Friday, Oct. 19, 2007

After breakfast, we hopped on the bus for Oswiecim, where we had a 10am tour appointment. I had the headphones in and the iPod going, and I was loving the scenery. I took video, not realizing Rena and Christina(?) were talking through the whole thing.

When we got to Oswiecim (in German: Auschwitz), we went to the State Museum.

Our tour guide was very informative. Auschwitz was a tough morning. I was very conflicted because there were really beautiful colors and buildings and trees, but there were also the exhibits of shoes and eyeglasses and luggage and baby clothes and hair. There are no words that I can use to help you envision the sheer magnitude of these exhibits. "A lot" doesn't do it justice. "Tons" doesn't even do it justice. And then, even if you could picture the amount of dead people things, there's no way to share with you the stale smell of 60 years of death.

ARBEIT MACHT FREI (Work will set you free) - the main entrance

Facts. Auschwitz was originally a Polish military camp. When the Nazis came through, they appreciated the ready-made space and kept it more or less as it was. The first prisoners in Auschwitz were Polish political, intellectual, and cultural leaders. The Nazis (and then the Communists) wanted to eradicate Polish culture - Poles being barely above Jews in the social hierarchy.

Auschwitz (Auschwitz 1) was a "work" camp, and Birkenau (Auschwitz 2) was a straight death camp. When the Jews arrived in Oswiecim, they were separated straight away. Able-bodied men (and maybe a few women) went to Auschwitz, where they generally survived 3-4 months doing extremely strenuous labor on minimal nourishment, with very little protection from the elements. Women, children, elderly, and less than able-bodied people went to Birkenau, packed their things in a neat little pile so they could find them later, stripped down for a shower, and crammed into a room where cyanide pellets were dropped from the ceiling. The gas chambers held something like 1500 people at a time, and it took about 45 seconds for them all to die. Then some of those able-bodied folk who were working carted the bodies out to the incinerator so the next 1500 people could "shower."

Cell Block 11 is the only building that still stands as it did 65 years ago. It was the "prison within the prison," and it's where St. Maximilian Kolbe was martyred. In the yard, outside the cells (and their windows) of Block 11, is the execution wall.

The Nazis had some serious propaganda happening. I know I remember learning in school about people trying to escape and being terrorized at the thought of going to the camps, but there were Jews from all over Europe who honestly believed that Auschwitz was a new beginning for them. They thought they were packing up all of their belongings to start over in an all-Jewish city, where there would be no more harassment. The Jews from Greece paid for their own passages to Poland, so they could move to Auschwitz.

We left Auschwitz and did a drive-by of Birkenau.

Coming up on the Birkenau train depot

After Birkenau, we made our way through the pretty, peaceful countryside to a Franciscan monastery not far away. It's all Maximilian-y / Sanctuary of Divine Love, and I think it's newer than WW2.

Inside chapel where we had Mass w/ a(nother) cute little Franciscan

Sketch of St. Maximilian Kolbe, just outside of the chapel

Fr. Stan saying Mass

Pretty red flowers around the monastery

We left Oswiecim for Krakow, where we stayed 5 nights at the Hotel Fortuna (no relation), in the heart of the Jagiellonian University (University of Krakow) and "Old" Krakow. It was grand. Staying there for so many nights was awesome, too, because we had the opportunity to explore the area and have some fun.

Dinner at the Hotel -- yum. Soup for starters, pickled carrots/cabbage/beets for salad, and roast pork (with some sort of pruney thing inside it) and potatoes

Fr. Stan has this bad habit of grabbing people's cameras and taking ridiculously close pictures of them. This is his second attempt (thank God because the first was just me and so not cute...), now including Dan, Sylvia and myself.