“Arbeit Macht Frei.” Work makes you free. These words passed over our heads as we entered the gates of Auschwitz. We walked along the rocky, dirty road where prisoners were herded like cattle 65 years ago. We stood in the largest of 9000 camps, where prisoners were subjected to hunger, thirst, punishments, medical experiments, torture and extermination. The dirt road is lined with rows of brick buildings that had different uses in the past. Hans Frank, Governor-General of Nazi-occupied Poland, voiced that “Jews are a race that must be totally exterminated,” and it is recorded that one million Jews were killed at Auschwitz. The tour guide gave us the approximated statistics that one million of the 1.5 million killed at Auschwitz were Jews and most of whom suffocated in the gas chambers immediately following their arrival.
We were led to a building that houses artifacts that were found during the liberation of Auschwitz by the Soviets on January 27, 1945. On the liberation day, only 7,500 prisoners were found, while 130,000 had evacuated prior to the Soviet invasion. Records state that approximately 232,000 children were deported to Auschwitz, although only 650 were liberated, and 450 were under 15 years old. The building contained two tons of human hair and seven tons were discovered during the liberation. The delegation viewed an obscene amount of glasses, crutches, false legs back and leg braces, pots, pans and suitcases that belonged to Auschwitz victims. The exhibit contained over 40,000 pairs of shoes. Original outfits of the prisoners were on display and marked with the prisoners’ numbers and a distinguishing mark to categorize each person as a Jew, homosexual, Jehovah’s Witness, Soviet prisoner of war, gypsy, antisocial, political prisoner or criminal.
We were informed of the average day of a prisoner that consisted of sleep until 4 or 5 in the morning, work and eating 1500-1700 calories. Some of the buildings’ interior walls were lined with pictures of prisoners, taken by the Nazis upon arrival, which displayed their names and information.
Many of the students were disgusted to learn that only 10% of those who participated in the administration of Auschwitz were charged with crimes against humanity. We passed by Block 10, which is a building characterized for its medical experiments. Some experiments consisted of sterilizing Jewish women, experimenting on twins and triplets, and attempting to alter eye color; most of these experiments were performed by the “Angel of Death”, Dr. Josef Mengele, the highest-ranking Nazi official to escape justice. We then entered Block 11, also known as the “Block of Death”, which housed the camp prison, starvation cells, and a suffocation cell called the “dark cell”. One record states that one day 39 prisoners were placed into the “dark cell”, and the following day only 19 remained alive.
The tour concluded with a walk through of the gas chamber and crematorium. With our silent steps, we entered the room where 2000 deportees were killed with the arrival of every train. During use of the chambers, the door would be locked and Cyclone B, a granulated gas, would be released into the chamber. After 15-20 minutes, the chamber was opened and the corpses were stripped of their gold teeth, hair and jewelry. Prisoners had to move the corpses through a door into the crematorium where the corpses were burned until they became ashes that were poured into the nearby rivers. Many students became numb with the realization of the horrors that took place at Auschwitz as they entered the same room that thousands of victims never exited.
- By Monica Colon
“All of us have studied the Holocaust in school but could not fully understand what happened prior to setting foot in the camp. Seeing the site of such atrocities makes us wonder how something like this could have gone on for so long. Having visited Auschwitz I, we have a greater understanding of George Santayana’s famous quote, ‘The one who does not remember history is bound to live through it again.’”
-Prateek Kumar
We were led to a building that houses artifacts that were found during the liberation of Auschwitz by the Soviets on January 27, 1945. On the liberation day, only 7,500 prisoners were found, while 130,000 had evacuated prior to the Soviet invasion. Records state that approximately 232,000 children were deported to Auschwitz, although only 650 were liberated, and 450 were under 15 years old. The building contained two tons of human hair and seven tons were discovered during the liberation. The delegation viewed an obscene amount of glasses, crutches, false legs back and leg braces, pots, pans and suitcases that belonged to Auschwitz victims. The exhibit contained over 40,000 pairs of shoes. Original outfits of the prisoners were on display and marked with the prisoners’ numbers and a distinguishing mark to categorize each person as a Jew, homosexual, Jehovah’s Witness, Soviet prisoner of war, gypsy, antisocial, political prisoner or criminal.
We were informed of the average day of a prisoner that consisted of sleep until 4 or 5 in the morning, work and eating 1500-1700 calories. Some of the buildings’ interior walls were lined with pictures of prisoners, taken by the Nazis upon arrival, which displayed their names and information.
Many of the students were disgusted to learn that only 10% of those who participated in the administration of Auschwitz were charged with crimes against humanity. We passed by Block 10, which is a building characterized for its medical experiments. Some experiments consisted of sterilizing Jewish women, experimenting on twins and triplets, and attempting to alter eye color; most of these experiments were performed by the “Angel of Death”, Dr. Josef Mengele, the highest-ranking Nazi official to escape justice. We then entered Block 11, also known as the “Block of Death”, which housed the camp prison, starvation cells, and a suffocation cell called the “dark cell”. One record states that one day 39 prisoners were placed into the “dark cell”, and the following day only 19 remained alive.
The tour concluded with a walk through of the gas chamber and crematorium. With our silent steps, we entered the room where 2000 deportees were killed with the arrival of every train. During use of the chambers, the door would be locked and Cyclone B, a granulated gas, would be released into the chamber. After 15-20 minutes, the chamber was opened and the corpses were stripped of their gold teeth, hair and jewelry. Prisoners had to move the corpses through a door into the crematorium where the corpses were burned until they became ashes that were poured into the nearby rivers. Many students became numb with the realization of the horrors that took place at Auschwitz as they entered the same room that thousands of victims never exited.
- By Monica Colon
“All of us have studied the Holocaust in school but could not fully understand what happened prior to setting foot in the camp. Seeing the site of such atrocities makes us wonder how something like this could have gone on for so long. Having visited Auschwitz I, we have a greater understanding of George Santayana’s famous quote, ‘The one who does not remember history is bound to live through it again.’”
-Prateek Kumar
No comments:
Post a Comment