This was by far the most emotionally intense part of our trip. We visited the Auschwitz concentration camp located near Krakow, Poland.
When we first arrived, we watched a video which had a much more emotionally pulling angle to it compared to the video shown at the Dachau concentration camp. After seeing video clips of the secret extermination camp that existed in a very isolated area of Poland, we were taken on a tour through the camp.
We began by walking through the main gates which had "Arbeit Macht Frei" translated to "Work Brings Freedom" which was Nazi propaganda used at all the concentration camps to deceive people into thinking prisoners would enter and truly work their way towards survival...the reality was very different.
While we felt it was important for us to make this trip to Auschwitz to understand the tragedy with our own eyes and pay respect and remembrance to those who suffered, it was extremely difficult emotionally.
Though the camp was originally founded for Polish political prisoners, by 1942 it became the center for the Nazi Extermination Plan for Jews. We walked through the barracks, hospital, punishment area, train tracks, and even the gas chambers that the prisoners were subjected to during their last moments of life. While the Nazis attempted to burn the gas chambers to hide the evidence of crime, the remnants of the gas chambers still remain.
The most traumatic part for us was walking through the barracks where they had displayed glass cases with 2 tons of hair from the heads of the prisoners. The Nazis deceived innocent people by convincing them that they were being sent to shower before beginning their work, when in fact they were being sent to gas chambers to die. They took this hair in order to increase production of the German textile business to maximize profitability. It was just horrible to see this sight and register in our minds that this actually happened to good, innocent people.
We will never forget our visit to Auschwitz. Although we have read a tremendous amount since childhood on the tragedy that is the Holocaust, seeing it with our own eyes left a mark in our hearts that will stay with us forever.
It's a sick and inhumane part of history, but it's one that must never be forgotten. We much honor and remember those who suffered. Though history has repeated itself in other parts of the world, this is all the more reason we must revisit the past to prevent another such tragedy.
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