The Jewish Plight: Auschwitz-Birkenau

While I hate to say that a WWII death camp is a must-visit, Auschwitz truly shows just how heartless, horrible, and extensive the Nazi's "final solution" was...something you can't experience from reading books or seeing pictures. Named for the town of Oswiecim in which it stands (Auschwitz is its German name), Auschwitz was divided into three camps (I, II [Birkenau], and III) and was the largest in the German camp system.

When visiting the Auschwitz complex, some say to visit Auschwitz I if you are short on time. After all, there is much more to see there: buildings completely reconstructed, artifacts stolen from the Jews and compiled (glasses, fake teeth, even hair shaved from prisoners), and a concise history that helps tell the story of life in the concentration camps. In Auschwitz I, prisoners were kept alive, experimented upon, or forced to work under impossible conditions. In Birkenau, however, all that existed was death and those who worked for it.

The first thing you see upon arrival to Birkenau is a dominating, red brick watchtower and gate. From the outside, it appears like a grandiose entrance way, much the same as Brandenburg Gate or the Arch de Triomphe might seem. And perhaps this is how Himmler saw it as well. But as you walk through and see what hides behind its facade, feelings being to overwhelm and the void on the other side overtakes.

To the left and right are open fields, where the prison buildings once stood. Now it is a half mile of emptiness on each side. To the front, a single railroad track (ominously foreshadowing that people come in but not out) leads 1.5 miles ahead, terminating at the crematoriums (5 in all). This is where 1.1 million people were never given a chance, chosen not for who they were but for who they were not, and killed systematically...banefully...inhumanely. And making the walk from entry to crematory makes it all the more real.

The crematoriums are gone; the prison buildings are destroyed. Now all that remains is the gate, the tracks, and the feeling of hollowness that Birkenau's massive expanse leaves behind.