Kalis, Wieliczka and Auschwitz, Poland 19.06

We left for Wolbrom after a late night of packing, but didn't manage to get out the door until 11am. The plan for this trip, was to visit Artur's relatives in Kalis, a little town near Wolbrom. We decided to visit the notorious concentration camp, Auschwitz, on our way to Kalis, as it was not too far from there.

We arrived at Auschwitz at 5pm. We had both heard a great deal about the place and its horrifying history, in our history classes, and from accounts of survivors, so we were a bit nervous, and had shivers going down our spines and we drove around the huge fences to the entrance.
Artur had visited once before, when he was very little, and his parents didn't want him to watch the short movie documentary about Auschwitz, that they had showing in a little cinema room. Artur was keen to see it now that he was older, and wanted to see what had been hidden from him as a child. Unfortunately, the last movie screening had been at 5pm, and we'd missed out, so we decided to have a look around that day, and then return the following day. This is one place you don't want to rush through, or try to fit into a time schedule.

Auschwitz Entrance Building

Inside the entrance building, where the movie was housed, is a display of the names and stories of the Polish people from the local area, who tried to help the prisoners in the camp. Some dropped food parcels to the prisoners that were taken outside the gates and put to work on roads and construction. Some helped smuggle correspondance in and out of the camps, including cameras and photos to try to show the world what was happening there.

We walked out into the camp itself, and stared around at its enormity. We studied the map of the camp, which pointed out which buildings were used for what during the camp's active days. Just reading the titles of the different buildings was terrifying. They identified the buildings used for scientific experimentation on prisoners, buildings used for summarily executing prisoners, buildings used for death by suffocation, starvation, gas chambers, crematorium.

We continued on cautiously, as if we were afraid of what we would see here. That's when we came across the the railroad tracks, and the unforgettable sign, 'Arbeit macht frei' (work brings freedom), which stares hauntingly down at you. It was scary to think of how many people had stood on the same ground, terrified out of their minds, as their parents, siblings and friends were torn away from them. Some sent straight to the gas chambers, and others stripped of all belongings and given a new identity as a prisoner of Auschwitz.
Most of the people that were brough here, were told that they were being resettled in another community. Some were even sold non-existant plots of land, farms or shops, or offered work in fictitious factories. This meant that everyone brought their most precious and valuable belongings with them. However, once they arrived, the elderly, the infants, the weak and the sick, were taken to the gas chambers, stripped of their clothes and told that they were going to be showered. Instead of water coming from the ceiling, it was the deadly gas, Cyclon B, which killed them all. Something that is so terrible about this method of dying, is that people did not die instantly. It took 15-20 minutes for them to be poisoned to death. The 'lucky' ones, who were not killed, were taken for hard labour, which usually ended up killing them within a few months, from exhaustion or starvation.
We passed under the sign, and across the tracks, and toward one of the buildings that was used for housing the prisoners. The buildings all looked the same as they in the black and white pictures, but trees have since been planted along the roads between the buildings, to soften the harshness of the camp. In 1942, there were 28 two storey buildings, excluding kitchens and storehouses etc. At one point, there were 20,000 prisoners housed in these blocks. Dormitories which were barely adequate for 40-50 people, were used to house 200 prisoners.
The first building we entered showed us a display of who was sent to the camp, and why. There were statistics on how many people from different countries, religions and people groups were sent here. Artur was surprised at how many people there were from all around Europe. The jews from as far as Greece, the Netherlands, Norway etc were sent to Auschwitz. How powerful is a regime, to control countries so far from its reach?

Loren was shocked to read the quote by Heinrich Himmler, "All Poles will disappear from the world", and the one by Hitler, "my Death's Head formations, with orders to kill without pity or mercy all men, women and children of Polish descent or language. Only in this way can we obtain the living space we need." Whenever she had been taught about the war, it had never been in relation to Polish people as a race being targets of the Nazis, they mostly just taught about the Jews. It was never just Polish people, it was always Polish jews. This helped her understand why there is still a lot of hatred of Germans in Poland, because they were targeted as an inferior race to be exterminated. She also learnt that that Hitler targeted the entire Slavic race in the same way as they targeted the Polish people, and that other targets for extermination were homosexual men, handicapped people, gypsies, freemasons and jehovah's witnesses. The Jews were the main target of the Nazis, but only because it would take too much work to pursue the rest of the targets with the same ferocity. But the hatred and determination to exterminate the people listed above, was just as passionate.

