Day 4: Auschwitz II Birkenau

On Sunday morning we went to Auschwitz II Birkenau. It was very foggy and quite cold so the death camp had a particularly eerie feel to it that morning. Here is the photo I took of the famous gate. I know I posted it in the other one too but oh well.

The contrast between Auschwitz II and Auschwitz I cannot be overstated. The blocks that housed the prisoners at Auschwitz I looked like mansions compared to Birkenau. Also surprising was the number of buildings destroyed at Birkenau. A majority of the buildings were destroyed. Birkenau was also huge. It took us about 15 minutes to walk from the back of the camp where the gas chambers and crematoriums back to the front gate.

We first looked at the living quarters of the prisoners. We were there on about a 50 degree day, and it was not raining or snowing or anything, but it was still uncomfortable, and when you walk into the blocks the prisoners were housed in, it did not get the least bit warmer.

This is the inside of the barracks, and as you can tell, it is not very well put together or warm looking

The only source of warm came from these fire places, there was one on each in with the tunnel going down the floor in the middle 

This is the bathroom. 3 rolls of about 100 circles cut into concrete. No privacy, and if you took too long you were beaten

Cattle Car and guard tower

This is a cattle car that was used to transport victims to the camp. Hundreds of people were stuffed into these for days with no food or water

If you did not pass the selection, and were chosen to be sent to the gas chamber, you would walk through this gate and down a road to your death

This is that road

Remnants of one of the crematorium (I believe #2)

The pit that the ashes of the dead would be dumped into

We  then saw the remnants of the gas chamber. All 4 gas chambers and crematorium at Birkenau were destroyed by the fleeing Nazis as the Russians closed in

So this is what Crematorium/Gas Chamber II looked like during the war. The left underground tunnel is where the victims would undress. They would then be herded into the underground tunnel on the right, where they would be gassed. The bodies would then be shaved and have their gold teeth removed by members of the Sonderkommando, who were prisoners forced to do this. The Sonderkommando would then take the bodies up into the middle part of the facility shown above, which is the crematorium, and burn the bodies, normally 3 at a time. 

So this is what it looked like today. a little hard to visualize, but do your best. In order for it to make sense, you actually need to rotate the diagram above so that the changing room in on the right, crematorium in the middle, the the gas chambers traveling in a north east direction away from you. Or imagine you were looking at the diagram from directly above. You need to rotate the whole thing so that instead of the changing rooms pointing towards the 9 on the clock it is pointing towards the 6. Are you thoroughly confused now? Good.

This is the changing room. They had hooks and were made to believe that they were going to take a shower, being told to make sure they remember where their stuff is so when they are done their shower they can proceed quickly to hot food

So this is where it gets tricky. Did not take a good photo. But you are looking at the intersection of the changing room, gas chamber, and crematorium. So the changing room is to the right of this photo. The straight line of debris that starts from the rubble on the left side of this photo, and heads away from me in this picture, is the gas chamber. The rubble on the left is the corner of the crematorium

Same photo as the other, only zoomed out. This time you can see the remnants of the crematorium on the left

This is Crematorium/Gas Chamber number 3. So the tunnel on the left in the foreground is the changing room, the tunnel on the left in the background is the gas chamber, and the rubble in the middle is the crematorium 

The entrance to the changing room of Crematorium/Gas Chamber III

We then went over to a building called the Sauna. This is where, if you were lucky enough (or unlucky enough?) not to be selected for immediate death, you were sent to be shaved, tattooed, and issued clothing

This is the Sauna. I am not sure why it has that nickname

This is where prisoners were registered

Clothes were disinfected here for the prisoners

Also here

In this room prisoners were shaved and tattooed

Not far from the Sauna  is this, the remnants of the White house, where the first temporary gas chamber was set up. It was just a normal house that the Nazis bricked up to use for gassing

In my last blog I talked about Canada, where prisoner's belongings were stored. Well at the sites of the destroyed buildings where Canada was is this exhibit where it is all stuff that was found in the ground in Canada after the war. Victims were told before being deported to Auschwitz that they should bring everything they need to live a new life, so a lot of the things in here was dishes, bowls, scissors, forks, knives spoons 

As you can see

When the ground is wet, as it was when we were there, stuff actually still bubbles up from the ground in Canada. we found these scissors and other silverware remnants. There is actually a polish police officer there all the time to make sure you do not take anything

This is where Crematorium Number 4 was, the site of the famous Sonderkommando revolt

This is a pond right next to Crematorium 4. Sonderkommndo members have gone on record saying that sometimes they would throw the gold teeth they pulled off the gassed bodies and other jewels into this pond so that the Germans would not have it

One of the benefits of having a tour guide was being able to access the tower on top of the famous Birkenau building that the train tracks run through. If you do not have a tour guide, you cannot do this.

View from the tower. you can see how big the camp is, and it goes on forever to the left and right as well

Same view, zoomed in

After this we boarded back on vans and went back to Krakow. It was a truly amazing trip. When we got back to Krakow we did some shopping in the square I posted pictures of in my earlier blog. I would really like to be able to go back to Auschwitz 

THEN CAME THE FUN OF COMING HOME

Monday morning I was supposed to have a 630 am flight. It got cancelled at about 11 pm when I was already asleep. At 330 I woke up to a text from mom saying hey its been cancelled, figure it out. So I got to the airport at 445 am to wait in line to be rebooked. At 7 am it is finally my turn, and the lady says the earliest flight is tomorrow at 1 pm. Obviously that won't work I have class. so they came up this great plan of buying my a taxi from Krakow airport to city center, then having me buy my own train ticket from Krakow to Warsaw, so that I can take a 5pm flight from Warsaw to Munich. The train ride was 4 hours and costs 40 Euros. So instead of getting in Munich at 8 am so I could go to my 11:30 class, I had to spend 40 euros and arrive at 8pm. I wrote to Lufthansa like they told me to so that I could reimbursed for my train ticket and food and it has been a week and they haven't responded to me. For those of keeping score at home, Lufthansa is now at -3276, with seemingly no hope of going up