It is interesting to note that some of the most popular tourist destinations in Poland are related to the Holocaust during which around 6 million Jews and 5 million of other “inferior” races such as Slavs ( Poles & Soviet prisoners of war), Roma, & handicapped were murdered. Many of these victims perished in various concentration camps around Europe during Nazi occupation. The most notorious one is at Auschwitz where an estimated 1.3 million perished, mostly Jews. We forgot to book ahead so we went there early on the advice of our hotel staff after checking out. Unfortunately, the line was already up to several hours long by the time we arrived. Since the Auschwitz site was separated into two camps (Auschwitz I is the original smaller camp where as Auschwitz II – Birkenau is the expanded camp added later), we decided to skip the first camp and go to Auschwitz II – Birkenau instead. Due to its much bigger area, Auschwitz II – Birkenau did not require reservation nor a mandatory tour guide.
The entrance building has been immortalized in the B&W movie Schlinder’s List. It was eerie and sad to walk through the vast site looking at the remains of barracks and buildings where hundreds of thousands of people were imprisoned and tortured. The most notorious are the massive gas chambers called crematoria. Upon arrival by train, we learnt prisoners would be segregated on the spot to go left or right. The physical strong ones would be imprisoned for hard labors now before disposed of later. All others would be ordered to strip their clothes and entered giant chambers to be gassed, followed by cremation immediately. It had been reported that all the crematoria in the camp operated 24 hours a day and burnt on average 1000 bodies every day! In 1945, the atrocity finally came to a stop when Soviet Red Army entered the camp. After the war, only 789 staff, about 15%, ever stood trial and faced justice.
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| Entrance building of Auschwitz II - Birkenau camp |
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| Railroads were used to transport large numbers of prisoners here from all over Europe |
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| Electrified fence to keep prisoners in |
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| Reconstructed barracks where the lucky ones were kept alive for hard labors |
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| Bunk beds used for prisoners inside the barracks |
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| Majority were processed immediately in giant gas chambers called Crematoria. Nazi deliberately demolished these before they retreated to destroy the evidences |
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| A typical railcar that carried prisoners like cattle on a one-way journey to die |
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| Memorial at the camp |
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| Plaque in front of the memorial |
Walking through the camp, I couldn’t help but wonder how human being could be so cruel to others. As well, with words of the atrocities slowly leaking out during the course of WWII, why would the Allies failed to act or react? In the face of evil or injustice, what would you do? What would I do? Has the human race learnt anything from this? Why would some people still deny the existence of Holocaust even now and think it is a hoax?
With heavy heart, we left Auschwitz and continued our 6 hour drive back to Berlin. It was a joy to leave Polish highways behind and be able to drive really really fast on the autobahns again. Although highway toll sticker was not required in Poland, there is a reason for it. Most of the highways were subpar and traffics were slow. Only a small percentage of the highways (mostly around big cities) had been upgraded and these required you to pay toll. After returning our rental car, we found a nice pub to enjoy black German beer and bratwurst dinner. Our hotel was right on the night bus route to TXL so going to the airport for our flights home was easy next morning at 4a! We were really surprised to see so many people still out on the street at these early hours.
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| TXL airport at Berlin |
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| Enjoying authentic German black beer |
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