. There is an operating table where prisoners destined for the crematorium were dismembered and sliced open, dissected, there is even a sink-hole for
the blood (photos-g.ak.fbcdn.net...). After the victims were dead, the
corpses were burned in ovens (photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net...). Their souls
went out the chimney, the only way out of the camp, and their ashes were piled, soon explained. A horrible fact about the crematorium, the man in
charge of burning the corpses in the ovens, used to live near the entrance, and he used to shower in the oven rooms, why? Because it always warm in
there. It's hard to think that people can be treated this way, even after death. This is wrong by the most basic instinct. 50 meters from the
crematorium were fields, bumpy fields (photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net...),
where on November 3rd, 1943 18,400 Jews were executed by machinegun fire into death pits. One shot per Jew, since ammunition was valuable during the
war. If a Jew was injured but not killed, he would not get a "kindness shot" to put him out of his misery. He would just be buried under the next
wave of kills, maybe his father, sister, mother, brother or child. This was done on November 3rd when the Nazis wanted to clear out the camp because
of soviet advancement. Our last station in Majdanek was the mound of ashes. Many of my classmates fell apart facing this pure evil. Pure evil. When
the Red army liberated this camp, they found *7 tons* of ash. Burnt bodies from the crematorium. Around 79,000 burnt bodies in ash form one on top of
the other. The mound is covered with a giant concrete disk
(photos-f.ak.fbcdn.net...). Above the ashes, on this disk
(photos-c.ak.fbcdn.net...), reads in Latin: "Our fate, A warning to
you". We held a ceremony, more sadness than pride. And left.
Day 3.
Today was much less emotional, A monument to the "Righteous among the Nations", this is a title given by "Yad Vashem" holocaust memorial museum in
Jerusalem for any none Jew that has saved a Jew or Jews during WWII while risking his or his family's life, in exchange for nothing and by his own
morals.
To show us another side of Poland we were taken to the salt mines
(photos-f.ak.fbcdn.net...), they are amazing
(photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net...). Complete with a church inside
(photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net...). Today was Friday so we had Kabalat
Shabat prayers in a temple with other visitors to Poland.
Day 4.
We had a very long drive to Krakow. Everyone was sleepy. The Transformation is amazing. From sadness and tears to our cheerful selves, around good
friends that we love. It's very special. We toured in and around the Krakow Jewish ghetto. There is barely anything left. Tight streets used to house
thousands of Jews. Now none. We came to an ally of an apartment house
(photos-f.ak.fbcdn.net...). There is a story between these
walls. I hope I get this one right since I heard it only once. It happened during one of the deportations of the Jews from the Krakow ghetto to
Auschwitz. This building was being raided by Nazis looking for hiding Jews. In a hiding place were 17 Jews, including a baby. They heard footsteps
coming up the stairs towards them. The baby started crying. If the baby would cry and a German would hear it, they would all be doomed.
My trip to hell on earth Pt. 1, page
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Topic started on 9-10-2009 @ 11:57 AM by NoamC
The reason I am posting this, is to share my experience, my shocking, and life changing experience.
Some background: I'm a high school student in my senior year; I live in the capital of Israel, Jerusalem. It is common in Israeli schools to send students on a trip to Poland, for the purpose of teaching us about the Holocaust. This is the story of my journey…
Day 1.
A bunch of high school students having a wild time on the plane on our way to Warsaw, Poland. We've had many meetings and preparations for this trip, but exactly as we were told, nothing could prepare us 100% for this trip.
We arrived in Warsaw in the late morning. After many security instructions, our first destination was a Jewish graveyard adjacent to the Warsaw ghetto. I must admit we were still euphoric about the class trip abroad and we had a lot of fun making jokes. But what can you expect from a group of kids? We showed our respect at the Janusz Korczak monument (photos-a.ak.fbcdn.net...) at the graveyard, but still, nothing was sinking in quite yet.
After the graveyard tour we had a quick bus ride to one of the last remnants of the Warsaw ghetto, 4 meters, or 13 feet of brick wall, meant to keep whoever is inside, inside and whoever is outside, outside. It reminded me of some sort of cage, it is by definition, a wall that encloses everyone inside, completely separate from the rest of the world.
From the ghetto wall we went on to the house of Janusz Korczak. It was a medium sized house, just enough for his 200 Jewish persecuted orphans to live in. Here comes to mind his great story, when he was offered a pass out of Nazi Germany, but decided to stick with his 200 children to the very end, the gas chambers in Treblinka.
After a night with barely any sleep the day before, we crashed at our hotel in Warsaw, slightly shocked by the day's events.
Day 2.
