Auschwitz

Auschwitz...where do I even start? With all the tears I shed, with everything these people went through, or with everything I got to see? Just thinking about it all, instantly saddens me, so I'm going to make this quick and to the point.

We got to visit Auschwitz I (the torture and administrative center) and Auschwitz II - Birkenau (the killing factory).

Auschwitz I 
As we entered the camp, the first thing we ran into was the typical inscription of "Arbeit Macht Frei." It was difficult to look at this and imagine that just some years ago innocent people destined to die in the most terrible ways had also looked at this.

As our tour started, I was listening to what our guide was telling us, but I was also trying to take everything in. I was extremely emotional on our visit, which isn't typical of me so keeping myself together was a bit challenging for once.

As I looked at all the scenery, I tried to take myself back in time and imagine what it was like living here. I pictured the children playing, so innocent and full of life. I saw the men and women working away. Working long, tedious hours with no food to nourish them and no fresh showers waiting for them at the end of the day. And then I saw the terrible images of the Nazis just randomly shooting whoever they felt like killing that day. Perhaps it was the man who could no longer work because his body had given out from the exhaustion. Or perhaps the kid, who wasn't able to fulfill a task properly. Or maybe the woman who had nothing to offer anymore.

These images kept running through my mind as we toured Auschwitz I and all I could do was just take a deep breath and try to make some sense of it. As we entered the facilities, I prepared myself for what I was about to see in each room.

Here, is a picture of glasses left behind from the victims. Just look at how many glasses that is, and that's not even all of them. I know there are more in a Washington, DC museum. This sort of hit me though because I wear glasses too. I'm literally blind without them and I can only imagine the different ways these people who had to wear glasses were tortured. I pictured in my mind the Nazis taking away their glasses and taunting them to get them back. Or taking them away and just smashing them right in front of their faces. So many things ran through my mind as I saw all these glasses.

This is a picture of prosthetics. Keep in mind, this image is just what my camera was able to capture, but there was room full of prosthetics. Imagine how many instant deaths that was. If you weren't fit to work, you were automatically gassed. Obviously, anyone in need of a prosthetic, would be labeled unfit to work.

Their suitcases. As you can see, their names are on them because the Nazis told them they would be transporting them to a better place where they would be able to work so they should label their suitcases so their belongings wouldn't get lost. Just imagine, being removed abruptly out of your home with lies about a better future to hopelessly find out that you just be worked to death. Let that just sink in for a minute.

Women also brought along their baskets filled with food for the ride. Unfortunately, their transports into Auschwitz were absolutely terrible. It could take up to 17 days to arrive and people were so crowded it would become hard to breath due to the lack of oxygen. As you can imagine, many people didn't even make it to the concentration camps...they arrived dead.

Their shoes. There was so MANY shoes. Two rooms full of them. This really depressed me. All I could think about was how many deaths these shoes meant.

Here are brushes and other hygiene supplies they probably never got to use.

Cans which contained Cyclone B used in the gas chambers. One can killed 700 people. You do the math here.

Those who were selected to be gassed were assured that they were just going to take a shower. Dummy showers were fixed to ceiling and 2000 victims would be crammed in the chamber at once. The chamber door would then be locked and Cyclone B would be poured. After about 15-20 minutes, when everything went back to silence, the sonderkommandos (those in charge of dealing with the dead bodies) would go inside and strip the corpses of gold teeth, earrings, rings, hair and dispose of the dead bodies - most of the times they were taken to the crematoriums. The victims' documents were also destroyed.

This is what Cyclone B looks like.

There was one room from all of these that completely shattered me. That was the hair room. This room was filled with hair from the victims of the Auschwitz. Real hair from dead, innocent people. Some of it was still braided. At this point, I shed my first tears. I couldn't hold it together anymore. It was way too much to see all of this. Out of respect for the victims, we weren't allowed to take pictures of the hair, but trust me, that's not something you would want to see anyways. It will mark you...forever.

These are original prison uniforms from Auschwitz I.

