It was just after New Years that we took the drive west of Krakow to visit the Auschwitz concentration camp. From the moment you arrive the experience is sobering. I think for many it may seem odd that we actually spent two separate days at Auschwitz I and Birkenau. It was important for us to learn as much as we could while we were there.
Auschwitz I is not very large. This was the original camp, and it did not hold as many people as the later camps. A few places in this camp are very heartbreaking and difficult to see.
The first place that was very disturbing for me, was an exhibit which included the clothing, shoes, and hair of many prisoners. There were even artificial limbs in the exhibit.
The next area was also upsetting: the rooms where they first tested their methods of gassing prisoners.
Probably the worst area for me was the series of rooms in Block 11 where prisoners would be tortured or left to die in different ways. The standing cells were particularly distressing.
A sickening feeling rises up from deep in your chest when visiting these places. A silence comes over everyone. There really is no joy in a place like this. We spent the whole first day visiting Auschwitz I, and by the time we had finished seeing the rooms we needed a break from the sadness that had overcome us.
The second day we went to Birkenau. Birkenau was built later to accommodate the increase in prisoners being brought to the camp. The train tracks were built right into the compound; bringing many to their final living quarters.
Birkenau is very different from Auschwitz I: it is much larger and there are very few remaining buildings. Much of the camp lived in canvas tents and wooden barracks, the only remains of which are the brick chimneys. At the back end of the very large camp, are enormous piles of concrete and stone. These are what is left of the gas chambers. The Nazis tried their best to destroy any evidence of these at the end of the war.
This site evoked a very different feeling than Auschwitz I. Despite the fact that the vast majority of deaths in this concentration camp occurred in Birkenau, the wide open landscape and lack of remaining buildings makes the experience less solemn. There is much less evidence of the terrible acts that occurred there.
