Auschwitz & Birkenau vs. The Schindler Museum
Once we passed the gates to the entrance of Auschwitz, it became obvious just how much the site had been preserved. Each of the buildings still stood tall and ominous with signs posted along the roads to highlight different pieces of key information. Inside some of the old housing blocks were museum-like exhibits that showcase the horrors of the extermination camp, from pictures of the enslaved to piles of shoes and luggage. Although the alterations of these housing blocks do not point towards complete site preservation, I do believe that it is the preservation of the personal belongings that matter more in that instance. This type of preservation provided me with a deeper, more personal connection to the lives lost in Auschwitz and Birkenau.
Standing at the memorial in Birkenau, I was able to look out over the camp and see its expanse. That moment in particular, with the main gate in the distance and two destroyed gas chambers to my right and left, allowed me a complete perception of what the camp would have been like almost 80 years ago. Without that depth of preservation, I would not have been able to capture such true feelings of disgust and anguish at the horrors that took place in these extermination camps.
On the other hand, the Oskar Schindler Museum was hardly preserved at all. Until we had made it through the entire museum, I did not fully understand that we weren’t actually going to see any of the factory from how it was back in the 1930s and 1940s. The closest we came to seeing into the past was in Schindler’s office, but even then, the map on the wall was the only original artifact and there was a large memorial in the middle of the room. While the memorial with the pots on the outside and the names of each of the Jews Schindler saved on the inside, the placement of the piece and lack of preservation of the office itself tore away any chance of having a visceral experience.
Hall Tom, Oskar Schindler’s Factory Tour – Krakow Historical Museum, 2018, Google Images, 2018.
The same was true throughout the remainder of the museum. Although the information within the museum was interesting and informative, the cluttered space and disorganization of facts within each broken-down time period made their intention hard to follow.
Krakow: Oskar Schindler’s Factory, n.d., Get Your Guide, n.d.
My experience of this general sense of confusion may have been quelled had we been allowed to personally explore the museum without a tour guide. However, the point remains, that the complete lack of preservation of the Schindler factory was disheartening and unfortunate despite the abundance of information that the museum holds. Any historical site should not be turned into the museum itself because, with correct preservation, a historical site will speak more words than any museum exhibition ever could. Auschwitz and Birkenau were able to artfully balance preservation with the exhibition of important artifacts and pictures that gave an added emotional layer to the camps. Unfortunately, while informative, Schindler’s Museum was unable to find this balance between preservation and exhibition.