Interpretive Blog

Poland was a wild couple of days. From exploring the charm and openness of Krakow’s city square, to visiting Auschwitz and the Schindler Museum, and being evacuated from our hotel the first night, I experienced a whirlwind of emotions.

Auschwitz-Birkenau was a gut-wrenching and gripping experience. Seeing the camps for myself really put into perspective the genocidal campaign the Nazis executed against Jewish people. I was astonished with the collection of victims’ hair that was displayed in the museum. When I first saw it, my stomach dropped. I had the same feeling when I saw the pictures of starving, bony, suffering children when I first visited the Holocaust Museum in D.C. While I knew about the horrific events of the Holocaust, both exhibits sparked a reaction in me that was like: “wow, this is really messed up.” The vastness of the site changed my visualization of the Jewish experience at Auschwitz. By seeing how prisoners arrived on train, walking in their footsteps toward the gas chambers, and seeing how millions of Jews were packed into small living quarters throughout the site, it illustrated the massive organizational campaign the Germans took just to demolish Jewish people.

Schindler Museum

Schindler Museum

Schindler Museum

On the second day, we visited the Schindler Museum, which was dedicated to occupied Krakow during World War II. It stressed the destruction Germans brought to the city of Krakow and its residents. Both Jewish and non-Jewish Poles suffered, and Jews were often moved to ghettos separate from the German parts of the city. At times, the museum misled in its attempt to push Polish national innocence. Our tour guide mentioned how there was not much Polish people, including those of her ancestors, could do to save people during that time. She also mentioned how Poland was a “Catholic country,” subtly downplaying the amount of Jewish suffering that occurred. Yet, we learned this semester that not all Polish people were innocent bystanders under Nazi rule. Pogroms in towns such as Jedwabne, located in eastern Poland, decimated the Jewish population. Non-Jewish Poles carried out acts of violence against their Jewish neighbors, yet Polish memory is often silent on this event, blaming most horrific events on the occupying Germans. Their absence of national sovereignty during the war is used as a shield from accountability. as they are focused on maintaining their independence and morale with a unified national message.

My Poland experience is twofold. I learned of the destruction and hate brought by the Nazis on occupied Polish lands against Jews and Polish citizens. I also gained a sense of their national pride, sometimes even to a fault, when it comes to their history grappling with the Holocaust during World War II.

The two sites we visited in Poland, Auschwitz-Birkenau and The Krakow Museum, illustrated the devastation World War II inflicted on the country. It’s impossible to describe the emotional toll of visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau. Every step through the grounds weighs on you. While walking through the gas chambers and crematorium, anything but silence seems disrespectful as those four gray walls signified death for tens of thousands. The uncommon silence among my colleagues on the ten-minute bus ride between the camps showed that everyone felt the gravity of this site. One reason Auschwitz-Birkenau evokes such strong emotions is its historical preservation. With many original buildings still standing at Auschwitz I, the purpose of its construction remains evident. The high electrical fences, public gallows, and the infamous Block 11 death wall cement the reality of the Holocaust, which no class discussion ever truly does. After visiting the camp, I understood why successful-escape stories were rare. To give context to the camp’s powerful physical presence, a guided tour detailed all members of society, such as Poles, Roma, and homosexuals condemned to life – death — in the camp and emphasized the importance of preserving important historical sites for their memory. 

Walking into Auschwitz I

The Krakow Museum, which is situated within the old workplace of Oskar Schindler, presented information regarding the war’s effect on the city of Krakow. The museum occupied the building of a former government office, a space never intended to house grand historical exhibits, but I felt as if this element added to the museum’s effectiveness. The narrow hallways and intricately designed displays force the viewer to travel through the stages of the war. I genuinely enjoyed the layout of the site, but its emphasis on Krakow’s war experience limits its applicability to the entirety of Poland. The exhibits highlight the mistreatment of Krakow’s Poles and Jews, but there is no reflection on the anti-semitism prevalent throughout the country’s history. Although the museum provides an engaging account of the war in Krakow, it runs the risk of over-generalizing information about Krakow for less informed visitors, who might be led to assume that all Poles experienced a similar war.  

