munitions bunker that already existed was converted to the gas chamber. You can see part of it behind the sign on the left. On the right is the gallows where the camp commandante Rudolph Hoss was hanged
in 1947.


The site was chosen by the Germans because these buildings already existed, having been a military base for Polish soldiers. Today, the aged brick and tree-lined streets appear quite pleasant.

However, the electrified barbed-wire perimeter is a reminder of the reality.

Visitors flock to this site by the thousands- here is a tour group entering one of the barracks. I thought that the most moving exhibits were the preserved piles of personal belongings that were discovered after the camp's liberation. They focus on the few possessions that the prisoners brought with them, having been decieved into thinking that they were going to a place to begin their lives anew. There were the suitcases, the hair and toothbrushes, the kitchen items, children's clothing, the shoes, reading glasses, and then the items that illustrate the atrocities committed here -bales of human hair and jaw bones showing how gold fillings had been removed from the teeth.

Never forget what political apathy can give rise to.....

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Pastor Martin Niemoller