Majdanek. It was chilling. It is still chilling. Upon arrival we saw a huge monument (photos-b.ak.fbcdn.net...). It's there to scare you, to put things in proportion. Passed the monument I overlooked the entire camp. Still unaware of what resides inside the barbed wire. The first stop, just steps away from the gate were the gas chambers. The prisoners that arrived and were unfit for physical labor were sent directly to the chambers and gassed. The gas chambers, which are small rooms actually had windows, so the SS murderers could see the people inside dying. After half an hour of gassing the doors were opened and if somehow someone survived he was shot on the spot. Right in the head. There is Zyklon B residue on the walls, it looks like blue stains (photos-c.ak.fbcdn.net...). Now it is a museum. Since Majdanek was also a warehouse for all Jewish property from many different concentration, labor and extermination camps, it holds around 900,000 pairs of shoes (photos-b.ak.fbcdn.net...), I've seen these, each one representing one, or more, pair of feet. It is not an easy thing to see. There is a story surrounding this camp. The wife of the main SS doctor, I forget her name, used to ride around the camp on her horse. Whenever she saw an inmate with "proper skin" she would take him out, and with help of German outlaws that were in
charge of guarding the camp, skin the victim, and make lampshades out of their skin. These lampshades are shown as well. It is horrifying.
Now grass grows in Majdanek, we asked the holocaust survivor that was touring with us if there was grass when she was imprisoned. She answered that if there was grass they would have ate it. As much as the entire camp is grueling, nothing came close to the Crematorium. This was in fact, a horror movie. It was terrible and unreal.
Some background: I'm a high school student in my senior year; I live in the capital of Israel, Jerusalem. It is common in Israeli schools to send students on a trip to Poland, for the purpose of teaching us about the Holocaust. This is the story of my journey…
Day 1.
A bunch of high school students having a wild time on the plane on our way to Warsaw, Poland. We've had many meetings and preparations for this trip, but exactly as we were told, nothing could prepare us 100% for this trip.
We arrived in Warsaw in the late morning. After many security instructions, our first destination was a Jewish graveyard adjacent to the Warsaw ghetto. I must admit we were still euphoric about the class trip abroad and we had a lot of fun making jokes. But what can you expect from a group of kids? We showed our respect at the Janusz Korczak monument (photos-a.ak.fbcdn.net...) at the graveyard, but still, nothing was sinking in quite yet.
After the graveyard tour we had a quick bus ride to one of the last remnants of the Warsaw ghetto, 4 meters, or 13 feet of brick wall, meant to keep whoever is inside, inside and whoever is outside, outside. It reminded me of some sort of cage, it is by definition, a wall that encloses everyone inside, completely separate from the rest of the world.
From the ghetto wall we went on to the house of Janusz Korczak. It was a medium sized house, just enough for his 200 Jewish persecuted orphans to live in. Here comes to mind his great story, when he was offered a pass out of Nazi Germany, but decided to stick with his 200 children to the very end, the gas chambers in Treblinka.
After a night with barely any sleep the day before, we crashed at our hotel in Warsaw, slightly shocked by the day's events.
Day 2.
Majdanek. It was chilling. It is still chilling. Upon arrival we saw a huge monument (photos-b.ak.fbcdn.net...). It's there to scare you, to put things in proportion. Passed the monument I overlooked the entire camp. Still unaware of what resides inside the barbed wire. The first stop, just steps away from the gate were the gas chambers. The prisoners that arrived and were unfit for physical labor were sent directly to the chambers and gassed. The gas chambers, which are small rooms actually had windows, so the SS murderers could see the people inside dying. After half an hour of gassing the doors were opened and if somehow someone survived he was shot on the spot. Right in the head. There is Zyklon B residue on the walls, it looks like blue stains (photos-c.ak.fbcdn.net...). Now it is a museum. Since Majdanek was also a warehouse for all Jewish property from many different concentration, labor and extermination camps, it holds around 900,000 pairs of shoes (photos-b.ak.fbcdn.net...), I've seen these, each one representing one, or more, pair of feet. It is not an easy thing to see. There is a story surrounding this camp. The wife of the main SS doctor, I forget her name, used to ride around the camp on her horse. Whenever she saw an inmate with "proper skin" she would take him out, and with help of German outlaws that were in
charge of guarding the camp, skin the victim, and make lampshades out of their skin. These lampshades are shown as well. It is horrifying.
