We woke up at 5am at hotel Connect Skavsta already ready for our school holiday travel. However a detour was being taken today, we would not arrive in Rome for another 14 hours.
We deliberately took a flight that had an 8 hour lay over in Krakow. One of the Eastern European cities used for stag parties. But instead of heading to the city, we headed west to Auschwitz - Birkenau.
This is the first place travelers mention when they mention Poland. A horrible thing to associate with a country, but unavoidable. Those that have been tend to talk about it with emotion. To me it had always seemed like the worse place imaginable, stepping into hell on earth.
The aura about the place is incredible. Ten kilometres away Tyler and I started feeling sick in our stomachs just thinking about what we might be walking into.
We approach, and there it is staring back at us, like every photo I have associated with the place, the train tracks heading through the death gate. The emotions suddenly heighten and I have not even entered. A symbol of whats wrong with mankind.
But you can't arrive and not go in. So we do. The train track continues down the middle of the camp, leading up where the most efficient gas chambers were situated. To the left and right were ruins and remains of the barracks people lived in. A place that held 90000 at any one time. A place nearly 2 million people lost their lives. I tread carefully, making sure not to deviate off track, as many grass areas were where ashes had been scattered.
The living conditions were horrendous. Tiny. Places where disease ran rampant. As if these people didn't have enough reasons to fear death. Gassing, hangings, shootings, doctors who did strange experiments, phenol injections to the heart.......
For the first hour it didn't seem real. I mentioned to Tyler that I was almost disappointed in myself as I don't think I was really taking in the magnitude of what I was seeing. My history was not enough. There was something missing. That was until the 'sauna'. A place people were herded into, disinfected and where they lost their dignity and their identity. People became numbers. Insignificant.
At the end of the sauna everything got very real. There were photos of people who had died there. Stories of families that lost everything. One story mentioned a man who came back to Poland after the liberation and found 1 of 178 relatives. Suddenly I started imagining life here. Working on conditions that were unfit for man. And you worked everyday until you were deemed useless. Like cattle you are then shipped of to die. If you were unlucky, you didn't even get to work. You instead stepped of a train where a doctor judged you and could send you straight to the gas chambers. Being lucky would involve kitchen work or perhaps labouring. Some jobs to me seemed worse than death. Cleaning your own people out of the gas chambers and into incinerators. Failure to comply would result in death. The only reason death wasn't better was because death had no hope.
This is a visit that will stick with me for the rest of my life. A reminder of what mankind is capable of....... horrendous, unforgettable, unforgivable atrocities. I was thankful to have gone, but won't return in a hurry.
I really hope that this place, as evil as it is, is used as a reminder of things that should never happen again, however I lack the faith to truely believe this will be the case, especially when you look at the history of man since WWII. As a species we are a disgrace.
After four hours of immersing me in the worst of mankind, I find myself needing to find some goodness in man, Rome I am counting on you!
My apologies for the nature of this post, but as you can tell, was a pretty tough day. I promise for a more uplifting tomorrow.
Joshua
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