I took a fall today
As the leaves fell in autumn
My heart fell in gloom
For I walked on the graves of men, women and children
From a distant past retold
Their lives fell by the sidewalk
Like the leaves of autumn
To be forgotten and forsaken
There they lie muted
Holding memories and hopes within them
Never to be told
Never to be lived
Buried and burnt
Just another winter for us but
A blizzard they endured
For not their fault
Merely pawns of sacrifice
A reminder of the inevitability of cruelty
Hiding and waiting inside us
To quench it's hunger
Will it rear it's head again?
Is not the question but,
Which side will you take?
Coming to Krakow, Oświęcim or more prominently known as Auschwitz concentration camp, will inevitably feature in your must visit list. I had heard a lot about the place, in fact I had watched Schindler's list just few months back. Coming from my part of the world I've been often curious about world war 2 and the fixation of Hollywood with it. I often wondered if it's worth it to go through all that pain all over again. Isn't it easier to just forget all that? When I visited the place today, I got some answers and some more questions.
Quite metaphorically it was an overcast day, with showers adding to the sombre mood. I entered the premises after a ticket check and security check. It really felt like entering an prison. Even though it's not a touristy place, it gets quite a lot of visitors and tickets need to be booked in advance. I had checked for tickets 1 week earlier and even then there was only one slot for English guided tour, at 8:30 in the morning. Of course, weekends are more busy than other days.
The tour started on time. We were called at 8:30 and entered the premises. We were led through 2-3 subways in groups and it really felt like how they show in movies when prisoners enter a prison.
The first building was the registration center where the prisoners were registered when they were brought in. From what I understood from our guide, only those fit to work were brought in from the group that arrived in train wagons. The ones deemed unfit were sent away to the gas chambers.
From the registration center we entered the concentration camp welcomed by the infamous words on the gate "Work sets you free". It's called a concentration camp because prisoners from all occupied territories were concentrated in one place. Then there were death camps which were built for one single purpose.
We entered one building after another, some were prisoner cells, some torture chambers, some killing chambers, some experimentation centers. Each of these rooms held the remains of the dead. Clothes, shoes, bags, caps, combs, glasses hung in front of as memorabilia of unimaginable horror and cruelty. There were photos of the men, women and children. In fact when we entered the camp their names were being announced one by one in remembrance.
There was a room with clothes of children who were exterminated. It still haunts me.
Then there was a room where there was just human hair accumulated in a showcase. The prisoners' heads were shaved when they entered the camp. The hair was used by German textile industry.
Prisoners were asked to drop off their belongings when they landed and told that they could pick it up later. It was a lie. The belongings were sorted and then sent to the masters. Then why did the prisoners bring all the belongings? Because they were told that they will be resettled here. Nobody knew they were going to meet their end. This led prisoners to hope that they might be able to pick up their lives later. That maybe they could get a second chance. After all, they were not soldiers. So they boarded train wagons from their land, with each wagon holding 100 or so people. They could hardly stand and then traveled miles to reach this place. Many died on the way.
Those who reached were separated from their families. Men went one way, women and children the other. Those who managed to enter the camp were stripped, heads shaved, washed, given prison clothes and sent to work. They were made to work very hard with hardly any food. Many died of starvation. They slept in barracks without toilet facilities. There were few toilets and designated times for using toilets. People who used toilet in other times were punished or beaten, sometimes beaten to death. The prisoners had to burn their brethren killed by the poisonous gas. Our guide told that when they used the gas first time, the SS did not know how much had to be used. They ended up using lesser gas and some survived the next day. So they used more gas and everyone was dead next day. That meant those people breathed the poisonous gas for 2 days before breathing their last. That's some twisted mind at work to make things so systematic.
Then there were experimentation centers to sterilize men and women or rather to experiment sterilization on them.
The tales continued throughout our walk. Each tale vying with the other for its horror and tyranny.
It's difficult to even imagine that such incidents happened. The reactions on our faces ranged from astoundment to shock to exhaustion. At the end, I wanted to forget all of this in a hurry but I couldn't. Now I got the answer why there were so many movies on world war 2. However then I got more questions too .Throughout the tour, I wondered if such things could happen again. Then I thought I'm overreacting, after all things have evolved, we have learnt from our mistakes, we are civilized. Or are we?
At the end of the tour our guide explained exactly this point. He said that the survivors of the concentration camps insisted on preserving the place to remind future generations of the cruelty and atrocities that can happen if left unchecked. Importantly words and the power they carry because world war 2 was initiated because of the words of one man, his ideologies and what he wrote. Our guide told that in today's world of free speech where anyone can post anything on social media and grab attention, our words matter more than ever. So if we don't choose our thoughts and words carefully, such atrocities can repeat.
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