Throughout my Spring studies and almost my entire educational career, I have learned about the Holocaust. I learned about the atrocities committed by the Germans against the Jews and about the sites at which these atrocities occurred. I feel like I have always known the name “Auschwitz” and associated it as the epitome of the Holocaust, and therefore the epitome of sadness, despair, and injustice. None of these preconceived ideas could have prepared me for actually visiting the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex.
Being in Krakow was eye-opening in a number of ways, but the most striking thing was that we were in the exact places where the Nazi’s victims were years ago. It was particularly chilling to walk around Auschwitz and know that persecuted prisoners walked this exact path. Seeing everything that they saw—the barracks, barbed wire fences and gates. The various exhibits we walked through containing personal items of Jews who had been killed were difficult to look at. We saw the luggage they brought, their clothes, shoes, shaven hair, and other personal belongings. The tiny little kids shoes were among the hardest to look at. To imagine how they must have felt—packing up their pots and pans, believing that they were simply being relocated—when they realized what their true fate would be, is unfathomable. Worse still than this was going inside the gas chamber, which they believed was a shower.
I believe that everyone studying the war (at least) should visit a concentration camp, because being there specifically influenced my understanding of the war. Up until this point, we had been learning a lot about the war and dynamics between the Allies and Germany, and it’s easy to get caught up in the logistics of it all. But being at Auschwitz reminded me of what the war was all about, and just how terrible the Nazis really were. I am honestly at a loss for words.
The other site we visited, Schindler’s Factory, was also quite interesting. The museum showed Poland’s point of view throughout the Nazi occupation. This was a refreshingly different perspective to hear. There has been much controversy surrounding the recent law in Poland that outlawed blaming Poland for any crimes committed during the Holocaust. While I do not agree with this law, I think our Polish guide did a fine job at both sites. She explicitly clarified that they are German concentration camps in Poland but did not seem particularly comfortable answering a question about Polish citizens living in towns around concentration camps. I think it is hard to judge how much she was influenced by the recent legislation, but also important to remember that she is Polish and has probably been taught Polish history the same way Americans are taught American history—with a bit of bias.