Cross found in the wreckage in Krakow

Truly little can prepare you for setting foot in Auschwitz. It is hard to connect with statistics, but walking through the very place where over a million people were murdered and seeing the tons of hair taken from the victims to use for fabric or the piles of children’s shoes highlights just how brutal and evil the Nazi regime was. We learned about Auschwitz in preparation for this trip by reading testimonies from prisoners who escaped the camp, but even their brutal attestations paled in comparison to the gravity of being in the camp itself. This was elevated by our tour guide, who explained the awful conditions and violent mistreatment that the prisoners had to endure every day. Each barracks was crowded with hundreds of people, and prisoners could be locked in solitary for weeks for the most minor of infractions. Even though the Nazis tried to hide their crimes by destroying the camp, parts of it survived as a testament to their atrocities. I was surprised to learn that Auschwitz was a series of camps instead of just one. These included Auschwitz I which was the main camp, and Auschwitz II-Birkenau, which housed the gas chambers. Auschwitz Birkenau was a massive complex and included the gas chambers and crematoria that became infamous for their implementation of the Final Solution. Walking through one of the surviving gas chambers it is hard to fathom how willing the Nazi regime was to commit genocide. The creation of a complex dedicated solely to the murder of innocent people shows how dangerous indoctrination and totalitarianism can be, and how low humanity can fall.

Looking out at the entrance to Auschwitz-Birkenau from inside the camp

By Cecelia Minard

It is impossible to prepare yourself for visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau. Historical readings, documentaries, and photographs pale in comparison to the feeling of the physical site. In class this spring, we read The First Report about Auschwitz by John S. Conway, which included eyewitness accounts from two young Slovakian Jews who gave a breakdown of the numbers and classifications of the prisoners, as well as an explanation of the methods of extermination used by the Nazis. We also watched the documentary The World at War, which included horrifyingly detailed videos from the discovery of the camps. Yet after visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau, I realized that nothing could capture the memory of such a horrendous place more than the physical site. Auschwitz-Birkenau as a source in and of itself highlights each of the hundreds of thousands of people murdered there.

While the report and the documentary focused on the details and the scale of the genocide, Auschwitz-Birkenau showed me each victim’s personhood. Rather than seeing a number on a page or a video from 70 years ago, walking through Auschwitz showed me the very space attached to the memories of those who were there.

In the barracks, there are displays of the victims’ belongings: their suitcases, shoes, pots, pans, and even the hair from their heads. While looking at these belongings, I focused on the remembrance of each individual who lost their life there. I couldn’t help but think that this could have been their favorite pair of shoes, this pot and pan could have been a gift from a loved one, and this was the hair on their head that they brushed and cared for each day.

While studies are vital to understanding history, documents cannot hold a memory the way a physical site or object does. While walking through the same spaces as the victims of Auschwitz-Birkenau, I felt their memory in a way I never had before. I felt a deep connection and sorrow for each person who was murdered there.

     I have learned about the Holocaust in my history classes for as long as I can remember. Despite seeing pictures from Auschwitz-Birkenau, nothing could have prepared me for how it felt to walk around and stand in the death camp.

     Before we entered the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, I never understood the sheer size of it. We passed through the gates that I have seen in every textbook and museum I’ve visited, and it suddenly became real to me. I didn’t realize how little I had internalized the brutality of the camps until I stood crying at a pair of toddler’s shoes behind a pane of glass. Even worse was seeing the “beds” that prisoners crammed into. The dark, hard wood looked uncomfortable at best, and hearing stories about people waking up next to cold, dead bodies, and being happy that it wasn’t them shook me. We saw the blocks, the death wall, the tracks, and stolen valuables. We were able to see pictures of victims, and hear about how they got there. Our guide was especially good, helping us understand what we were shown, connecting it back to the lives robbed from all of these people. Our studies had covered the estimated number of deaths in the camp and explained the inhumane treatment of prisoners, but facts and figures will never compare to standing in the camp itself and seeing the aftermath personally. The piles of shaved hair, glasses, and shoes continue to haunt me.

     Brutality was palpable in every room, but most telling for me were the rooms dedicated to different modes of execution. I work in a veterinary clinic and have been present for animal euthanasia. I have held and comforted  animals as they passed from an injection to the heart. The pictures of human beings killed in a similar manner – but without sedation or comfort — made me feel sick. Learning more about the terrifying deaths of millions of people has truly shown me how these prisoners were treated as not only less than human, but as less than animals.

