Today we visited the Auschwitz concentration camp, which was established by the Nazi’s from 1940 to 1944. I am sitting here drinking a beer – because I need one – and reflecting on what I saw and learned today. I am so overwhelmed by what I have seen that I find it difficult to put my thoughts into coherent words. Forgive me if I offend, that’s the last thing I intend.
Work brings Freedom! The entry to Auschwitz.
First I learned that the Nazi party coming into power didn’t intend on race genocide at the time. In fact it was called the ‘Final Solution’ only because the other options – like shipping all Jews to Madagascar – became too complex. (yes thats right, lets kill 6 million Jews because thats easier than expatriating them somewhere else!). You see, as the Nazi’s conquered more European countries, they came across more Jews (approx. 10 million of them) and mass deportation of that number of people would have proved a logistical nightmare. So, of all the solutions they were thinking of, mass genocide was the ‘final’ one that they agreed would work logistically.
Why Poland? Well, the Jews have been pushed about and exiled for a very long time. A lot of them ended up in Poland. So it seemed sensible (???) for the Nazi’s to build their biggest concentration camp here and deal with a majority of them at once. Other races were also sent to the camps including Polish leaders, and people from many other races deemed inferior to the Arian ideal of blonde hair and blue eyes.
We were told how most people didn’t even spend one day in Auschwitz. On the day they arrived they were moved to the gas chambers and disposed of immediately. It was really a matter of expediency for the Nazis and from what I saw, they became very good at perfecting the process of herding people like cattle and managing them through the various corrals. For starters they made it clear to Jewish people that they should only pack one suitcase each because they might be gone a while, knowing that human nature would cause a person to pack their most valuable items in that suitcase or on their person.
Upon arrival at Auschwitz they split people into 2 or 3 groups. These being women
Headphones and a radio system made hearing our guide very easy. Plus she was a very good guide.
and children under 14, the elderly, handicapped or infirmed and finally fit able men (and women of a suitable age). They also kept twins of any age for experimentation but I don’t wish to talk further on that here. Of the 3 groups, only the men were moved through to the huts. The other 2 groups where led to the gas chambers were they were forced to remove all clothing and prepare for showers before being moved to their new camps. These people went with it, they had little choice, it was easier to do as instructed – especially with sub machine guns pointed at you. No one survived these gas chambers.
I keep typing in lots of facts then deleting them because my head is spinning, but I don’t want to bog you down with the detail. Suffice to say, 1.5 million people were murdered at Auschwitz. The Nazi’s removed any items of value from these people including gold fillings from their teeth and moved all of this back into the German economy. Even hair from the heads of victims was cleaned and sold back to German textile companies. And these companies knew what the product was and were it came from. Likewise the allied forces knew what was going on at the concentration camps and didn’t directly address the problem. Except for Sweden, which accepted Jewish people on asylum, this race was left to face its destiny without support. It’s possible that if more countries had done the same there might not have been a genocide of this magnitude (over 6 million people murdered by the Nazis).
2 rows of barbed wire fences charged with high voltage electricity. Some prisoners suicided on these fences.
To cut a long story short, the Soviets – who had occupied the other half of Poland – pushed the Nazi’s out and freed the remaining prisoners from Auschwitz around 1944. Of course Poland then fell to communism but one could argue it was the much lessor of the two evils. One can only thank the Gods because this was only a very small part of a much larger 1,000 year plan that the Nazi’s had for Europe.
Auschwitz is now a museum and a place that stands to remind us all of what can happen if we are not vigilante. The lessons from this place demonstrate that evil lies within all of us and not very far beneath the surface. Our tour guide kept emphasising that the Germans didn’t set out to exterminate the Jewish race; they simply arrived at this conclusion over a period of time. It all started with German unemployment levels being too high leading to an increased sense of nationalism, which then led to ostracising of ethnic minorities. Sound familiar? It would if you today live in Greece or Spain and its not too much of stretch to consider the asylum seekers coming to Australia by boat and then being pushed back to Sri Lanka. As our Tour guide said, where do you think the 700,000 Roma’s (gypsies) came from? Everyone answers Romania so we push them there. But the truth is they are long exiled from India. Romania doesn’t want them and won’t treat them as their own. Likewise with the people we push to Sri Lanka. I’m not saying we should open our borders but I do think Australia needs to consider its position in the 21st century as an Asian nation, not a Western one.
Anyway, I’m now straying into local politics. So I will shut up now and have another beer. But Auschwitz will stay with me a long time and while one item has been ticked off my bucket list I’m afraid it’s added several more. I now want to read the biographies of the people who survived this terrible place.
No rating on this one. Too terrible to be anything but true.
We keep seeing this message but is it sinking in?