Spectacles taken from dead prisoners, later burnt in an attempt to hide evidence of their crimes.

The most shocking of the the things we saw there ourselves, was the unfathomable amount of things that had been confiscated from the prisoners. The belongings of both the dead and the living were sorted through, and packed into warehouses. Some of the things were sent to Germany where they could be re-used. Soldiers even took clothes from infants for their own children back home.

Material made from human hair, and some locks of hair.

We came across rooms with glass cases in them, more than 20m long, and 4m wide, which were filled with piles of human hair, some of it braided and chopped off like a pony-tail, the rest just shaved off. This hair was shaved off the women after they were gassed, and sent to factories, where they wove it into material for rugs, lamp covers etc. There was even some of that material there on display. It was a huge length, rolled onto a giant spool.

Small section of room containing mountains of human hair.

There were even larger quantities of shoes, clothes and suitcases. All in separate rooms, as one room couldn't contain more than one type of clothing item. It was devastating to look at the piles and piles of shoes and imagine, just how many people were really killed here. So much was already burned just before the liberation, to cover their tracks. The things we saw here, were the only things that survived. But the sheer quantity of them was enough to make you want to weep.

Shoes taken from prisoners.

Other rooms were filled with toothbrushes, hairbrushes, shoebrushes, all waiting to be sent to new owners. There was a huge pile of twisted and melted spectacles, that the Nazis had also tried to dispose of before they were captured. There was even a room full of prosthetic limbs, crutches etc. The enormous quantity also made you wonder how many people you have to go through, before you come across that many prosthetic limbs.

Kalis
We had to cut our visit short, as the camp was closing for the day, but we knew that we would return the next day. We drove on towards Kalis, following our GPS, and taking its unusual route through some very country looking back roads.
We got there eventually, and were greet by Lila and Staszek, Artur's Uncle and Aunt. Loren was thrilled to discover that they had a huge black Newfoundland Dog, called 'Boni', Loren played with him for a while, then we sat down to a delicious Hungarian feast. Lila and Staszek, had just come back frrom visiting Hungary, so she was eager to try out some of the cooking practices in her own kitchen. Some of the things were quite spicy, but we absolutely loved them. We even got to try some fruity hungarian wine.

The next morning, we were back out on the road again, heading to Auschwitz. We also planned to see Wieliczka, the famous salt mine, as it was also not far away. Unfortunately, we took a wrong turn, so we decided to go to Wieliczka first, as we were now heading that direction, and the freeway didn't have an exit any time soon.

Wieliczka
We arrived at Wieliczka just as a tour was starting in Polish. the English one was starting an hour later and was more expensive, so we decided to go on the Polish one. It may have been worth going on the other one though, as Loren didn't catch much of the commentary, and Artur's translations were few and far between. It was a big tour group, so it was for Artur to hear the guide, and the guide went into a lot of detail.

First of all, our group made their way down the never-ending flights of stairs to the enormous mines below. Apparently there are more than 400km of carved out corridors within the mines.

There have been many famous visitors to this salt mine, including the Pope, Copernicus, Sobieski, the latter two who have statues carved of them and displayed in the mine. Many other corridors had statues of famous people, and models of the way that the salt was mined.
The mine was started in the 1300s, and has been expanding and developing ever since. In the 1990s, there was a huge flood which threatened the area. the threat to the salt mine was even bigger, as the fresh water could melt the entire structure of the mine, whose walls were made of solid salt rock. Luckily they managed to pump a lot of water out of the mine, and stop it from eroding the structure. Today, they have reinforced the enormous caverns and rooms with wood boulders.
The biggest attraction of the mine was the massive chapel which had been carved in the middle of the mines. The height of the room itself is amazing, as you enter the room from the back, and then descend the huge staircases to get to the floor level. Stretching up above you are spectacular ceilings, with enormous chandeliers made of salt crystals.
The chapel walls had been spectacularly and lovingly decorated with carved statues of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and other saints. There are even three dimensional pictures sculpted into the walls, some of which go back 20cm into wall at the deepest parts. One of the famous carvings was the scene of the last supper. The most incredible thing about this place, is that all of the artwork and craftmanship was done by miners, not by artists. Ordinary men achieved such artistic splendour, out of their arduous devotion to their task.
By the end of our tour, Loren was beginning to get a bit tired of the tour, as she didn't understand much, and there were so many long walks between sights of interest. The guide who she couldn't understand seemed to be particularly long-winded, as the English tour group which started an hour later than us, was constantly on our tail.