This is Block 10. Here, several hundred women prisoners, especially Jews, were held in two upstairs room of this block and used as human guinea-pigs for sterilization experiments. Some of these women died from the treatment they received and others were murdered so the autopsies could be performed on them. Those who survived were left with permanent injuries.

This is the execution wall. Here, the Nazis would line up prisoners against the wall and shoot them. The wall was used to protect the bricks. You can see now, there is a memorial for it.

While these may just look like posts, they are not just your typical posts. These posts were used as a terrible, torturous way to kill. They were known as the "killing posts" and the Nazis would take a prisoner's arms, tie them together, pull them backwards towards their head, and then hang them from the hook. Can you imagine that, your shoulders would automatically be dislocated. After that, the prisoners were just left to die there. Didn't matter how long it took, they would leave them there until they died. When I heard this, I couldn't hold it together anymore. The fact that I was standing right in front of these killing posts was too much for me. I just wanted to move on with the tour and not look at those posts anymore.

Block 11. This was known as "the prison within a prison," and was one of the worst torture chambers in Auschwitz. Rule violators were punished here and they were sent to the basement which contained 3 special cells: standing cells, basement, starvation cells, or dark cells. 

Standing cells - this was a tiny cell, only 90 cm by 90 cm in which 4 inmates would reside at once. Here, all you could do was stand day and night. So, prisoners who were sent here worked all day and when it came time to rest, they still had to remain standing all throughout the night. If they sat down, they would be shot. Eventually, they would die of exhaustion, but it was a slow, painful death. 

Starvation cells - as the name implies it, those were sent here starved to death. This is a cell in which many prisoners died in 1941 including Maximilian Kolbe, the Polish priest who sacrificed his life to save another prisoner.

Dark cells - those sent here were placed in a very small dark room with little oxygen flow. Prisoners were kept here until they suffocated to death. Many time, the Nazis would place a candle in the cell in order to suck more oxygen out and kill them quicker. 

This was a gas chamber located in Auschwitz I. Thousands of innocent people were murdered here. It was definitely tough to stand in this room.

Rudolf Hoss, the first commandant of Auschwitz, was tried and sentenced to death after the war. He was hung here on April 16, 1947.

The chimney is the representation of the Holocaust survivors. 

Here's a few shots of what Auschwitz I looks like:

Birkenau

Birkenau is the biggest part of Auschwitz. It was deigned to carry out the final solution, which was the plan of the Nazi Germany to kill all the European Jews. Therefore, Birkenau was the killing factory. This is the place where the most victims died out of all the concentration/extermination camps. 

As we entered through this terrifying entrance, I couldn't believe I was walking through the exact same spot all those victims had walked through.

 As I saw the railroads, all I could picture were the trains filled with innocent people to kill. My eyes wouldn't stop watering. I couldn't help but wonder what's happened to those trains?

Because Birkenau was such a massive killing factory, some of it is in ruins now. When the war ended, the Nazis didn't have a back-up plan on how to get rid of all the evidence to their horrific massacres. So they tried to destroy everything. 

Here you can see the ruins of the crematoriums. 

We also got to go inside two different barracks. One made out of bricks and one out of wood. This is one is the one made out of bricks.

Although it may spacious, it was always overcrowded. Lice were always around due to poor hygiene, and people would die from diseases, starvation and exhaustion every day. Others, who couldn't take it anymore, would just commit suicide.

This is the wooden barrack.

As you can see, there's not much left here, except for the toilets.

Prisoners were constantly exposed and humiliated, even when relieving themselves. The guards were always watching do their business, and as you can see, the toilet "seats" were extremely close to each other.

Here is a monument in honor of all the victims of the Holocaust. 

While Birkenau was the killing factory, I thought Auschwitz I was a worst place to live. The amount of torture and the inhumane ways people got treated there was just unimaginable. 

Despite being a mess throughout the whole tour, I was thankful I got the opportunity to visit this tragic place that causes so much anguish to many people. I think the fact that I already had a lot of knowledge and background on this subject (since we have been studying it since we got here), really helped me connect with the place and made the experience more meaningful. Regardless, I don't think that I would ever want to visit again. It definitely took a toll on me, and I really felt like a little piece of me died. It will be something I will never forget.