Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp

We arrived a day early in Krakow for our SFC prayer weekend, which allowed Cortney and I to see the city a little bit as well as visit the Aushwitz-Birkenau concentration camp located a one and a half hour drive outside Krakow. It was a surreal experience to visit the site where approximately 1.5 million people were murdered throughout the course of WWII. The entire camp is divided into three different sites, but we saw only two of them: Auschwitz I and Birkenau. Auschwitz I was the main camp and it could hold up to 20,000 prisoners. As you enter the camp you walk through the famous gate that says “Arbeit Macht Frei,” which translates as “Works Makes You Free.” This, of course, was not true. The intent was that no one would go free.

Our group had a tour of the camp from a Polish woman whose uncle was murdered in the camp at the well-known “Death Wall” where many prisoners were shot. We were guided through the brick barracks of the camp and saw some of the living conditions the prisoners had to endure. In the basement in one of the buildings was the solitary confinement section with numerous cells and others designed for other forms of torture and death. There was a room called the “suffocation room” where up to 39 people were packed into it, the door was shut, and with little to no oxygen the prisoners would slowly suffocate throughout the night in their already weakened condition. The next day, half the people would be dead while the other half were allowed to go back to work. Near that room were also “standing cells.” These were 1 square meter cells with walls from floor to ceiling with only a small opening at the floor for the prisoners to crawl through. The prisoners were made to stand in there all night after a hard day’s work. Most did not survive after a few days of this. And they were not alone in their own cell—there were 4 or 5 people in each cell.

The reality that these atrocities actually happened, and on such a huge scale is definitely very difficult to accept. Our guide tried to help us understand the enormity of the lives lost. The holocaust was like having the attack on 9/11 happening every other day for 6 years. The Jews were stripped of their possessions, families, and their own lives. Many of the barracks now contain many possessions that the Nazis took from the prisoners as they entered the camp. There are rooms filled with shoes, clothes, combs, prosthetic limbs and crutches, shoe polish, eye glasses, etc.

Surprisingly I only cried once during the entire visit; it was mostly a numbing experience. We entered a room which had a huge section of the room blocked off by a glass wall only to reveal a ton of human hair. The women’s hair was cut off as they entered the camp, and it was used to make a certain type of cloth material. In those moments I pictured Cortney’s hair being shaved off, thrown into a pile, and then facing her time as a prisoner. Not a good thought.

The gas chamber at Auschwitz was considered one of the smaller ones compared to those built later on at Birkenau. The chamber is still standing today and in it thousands of people were murdered. We walked directly through it. We saw the holes in the ceiling where the poison was dropped into the room, killing every person in the room in a matter of moments. The main room where people were gassed led directly to the incinerator where some strong prisoners were forced to transfer the dead bodies to the furnaces. With the construction of the gas chambers at Birkenau, this gas chamber would later on not be used as the others were much more efficient at killing.

From Auschwitz we took a short bus ride to Birkenau. I was struck by the enormity of the camp, far beyond what I imagined. You could barely see the entire camp from the tower at the entrance to the camp, which is shown in Schindler’s List. The two sides of this camp were split by a railroad leading directly to the gas chambers, which lie in ruins today. The barracks at this camp were made of wood were destroyed by Poles after the war for the wood. Now what remains of the barracks are only the brick chimneys scattered throughout the entire camp. Many Jews were taken directly from the train to the gas chamber. We walked the 1000 meters from the entrance to the gas chambers. By the ruins of the gas chambers now stands a monument to the murdered victims of this genocide.

Walking on the soil where so many other people had just before their own deaths awakens you to the reality of evil in this world. I was still asking the question in my mind, why? Why were they killed? And even in the face of this extreme evil, there were many moments of hope and love. We heard many stories of prisoners living with courage, love, and self-sacrifice for others' sake. I'm so thankful there is a God who loves every person and is not blind to the suffering and social injustices in this life. Even though it seems evil has had a victory, I have a living hope that through faith the victory has already been won and those victims will have justice through God's grace. The memory of what happened will not be forgotten and we have the opportunity to choose to live a life full of faith, hope, and love with God's help.