The amazing structurers inside the mines were well worth seeing, and the cool air inside the mines was a relief from the scalding heat, but it was still a relief to come up to the surface again. It took so long to find the way out of the mine, and the line for the elevator looked so long. Loren was getting very frustrated, maybe some of the anxiousness was also a mild case of claustrophobia.

Auschwitz Day 2
After escaping the mines, we headed off to see Auschwitz again. This time, we entered a little less apprehensively than the first time, as we knew what to expect. We watched the movie that Artur had been waiting to see, and it gave us a great overview of the camp, and what went on there. Thankfully, the movie was not graphic, but the sight of the deathly skinny people after the liberation was sobering. We saw people who had been experimented on by Dr Mengele, and were still suffering diseases or were permanently damaged as a result.
In some of the rooms that we saw later, we saw pictures of some of the survivors, and then given their weights. One woman was 75kg when she arrived, and 25kg when she left. They really looked like living skeletons. One of the men in the movie was showing the doctors his leg. A toxic substance had been rubbed into his skin, just so that they could what it would do to him. Other people had similar things done to them, including painful skin transplants.
We also heard more about Dr Mengele and Dr Clauberg and their experiments. Dr Clauberg was involved in sterilisation experiments on Jewish women, in order to develop an efficient method for biological extermination of the nations, mainly Slavs. Dr Mengele requested that any twins or handicapped people be preserved from the gas chambers and sent to him. These children and adults were used experimentally as well, as part of a programme of genetic and anthropological research. The children that were put in his labs, were some of the few that survived the camps, as they were given enough food to keep them alive. However hundreds of men, women and children died during these experiments, and those that survived suffered serious damage to their health, if not permanent disabilities.

One of the last blocks that we visited was called the 'Death Block'. Prisoners accused of conspiring with other prisoners, attempting to escape, captured officials and important prisoners of war, were brought here for trial. They were given a brief hearing in front of the officers, and then if found guilty, were told to undress in the little bathroom that linked to the courtyard. Once in the courtyard, they were executed by firing squad against the wall.
This courtyard was also used for administering punishments in the form of flogging or hanging prisoners to a special stake by their arms, which were bent behind their backs. Punishments could be handed out for literally anything. A prisoner could be punished for picking apples, for relieving himself during work hours, for extracting his own tooth and bartering it for bread, or for working too slowly. Prisoners were also punished with confinement in cells, extra work, physical exercises or prolonged standing.
In the basement below, many of these prisoners, and others that had gotten into trouble were kept in cells in the basement. Some people here had been sentenced to death by starvation, and they were left in their cells to die. Other cells were dark rooms that were completely sealed. People often died of suffocation in these rooms. Other cells were used as 'standing cells'. These cells measured 90 x 90 cm, and were used for 4 prisoners at a time.
Each country that had their citizens taken to Auschwitz, has a cell block where they can display information on who was taken, and how and why it happened. The blocks serve as a kind of memorial that people can visit, and remember their country's history. We wandered through the streets of the camp, and saw the gallows where people were hung in front of the crowds of prisoners. They used to gather the prisoners for roll call as a way of controlling and weakening them. They were required in any and every weather situation to stand their and have their numbers checked off. These roll calls could go on for hours, even up to 11 hours. The guards had shelters built for them to sit in, sheltered from the wind, sun, snow or rain, while people dropped dead in line from the conditions.
We also saw the crematorium and gas chambers at the very end. There were several furnaces and a huge chimney that rose above the building. These furnaces could burn approximately 350 bodies daily. 2-3 corpses were placed in each furnace at a time. When the furnaces were overloaded, they would pile the bodies in huge piles, and burn them outside. According to the memoir by Elie Wiesel, 'Night', they were even burning bodies in the drainage pits around the camp.



Next door in the same building, there was the gas chamber, which still had the sprinklers attached to the ceiling.