Now grass grows in Majdanek, we asked the holocaust survivor that was touring with us if there was grass when she was imprisoned. She answered that if there was grass they would have ate it. As much as the entire camp is grueling, nothing came close to the Crematorium. This was in fact, a horror movie. It was terrible and unreal.
reply posted on 9-10-2009 @ 11:58 AM by NoamC
The mother tried desperately to quiet the baby but nothing helped and everyone around her started getting mad and scared that the baby would get them
all killed. The door to the hiding place opened, it was the mother's mother. The baby's grandmother panicked that she couldn't find the hiding
place and made noise, enough for German troops to enter the building and start searching for them. The choice was this. Keep the grandmother with
everyone in the hiding place and the Nazis would hear the baby cry, or, as much as it sounds horrible and inhuman, sacrifice the grandmother to the
Nazi devils and she will take their suspicions off the noise in the building. It was decided that the grandmother would go downstairs and lead the
Nazis away, painful to hear from me, even more painful to see the building through my eyes, and most painful is probably to do what they did.
Next was Schindlers factory where he saved so many Jews, if you don't know his story I implore you to watch Schindlers list. He was an angel to so many.
Night, Hotel, Sleep.
Day 5.
I will always for the rest of my life remember Day 5. It must be the most important day of my life. Day 5 was Auschwitz. Auschwitz- Birkenau. I jumped off the bus after a nice morning ride. Then it sort of hit me, the feeling landed upon me, I'm an Auschwitz. I will use a lot of pictures to help me show you what I, my friends and classmates, and of course the victims went through. The first image you see is of the railway gate entering the camp (photos-e.ak.fbcdn.net...). The actual tour is a bit blurry to me. We saw housing units, labor huts, starvation cells; all this was in the Birkenau camp itself where prisoners were kept alive to work. The Holocaust survivor that was with us was in Aushwitz for a year, she remembers everything, and she is in her 70s. She took us to HER hut, where she "lived" for so long with the worst conditions imaginable. She showed us her bunk where she used to sleep with 5-6 others in the same bed (photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net...). We saw the horrible latrines built for the prisoners, rows of holes, no plumbing, and while Typhus was raging through the camp the latrines (photos-e.ak.fbcdn.net...) were a place of infestation. The latrines used to be outside (photos-d.ak.fbcdn.net...) in the freezing Polish winter, but the imprisoned Jews were "blessed" with a hut because Germans operating the camp complained about the smell and sight. We walked along the railway (photos-f.ak.fbcdn.net...), bombarded with information, but I don't think many people concentrated on what the guide was saying, we were all mesmerized by the surrounding camp (photos-g.ak.fbcdn.net...). It is gigantic, threatening and terrifying. We were heading to the gas chambers and crematoriums, not a long walk from the gate at the start of the rail. Beside the gas chambers and crematorium complex are 2 or 3 puddles. These ditches are where the ashes of hundreds of thousands of Jews lay, with absolutely no knowledge of the existence of so many of them. In front of the ditches there are 4 black tombstones (photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net...), They reads in English: "To the memory of the men, women, and children who fell victim to the Nazi genocide. Here lie their ashes. May their souls rest in peace" It just keeps getting worse and worse. At that spot you feel helpless. But not even nearly as helpless as the poor victims, estimat
Next was Schindlers factory where he saved so many Jews, if you don't know his story I implore you to watch Schindlers list. He was an angel to so many.
Night, Hotel, Sleep.
Day 5.
I will always for the rest of my life remember Day 5. It must be the most important day of my life. Day 5 was Auschwitz. Auschwitz- Birkenau. I jumped off the bus after a nice morning ride. Then it sort of hit me, the feeling landed upon me, I'm an Auschwitz. I will use a lot of pictures to help me show you what I, my friends and classmates, and of course the victims went through. The first image you see is of the railway gate entering the camp (photos-e.ak.fbcdn.net...). The actual tour is a bit blurry to me. We saw housing units, labor huts, starvation cells; all this was in the Birkenau camp itself where prisoners were kept alive to work. The Holocaust survivor that was with us was in Aushwitz for a year, she remembers everything, and she is in her 70s. She took us to HER hut, where she "lived" for so long with the worst conditions imaginable. She showed us her bunk where she used to sleep with 5-6 others in the same bed (photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net...). We saw the horrible latrines built for the prisoners, rows of holes, no plumbing, and while Typhus was raging through the camp the latrines (photos-e.ak.fbcdn.net...) were a place of infestation. The latrines used to be outside (photos-d.ak.fbcdn.net...) in the freezing Polish winter, but the imprisoned Jews were "blessed" with a hut because Germans operating the camp complained about the smell and sight. We walked along the railway (photos-f.ak.fbcdn.net...), bombarded with information, but