Auschwitz is a symbol of state terrorism, genocide and the holocaust. The Nazis opened it in 1940 on the outskirts of the city of Oswiecim, Poland, which was under German occupation during WWII. The Germans changed the name of the city to “Auschwitz”, which also became the name of the camp. It was the largest Nazi German concentration camp and death camp.
History may have us taught us many things but one main fact is that there is no humanity in war, only cruelty. This is what I gathered in a painful manner when I visited the Auschwitz Birkenau and Auschwitz – Monowitz in Poland on February 11, 2018.
I must say that all the written tales and facts of this camp were of no comparison to actually witnessing and feeling the horror imposed by World War II (WWII) stalwart and architect Adolf Hitler and what was done to mankind. The freezing winter with its temperature at minus 3 complemented the solemn and gloomy roads leading to the camp and surrounded me with a veil of grave-like silence.
The petite and young female tour guide was extremely knowledgeable in guiding our group of 15 visitors. She spoke with a tinge of sadness yet articulated the brutality in a graphical manner, with a low tone, too. There were people of all walks and from various countries; my family was the only Asian there on that day.
“Arbeit Macht Frei” or “Work Will Make You Free” is the inscription message on the entrance gate to the Auschwitz 1 camp. The inscription literally means free from the world for more than 1.3 million people! The camp expanded over the years, until it comprised three main parts: Auschwitz 1, Auschwitz 2- Birkenau and Auschwitz 3- Monowitz, as well as more than 40 sub-camps.
Initially, Polish people were imprisoned in the camp and left to die there. Later they were joined by Soviet prisoners of war, Romania “Gypsies”, and prisoners of other countries. In 1942, the camp became the scene of the largest mass murder in human history, committed against the Jews of Europe as part of Nazi plans for the total extermination of the Jews.
The Jews deported to Auschwitz included men, women and children. As soon as they arrived by train, which were usually cramped the selection process take place at the platform itself. They were separated into two lines; women and children in one line, men in the other. The doctors then separated the children from the women, the healthy and strong from the elderly and the ill. Expectant women were in a group of their own, too. Those fit for labour were placed in the camp itself. The others, averaging 70-75% from each train were, on arrival sent directly to their deaths in the Birkenau gas chambers.
Those who were murdered in the gas chambers were assured that they were going to take a shower. Fake showerheads were fitted to the ceiling of the gas chambers. Little did they know that it is their last moment? Beaten and intimidated by guards, 2000 victims were crammed into the chamber in an area approximately 210m2. The chamber door was locked and Zyklon B was poured in. The bodies were stripped of gold teeth and jewelry, their hair was cut off, then bodies were burnt in the crematorium, victims personal documents were destroyed too.
It is estimated at least 1,100,000 Jews were sent to the camp from Nazi occupied Europe; 150,000 Polish, some 23,000 Roma (gypsies), over 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war and over 25,000 prisoners from other countries were sent to Auschwitz. Almost everyone was gasified there.
Prisoners held in the concentration camp died from being overworked, starvation, sadistic punishments, exhaustion from prolonged roll-calls, tortured, appalling living conditions, being used for medical experiments or through arbitrary execution. Those too weak or sick to work were selected by the guards during roll-calls or in the infirmary. And either sent to the gas chambers or murdered with an injection of phenol.
In an effort to remove the evidence of their crimes, the Nazis began dismantling and demolishing the gas chambers and crematoria, along with the other buildings, at the end of the war on January 20, 1945. They also burned the records.
During the three-hour visit, we saw the empty Zyklon-B canisters strewn on the camp grounds. Mainly used for disinfection purposes, here in Auschwitz they were used for extermination. Suitcases of Jews deported for extermination were also well kept as an exhibit for visitors, with the owner’s name, country and contact numbers still intact on the suitcases. A vast collection of processed hair, shoes and prosthetics were also part of the horror exhibits. The sight of the crematorium and gas chamber where several hundreds of people were murdered was a horrifying memory to keep. Victims were killed by Zyklon-B which was poured into the gas chamber through the chamber openings. These are just some of the belongings plundered from the victims of Auschwitz which was found after the liberation of the camp.
An alarming number of 4,576 corpses were burned daily at the crematoria. Auschwitz death wall is where several prisoners were shot to death. The tormenting roll-call which lasted for hours was also explained. The double row of electric barbed-wire fencing was the suicide spot of many prisoners who chose to throw themselves onto it in kamikaze attempt rather than withstand the ordeal of constant torture. The sardine-packed brick barracks housed hundreds of prisoners, filled with groans of the dying, and the odor of sweat, excrement and dead bodies, as well as lice and ubiquitous rats that swarmed everywhere.
An exhibition hall displayed the enlarged photographs of prisoners. A memorial to the victims of the Auschwitz death camp at the Auschwitz 2 –Birkenau site was unveiled in 1967 and the granite commemorative plaques with inscriptions on them are in four languages i.e. Polish, English, Hebrew and Yiddish, located near a small pond where their ashes were dumped.
During the tour, I saw a young couple, where the lady was weeping away in a dramatic manner, being ushered by her beau from the camp. Perhaps her relation had been a victim of such brutality; maybe her heart could not contain the gloom and sadness felt in the camp; or it might be possible that she was simply overwhelmed by the extreme sadism and barbaric treatment towards the innocent prisoners housed in that camp, similar to what each and every visitor to that camp would have felt during a tour.
The visit to the Auschwitz was beyond words – such brutality and sadism conceived by one man and inflicted onto people in the most indescribable and unimaginable barbaric-like manner in unbelievable indeed. All the world and aspiring leaders must visit this camp to see what such camps, such treatment and overall what war brings to mankind. War had and still has no element of humanity. Mao Tse Tung killed over 50 million people in China; Joseph Stalin 20 million Russians, Adolph Hitler 6 million Jews; Pol Pot 4 million Cambodians – how do they look at themselves in the mirror each day? What do they tell the world?
They are all mass murderers. One man’s hero is another man’s tyrant, a popular aphorism goes. While we can argue the validity and virtue of certain political agendas, the callous methods by which some leaders attain their goals are less up to interpretation. These types of leaders must be removed from the political and leadership circle. History has many lessons. Though they say, history repeats itself; I think we need no repeats for these barbaric and inhumane holocausts forced upon men, women and children.
Let’s pray and hope that man will learn from these brutal events marked and captured in our history.
Let’s all promote peace, love, care and humanity.