I am currently sitting in my hotel room, staring at the neon signs for American restaurants and shops. May I remind you, we are now in Poland. I have seen more KFCs and McDonalds within walking distance here than down High Street next to campus. I cannot name the closest KFC to my house. It is remarkable how universal the American culture is around the globe.
My beautiful attempt to capture “Americanized Krakow.”
Yet, Poland has really been a culture shock for me. Not in the usual sense of language and cultural norms, but in an historical perspective. We are now in the Eastern Front of the war. Particularly, we are in the bloodlands. The war washed over this area three times: the Nazi-Soviet joint invasion of Poland, then the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, and finally the Soviet offensive toward Berlin. These factors created a different narrative than we are used to. We are used to the story of liberation and joy, or stories of independence and perseverance. While these stories are available in Poland, they are not the collective narrative of World War II.
This became visible in the Schindler museum. Upon entrance, you are introduced to pre-WWII Krakow. When Nazi-Soviet forces invaded in 1939, Poland had existed as an independent state for only 20 years. Yet they had a distinct culture and identity. There was an entire room dedicated to Krakow’s personality before the war. A carousel-like exhibition introduces you to snapshots of Krakow’s festivals, churches, and markets. I could have spent hours learning about Krakow’s unique culture, but there is only so much time. You then transition into a section dedicated to anti-Polish sentiment.
Not everyone believed the Poles were worthy of independence. Particularly, Adolf Hitler called the Poles sub-human and unfit for self-governing. Prior to the treaty of Versailles, Germany ruled over around half of Poland. To Hitler, the Poles remained second-class subjects of Deutschland. Poland belonged to Germans, and the Slavs needed to be relocated. This sentiment justified Hitler’s division and conquest of Poland.
Hitler’s view of Poles as sub-humans helped us transition into Wednesday, where we visited Auschwitz. Auschwitz is about an hour and a half outside of Krakow in southwest Poland. SS leader Heinrich Himmler was in charge of placing and running the concentration camps. Himmler chose Poland as the main hub of camps because of its central location and its high concentration of Jews. Before WWII, 3.5 million Jews lived in Poland. By 1945, 90% had been killed.
I am currently at a loss of words. I have so many emotions over our visit to Auschwitz, yet none give the visit justice. None explain the atrocities persecuted there 75 years ago. As we walked along, a coldfront moved in, bringing a huge raincloud toward Auschwitz-Birkenau, the killing center of the camp. As we approached, half of the sun remained visible, creating an eerie feeling around the installation. I created distance between myself and everyone else so I could begin to imagine Birkenau 85 years ago.
Auschwitz II-Birkenau (death camp) from the crows nest in the infamous death gates.
Pictures and books cannot describe the feeling of walking the grounds at Auschwitz. You get to view piles of shoes, pots, pans, and hair from the victims. You stand where prisoners, sometimes naked in sub-zero temperature, stood for several hours during roll call. You get to walk through the first crematorium and gas chamber at Auschwitz. You can imagine the Jews, Gypsies, Communists and other prisoners who were promised a shower after a long train ride piling into the chamber. After being stuffed into the chamber, the SS locked the room. Using special slots in the roof, SS men dropped Zyklon (Cyclone) B into the chamber. Zyklon B was hydrogen cyanide in gas form, and turned the Nazi terror machine into an industrial killer. Zyklon B was the Nazi’s fastest and most efficient killing technique. Some died immediately, while others choked to death. The last few died banging and clawing the walls. After 30 minutes, Sonderkommandos, or specially chosen prisoners, entered the room and piled up the bodies. Some of the larger crematoriums (2-5) had special elevators to carry the bodies to the furnaces. After collecting the bodies, the SK threw a few bodies into the furnace, which took around 30 minutes. The remaining ashes were used as fertilizer.
This experience was transforming. As Americans, we learn and read about the Holocaust, but most never interact with the tangible history. To us it is a written tragedy that occurred across an ocean. We swear to never forget, yet do not grasp the level and sadistic nature of the Holocaust. Seeing the locations of industrial sized genocide with the infamous “Arbeit Macht Frei” (work sets you free) gate expanded my understanding and perspective across borders, across fronts, and across languages.
View from the side of the barbed wire only a few lucky prisoners would ever get to see again.