I don't think many people concentrated on what the guide was saying, we were all mesmerized by the surrounding camp (photos-g.ak.fbcdn.net...). It is gigantic, threatening and terrifying. We were heading to the gas chambers and crematoriums, not a long walk from the gate at the start of the rail. Beside the gas chambers and crematorium complex are 2 or 3 puddles. These ditches are where the ashes of hundreds of thousands of Jews lay, with absolutely no knowledge of the existence of so many of them. In front of the ditches there are 4 black tombstones (photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net...), They reads in English: "To the memory of the men, women, and children who fell victim to the Nazi genocide. Here lie their ashes. May their souls rest in peace" It just keeps getting worse and worse. At that spot you feel helpless. But not even nearly as helpless as the poor victims, estimat
reply posted on 9-10-2009 @ 11:59 AM by NoamC
estimated 1.1-2.5 million of them not buried, but scattered in those ditches. We came to the gas chambers, it is mostly ruined, the building in the
slaughtering complex were either destroyed by the Nazis while trying to destroy the evidence of their crimes, or blown up by Jewish Zundercommandos,
who used female prisoners slaving in a weapons plant to smuggle explosives in the camp, and blow up the gas chambers. The Zundercommando were Jews
that carried the dead corpses from the gas chambers to the crematorium to be burnt into ash. There are terrible stories of Zundercommandos finding
their relatives in the gas chambers, some even taking their own lives after the sight of their dead families. These are the gas chambers
(photos-d.ak.fbcdn.net...), it is a dugout building, mostly
destroyed. It was roofed (boakes.org...), people were told they
are going to be showered - cleaned and disinfected
(www-staff.it.uts.edu.au...). The Auschwitz-Birkenau gas
chambers used the most advanced and groundbreaking mass-murdering techniques. They were the first to use Zyklon B in the gas chambers, only after the
horrible "success" of this technique was it spread to the other Operation Reinhard death camps, including Treblinka and Sobibor. An estimated 2000
people could fit in the underground gas chambers, and all those 2000 dead within 30 minutes were transferred by the Jewish Zundercommando to the
crematoriums, either by dragging the bodies on the ground, or using more prisoners to carry cartloads
(photos-f.ak.fbcdn.net...) of victims to be burned. This was
only Aushwitz II, in the giant Auschwitz-Birkenau camp the additional Auschwitz III-V were fully operational whenever a deportation of Jews came in
from the west. The question arises here, even though the Allies did have air reconnaissance photographs of Auschwtiz-Birkenau how could they have not
bombed the railways leading to the camp, or even the camp itself? The answers are evasive, and the damage is done. Near the gas chambers, we inscribed
in the earth (photos-c.ak.fbcdn.net...). We continued to the
"sauna", a building where arriving deportees would strip naked, shaved and cleansed before continuing into the camp. We held a ceremony on rubble of
a probably morbid building (photos-a.ak.fbcdn.net...), we sang the
Israeli national anthem; it was very emotional, powerful, weakening and awakening. WE came back to the main gate
(photos-c.ak.fbcdn.net...) and concluded our tour of
Auschwitz-Birkenau. My final impression of this place was simply god-forsaken.
reply posted on 9-10-2009 @ 12:40 PM by lucentenigma
You didn't once mention the Poles, Russians, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, Homosexuals....
Jews were the majority but I do not think that should marginalize what happened to other nationalities and undesirables.
Source
Jews were the majority but I do not think that should marginalize what happened to other nationalities and undesirables.
The three main camps were Auschwitz I, II, and III. Auschwitz I, the original concentration camp, served as the administrative center for the whole complex, and was the site of the deaths of roughly 70,000 people, mostly ethnic Poles and Soviet prisoners of war. Auschwitz II (Birkenau) was an extermination camp or Vernichtungslager, and was the site of the deaths of at least 960,000 Jews, 75,000 Poles, and some 19,000 Roma (Gypsies). Birkenau was the largest of all the Nazi extermination camps. Auschwitz III (Monowitz (Monowice)) served as a labor camp for the Buna-Werke factory of the IG Farben concern.
Source
) reply posted on 9-10-2009 @ 02:12 PM by NoamC
reply to post by ZenOnKwalsky
It may be the way that i wrote the things that you misunderstood.
I visited only the Jewish places I admit, and I am well aware an thankful for the brave Polish resistance I am in no way excluded their suffering or the suffering of the Romani, captured Soviets Etc.
I have learned about Raul Walenberg and I know his story, but we went to Schindlers factory and not Raul's embassy.
I think I understand what your saying and thanks
It may be the way that i wrote the things that you misunderstood.
I visited only the Jewish places I admit, and I am well aware an thankful for the brave Polish resistance I am in no way excluded their suffering or the suffering of the Romani, captured Soviets Etc.
I have learned about Raul Walenberg and I know his story, but we went to Schindlers factory and not Raul's embassy.
I think I understand what your saying and thanks
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