Auschwitz, Birkenau and The Pope!

Friday, July 3, 2015

We’re both up earlier than our alarms because we want to leave by seven to get to Auschwitz by eight o’clock.  I take care of the critters and Marilyn packs us some salad fixin’s.  So far her diet hasn’t impacted my eating much at all!  Yay!  Of course, nothing much stops me from eating!  We’re nearly ready to go when Marilyn realizes she doesn’t have the car’s papers, which also have her credit card and driver’s license!  Therein ensues much panic before the missing packet is discovered.  All’s well.

Great colors and fence!

It really should have only taken about an hour.  Really!  We’ve even got Paulina’s Tomtom.  That might be the problem.  At any rate, there are a couple of false turns and a road that is closed for construction and yet another tour of interesting parts of Poland!  The foolish machine deposits us right in the middle of Oswiecim, which is the city in which the camps were located.  Great.  Now we need an English speaker in this little town who can get us the last few miles!  Wouldn’t you know that the youngest person in the gas station is the one who gives us great English directions!

Even the birds are somber.

Informational signs are all in black.

So wonderful to see the message being passed on to the young.

We park in the free lot and queue up.  If you arrive after ten o’clock you have to go with a guide;  but we’ve made it by nine and are free to do our own thing.  There is a limit on the size of bag you can bring in.  Mine just makes it, but Marilyn's little day back is too big and she has to go put it back in the car.  Happily we were able to park really close.  

Our tickets were for eight but no one seems to mind.  I also only have them on my camera because we couldn’t print them and my phone refused to pull them up.  The little girl at the gate seemed kind of amused and just let us in.  (I was really glad, though, that I had thought to take the photo!)  It is free so there really is only a concern if there are too many people at one time.  As many prisoners as were housed here, it is almost ludicrous to consider over-crowding.

Notice that the "B" is upside down.  It was not an accident!

Gallows - can hold as many as twelve.

I really don’t know where to begin or how to describe the camp.  We’ve all read about the atrocities and seen the photos and videos and taken classes and even listened to Holocaust survivors – but it’s not real until you’ve been there.  All the original buildings are still standing because they were originally Polish barracks made of red brick.  Most of them have been turned into exhibit spaces devoted to various groups who were terrorized and destroyed here.  Perhaps the most moving and also technically interesting is the one called the Suffering, Struggle and Destruction of the Jews, in Block 27.  It was prepared by the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem and the State of Israel, and opened in June of 2013.  It is called Shoah.

The photos and videos are constantly changing.

Each screen shows the same video but with
subtitles in different languages.

One whole room is completely empty,
except for children's drawing that march along the walls.

We walked the length and breadth of the camp, now a museum, for about five hours.  

The names, nationality and birth and death dates of about
four million of the murdered are written in The Book.

What a great photo!!  These are two of the happy photos
of survivors and their families.

These little guys are nesting under the eaves -
in the dark, darn them!

Just one example of the way that the prisoners belongings were
stolen and stored by category.

No one knows if this was hers or even her family's.

We then caught the free shuttle bus to Birkenau or Auschwitz II.  The busses were donated by Volkswagon!  Half the original buildings at Birkenau were wooden pre-fab horse barns which were turned into sleeping quarters for four hundred to a thousand people each.  They were designed for fifty-two horses.

The train tracks brought the prisoners straight into
the middle of the camp.

This was a combination latrine and wash room.

 There were also brick barracks and those are still standing, while most of the wood from the older barracks was scavenged for other structures after the war.  Only the brick chimneys are still standing.  You can also see the ruins of the old crematoriums and the dividing platform where the men were separated from the women and children and where the able-bodied were separated from those who were too young or old sick to work.  We spent another hour and a half here, then took the bus back to our car and searched out some lighter experiences.

Part of one of the ruined crematoria

Four people slept in each of those spaces.

 We decided to drive to Wadowice, Pope John Paul II’s home town!  We got to the town quite easily but needed both my phone and the Tomtom to actually find his church!  It was well worth the effort!  What a gorgeous little church!!

More interesting colors along the drive!

Isn't it beautiful!?

Fountain in the square in front of the church.

The inside is even lovelier!

We even had “Pope’s Cakes”!  The story goes that they were his favorites when he lived there.  I’m pretty sure they weren’t called Pope’s Cakes then!  Yum!!

It really is a tiny little town!

The Tomtom, or as we’re calling her, The B…. in the Box, got of really close to home, then let us down.  Luckily we always have a real map and we made it back before dark!  We had never stopped long enough to eat our salads, so we brought the cooler back upstairs and had salad and left overs from our first night.  Marilyn fixed dinner while I saw to the cat and rats.  (I always want to add elephants at the end!) it was quite the feast and left us with enough time and energy – well, sort of – to catch up our blogs!

All’s well that ends well!  The cat even had some play time on the balcony and let me scratch him all over!  Marilyn had asked Paulina if the cat had a name and she said, “Yes, but he doesn’t answer to it, so Kitty or Cat will do just as well!” 

Tomorrow will be a lighter day, both emotionally and physically!! Perhaps I'll even get some sleep tonight! 

Oops!!  I was closing my shadows when I heard a plaintive meow...Cat was on my windowsill!  I don't know how or when he went back outside, but he was very happy to have me pick him up and bring him back in!  I scritched and he purred and we were friends, but he still slept in his own room.  Sigh.