There were many aspects of the museum in Krakow that reflected Poland’s claim to national innocence during WWII. The museum focused on the severe punishments forced on the people of Krakow under Nazi occupation. Public executions and arrests occupied much of the museum, especially in the first exhibitions. Next, the museum detailed the suffering of the Jewish population because of Nazi occupation in Krakow, such as being moved to the ghettos and concentration camps. The order of the exhibits implied that what the non-Jews in Krakow went through after occupation explained, and perhaps excused, why so few of them decided to help the Jewish people and why some even betrayed them. Our tour guide even said repeatedly that she did not think we should blame the Polish people for refusing to help because helping would mean putting themselves and their families in danger. I do agree that helping Jewish people would have been a risk for many Polish people and their loved ones. However, to insist that they should not be blamed for remaining silent and even betraying Jews felt unfair. The Poles in Krakow would not have had the power to defeat their Nazi occupiers but that does not remove the blame from those who chose to betray Jews.  

To be fair, the museum did showcase complicity for some of the Poles. Exhibits showed that even those who did help had ulterior motives for doing so, and that there were many who denounced their neighbors for aiding Jewish people. The Krakow Museum also had first-hand accounts of Jewish people, including children, who were moved to the ghettos. It was refreshing to read the experiences of Jewish people that went through it, rather than just being told the information. The museum allowed Jews to tell their own stories, which was more beneficial than getting the facts second-hand.  

            Prior to our European travels, our class spent significant time on Poland’s claim of national innocence concerning the Holocaust and violence against Jewish people during World War II. Poland has dealt with two brutal occupiers throughout much of the past century, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, and, perhaps understandably, prefers to pin immoral actions on the occupiers. However, Poland also has a history of violent antisemitism, a history which reached an apex in World War II.  In the Jedwabne massacre described in Jan T. Gross’ Neighbors, and similar pogroms throughout the war, Nazi Germany’s presence allowed centuries of ethnic tensions to be acted upon, against Polish Jews. During this massacre, hundreds of Jewish Poles were humiliated, tortured, and

Pictured: victims of the Holocaust at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

eventually murdered by their own neighbors. Though the massacre was carried out with the basic support of German occupiers, the most egregious offenders were Polish Christians. Pogroms in other areas of Poland were similar to the Jedwabne pogrom, with the worst occurring just after the war in the city of Kielce, about 70 miles from Kraków (Gross 21) (Apple Maps). As pogroms occurred in many regions of Poland, interreligious tensions and violence were not limited to a specific area. Despite this, in the sites that we visited in and around Kraków, I was unable to find many, if any, references to Polish cooperation with Nazi Germany or Polish inter-religious tensions.

            The museums and sites that our group visited in Poland, Auschwitz-Birkenau and the Kraków Museum, were not places that I expected to find many displays that highlighted Polish cooperation with Germany. At Auschwitz, I found the exhibits entirely focused upon the terrible reality and sheer loss of life caused by Nazi Germany’s genocidal policies. Nazi Germany brought its hateful beliefs to thethe nations it occupied, but, in these occupied nations, ethnic tensions were already present that could be utilized by the occupier. At the Kraków Museum, I expected more information to be conveyed that acknowledged pre-war and wartime ethnic tensions because I had previously read similar acknowledgements by other European nations. Given Jedwabne is far from Kraków, and the museum focuses upon local history, I did not expect the specific pogrom to be covered, but I expected examples of Polish cooperation or ethnic tensions to be highlighted. Concerning Jewish treatment under occupation, the Kraków Museum highlights the experience of their Jewish residents, before and after being forced into ghettos, and the help that Poles provided to them. I feel that the museum did not put similar effort into highlighting the role that Polish people had in seizing Jewish assets or careers, even though it was a reality. Poland’s failure to significantly acknowledge collaboration with Nazi Germany in this respect, specifically carrying out aspects of Germany’s ethnic policies, is similar to France’s depiction of its collaboration. As France downplays the role of its collaboration with Germany, effectively blaming the worst collaboration on a small group of Vichy leaders, Poland downplays or ignores its collaboration with Germany.

