Day 21: Auschwitz

We caught the train down to Oswiecim, which is (unfortunate for the locals) better known by the German translation Auschwitz.  We first visited Auschwity I, the original concentration camp set up to house mainly Polish political prisoners.  It saw its fair share of deaths however – thousands were summarily executed by the Nazis and they first experimented with Zyklon B gas on Russian POWs there.

The more infamous Auschwitz II (also called Birkenau) camp was a short bus ride away.  It was here that the Nazis set up their first and largest "death camp", and over 1.5 million Jews, Poles, Russians, gypsies and the mentally ill (among others) were sent to the gas chambers.  What struck me about Birkenau is the incredible scale of the place – it stretches as far as the eye can see, row upon row of wooden huts (most now long gone apart from their brick chimneys).  At the back of the site, at the end of the railway siding, the Nazis built two huge gas chambers and crematoriums (hidden in the trees to keep their crime a secret from the other prisoners).  This evidence of mass extermination was destroyed by the retreating Nazis at the end of the war.

   
The guard’s watchtower at the entrance to the camp.

   
One of the original prisoner’s huts.         The brick remnants of other huts.

   
Literally the "end of the line".                 Stairs into one of the gas chambers.

It was an extremely sobering and depressing day, but I definitely came out of it thinking that everyone should have the experience of visiting a concentration camp at least once in their life.  It was a powerful reminder (and warning) of just how inhumane and cruel the human race can be.