Auschwitz - a day that will stay with me forever

 

The day started at 7am with a continental breakfast and an argument on the smoking rules between mother and daughter. After a walk through Planty, we happened upon the train station, quite by chance. One major problem, the information desk didn't speak English. After a slight panic and 're-group' we found a taxi and 4 English people to share a mini bus with.

The first tour was to Auschwitz 1, beginning with a harrowing video showing liberation. A girl was forced to stand bare foot in the snow for a whole day, she lost her feet. People starved near to death, the remaining children holding hands, sunken eyes and a frown on every face.

We walked through the freedom gate and the first block showed us how people were transported to the camp. People travelled thousands of miles across Europe to their 'new home'. They packed belongings to start up their new home and were forced into a cattle truck with 99 other people, no sanitation or water. They even had to pay for their ticket!

The most horrific part of the tour was seeing 1 tonne of human hair, realy human hair taken off the bodies that were in the gas chamber. The gas was made into cloth. What person could wear a peice of clothing that was made by murdered people's human hair? The sight made me feel physically sick and I couldn't look at the hair. There were rooms of spectacles, showes, prosthetic limbs, toothbrushes and shaving brushed. 43,000 pairs of shoes were on display, these were just the ones for the camp. The good ones were sent to Berlin.

By this time I had permanent goosbumps and there was complete silence amongst the tour. The death wall between block 10 and 11 was also horrifying. The windows on each block were covered over apart from the bottom floor which was used by the gestapo as though they receieved pleasure from watching such atrocities.

Block 11 contained the cells. At this point I was considering leaving the corridor. It was very dark and had limited fresh air. One cell only had a few holes for ventilation, people slowly suffocated to death, there were just enough holes to prolong the death. The standing cells held 4 people and were no bigger than a telephone box, I decided to stand in it and the goosebumps became so much that I dashed out of the block before I was sick. It was at this point I had to make a decision as to whether I was strong enough to carry on. I thought I was prepared, I wasn't.

The first gas chamber wasn't like the 'shower' format. People were huddled into a room and gas was thrown through the ceiling. If you were lucky enough to be right underneath the gas, you were killed instantly. If not, it took 20 minutes for you to die. The commandants children used to play on top of the gas chamber. Next to the chamber is the personal gallows made for him.

Auschwitz 2 is a few km away from Auschwitz 1, between camps, the hard labour was done. The scale of the 2nd camp can't be explained. You have to strain you eyes to see the end of the camp. The famous railway and watchtower is the entrance to the camp. We were shown the washouse and toilets. If people weren't out in a few seconds, they were beaten. Beaten for having a stomach problem even though they were fed rotten food on a daily basis. So much we take for granted.

We walked to the end of the camp, past electric boundaries, gas chambers, a chamber that the nazi's exploded when they left and a memorial.

the day was extremely emotional. The day we visited was the All souls day when people congregate around the graves of loved ones. There were over 1000 people in procession walking around the camp. We were very lucky to see this but at the front of the procession were a group of shawled women, possibly survivors of the atrocity. A group of Jewish children walked around the camp with jewish symbols on their flags.

During the day I kept thinking that this actually happened in my grandad's lifetime and such decisions of life and death are still being made around this world. What right does one man have to murder another? How selfish this world has become.

In the evening mum and I went to a Perogi restaurant. it slightly looked like a transport cafe and we had exactly the same meal...again. Onion soup followed by meat perogi (plate of Cornish pasties).