Pictured: The Kraków Museum prefers to highlight examples of Polish Resistance instead of Polish Cooperation

At an early age I read Night by Elie Wiesel and the graphic novel Maus. I watched Schindler’s List and The Pianist, and I am blessed to say I have visited Yad Vashem, the world’s premiere Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, a handful of times. Yet, no part of my past truly prepared me to step foot on Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Third Reich’s most deadly killing complex that operated from 1940-45. While I am incredibly grateful for my previous education on the death camps and the terror of the Nazis, no class I have taken nor survivor I have met invoked the same emotions I felt on May 17th as I moved through Auschwitz. As I write this, I feel like I have no more tears left in my body, and my sleeves are blotted with snot from wiping my face dry. I shivered as I walked underneath the infamous arch at Auschwitz’s entrance reading “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work Will Set You Free), and I felt somewhat weak as I moved through courtyards, barracks, gas chambers, and crematoriums. I broke down at the sight of mountains of hair and shoes once belonging to prisoners, with some locks still being braided or curled, further proving the fragility of life and the unthinkable realities that awaited men, women, and children.

There is no doubt in my mind that these grounds stand alone as the source on the Holocaust and attempted extermination of the Jewish people. Sitting at a desk or behind a screen did not allow me to grasp the importance of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The truths of it are, frankly, unbelievable and incomprehensible. The train tracks leading into Birkenau’s extermination camp were significantly longer than any picture has expressed, and the cold, rainy day accentuated the camp’s brutality better than any source I had seen before. Rarely have I felt so strongly about being in the exact location where an event occurred, and I think it’s because of how different being at Auschwitz was from classroom materials, regardless of their accuracy as primary resources.

I have touched the Western Wall and explored the Temple Mount, and recently I have seen some of the most magnificent cathedrals known to mankind. But I can confidently say that today I walked upon the most sacred land I know – one that filled me with fear, anguish, and horror, and yet also an incredible sense of pride to be a Jew. Auschwitz-Birkenau, amongst other death and concentration camps, functioned with the idea that I – a 21-year-old Jew in the year 2023 – would not exist. And I have just walked the exact lands where these ideals ran amuck and almost became a reality. This context shook my perspective of misfortune, leading me to believe I live an unbelievably blessed and beautiful life. If this entire excursion through Europe is not representative enough of this concept, I’m not sure what is.

Seeing History Firsthand

A Historian’s Blog of Poland

Meg Brosneck

Barracks at Auschwitz II-Birkenau

Poland is a beautiful country to visit, but its beauty was not the reason for our visit. The main reason belonged to one of the most horrific places in history: Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Bunks in the barracks

Though the story of Auschwitz is well-known in history classes, the true scope of its horror cannot be understood without visiting the location itself. Some of the buildings were transformed into museum exhibits. Most of these are on the main camp, and they were the first places we visited. While they included some important photos and explanations, the most important exhibits came from the Holocaust victims’ personal belongings. Entire rooms are dedicated to displaying the pots and pans, shoes, or suitcases a fraction of the victims had brought with them. They are all that remains of entire families. The Nazis collected everything the Jews had to sell or distribute after they murdered them. While the physical items were horrible to look at, nothing came close to the room filled with several tons of human hair. The Nazis shaved their victims heads and sold their hair as a product, and Auschwitz still has some of it behind glass cages. No pictures were allowed.

The Death Wall

We continued through the rest of the camps and walked along the muddy roads where over a million people suffered and died. This explained more than any textbook ever could. We saw the buildings the Nazis forced the victims to build and then sleep in, four to seven people crammed into each tiny, cold, muddy, wooden space. We walked through the courtyard in which they executed countless people. Most of the buildings were well preserved, and our tour guide was marvelous in his explanations of what happened at each facility. Downstairs, in the basement of the infamous Block 11, we saw the standing prison cells the Nazis would cram four people inside all night. There were no pictures allowed and we were rushed through the sites, but that location impacted me more than any others. You can read all of the books you want, view all the images in existence, but until you stand in front of the torture chambers yourself, it will not sink in. This is why preservation of these sites is so important; they are physical proof of what happened and irreplaceable sources for historians and the public alike.