Auschwitz

During my time in Poland I also travelled to Auschwitz. The former concentration and death camp is now a museum. There were three camps, Auschwitz 1, Aushcwitz 2 (Birkenau) and Auschwitz 3. The town beside the camps has gone back to its original Polish name. I travelled by bus to the camp. The Polish countryside, even in August is very green. The route from Krakow is not a long one, but the roads are narrow and the journey is quite slow.












The photograph above shows the gate to Birkenau (Auschwitz 2). This camp was the one where most of the actual killing happened. It is estimated that more than a million souls were murdered in this place during its time of operation. The gate covers a railway line which was used to transport in victims. Most of Birkenau camp itself was destroyed by the fleeing Nazis as the Russian Army approached at the end of the war. Most of the buildings were wood, so most of what remains are their brick chimneys and the few brick built buildings on the site.












The third photograph is the infamous "Arbeit macht frei" gate, which marks the entrance to Auschwitz 1. Whether the slogan was chosen in a deliberate parody of the Bible "The Truth Shall Set You Free", I do not know. Auschwitz 1 was originally a camp for Polish prisoners. There is a small gas chamber here, but Birkenau is the place where mass murder was fully industrialized.

As can be seen from the photographs the camps are major tourist destinations, for good or ill. The exhibits and the tours were sombre and in parts shocking, rather than exploitative.