Birkenau We left Auschwitz and headed a few kilometres down the road to Birkenau. This camp is sometimes referred to as Auschwitz Two, perhaps because of its close location, or perhaps because of the similar incomprehensible atrocities that took place there.
The thing that struck us immediately as we approached Birkenau, was the sheer size of the place. The property stretched well beyond what the eye could see. The land itself was originally farmland, and so the location is made of fields of grass. There are hundreds of identical buildings in straight lines, used for housing the prisoners.

Standing in the midst of it, you felt tiny, lost and insignificant. So many people were killed there, but so many still were kept alive, to work themselves to death and live there among thousands of others like themselves. The size of the camp is particularly significant when you realise that 70-75% of the people that arrived at the camp were gassed immediately. So the camp only housed 25% of the people who came through those gates, and the size of the camp is absolutely enormous. In 1944, the total number of prisoners reached approximately 100,000.
As you pass through the gates of Birkenau, you enter on the same train tracks as the prisoners did. These tracks lead from the entrance gate all the way through the camp to the crematorium and gas chambers, which lie at the very back. Above us stood a watch tower, which looked out over the camp, and for kilometres and kilometres you can see the barbed wire fence which stretches out around the camp.decided to first climb the tower, to get a better understanding of just how big this place really was. It was even more shocking than we imagined. Even from above, the land stretched so far you could barely see the edges. Artur thinks the size was probably 8km by 4km.
We walked to the right of the gate first, and went to see the wooden buildings that were still standing there. These buildings were originally stables. The first building we looked at was a big empty looking hall with rows of troughs with planks on top, and holes cut into the planks. These were the toilets at the camp.
The other wooden buldings there were used as sleeping quarters for the prisoners, There was nothing left inside these buildings, but we saw reconstructions of them in some of the buildings in Auschwitz, and some living examples in the brick buildings here at Birkenau. There were originally wide bunks, three levels high, and 8 people were expected to sleep on each level. The only cushioning on the beds was rotting straw. These buildings once accomodated 52 horses, but once modified for the camp, they were used to accomodate up to 1000 prisoners.

We decided to walk along the railway tracks after that, and head all the way to the back of the camp. It was a long walk along the train tracks, and on either side, we could see the ditches that the prisoners had been forced to dig for drainage. If the size of the camp wasn't shocking enough, the railway platform's expanse was incredible. We saw footage of this platform filled to the brim with people and their luggage, but seeing the size of the platform in real life, and seeing how enormous it is, just emphasizes how many people they brought there on every single train.

The cattle-car trains were so filled with people, that some people even died in transit from being crushed. It's not hard to imagine the confusion that would have gone on there on that platform, as people were being sorted into the living dead and the dead.

We walked to the end of the railway tracks, and found a memorial to the 1.5 million people who were killed there. There was a plaque in the language of everyone that died there, saying, 'For ever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity, where the Nazis murdered about one and a half million men, women and children, mainly Jews from various countries of Europe.'
Either side of the memorial, a little walk away, were the remains of the gas chambers and crematorium. The buildings were blown up by the SS men, as they retreated, to hide their crimes. Today the buildings are just piles of collapsed brick walls and cement. A diagram of the buildings before they were destroyed, showed that these crematoriums even had sections for melting the gold extracted from teeth, and an incinerator for burning their personal documents. We then walked back through sections of undamaged brick buildings. These buildings were also used for housing the prisoners. Amongst these buildings, are the ones where Dr Mengele kept the twins he was experimenting on, and the women he was using for sterilisation experiments.

Back to Kalis We drove back to Kalis, after a long and emotional day of sightseeing. We were welcomed by Lila and Staszek, and this time by their son Gniewko, who Artur hadn't seen for the last 15 years! We had a great time catching up over dinner, and it was really easy to communicate, as Gniewko speaks fluent English and French. We talked about our travels and about Gniewko's studies. He's currently finishing a PHD in Biotechnology, and is already working for an up-and-coming company, in developing pharamceuticals. He also works at his Lila's pharmacy, which she owns and runs. We were also fascinated to hear about two bands that he is in. He and his brother Psamek, are very into heavy metal music, and both are involved in their own bands. Gniewko has one main band, and another one that he is in for the fun of it.
After dinner, we sat down and watched the Russia vs Portugal match, while sampling several different Polish beers. When the game was over, we played a game of pool in their basement, which is huge like the rest of house! Artur and Gniewko played one game, and technically, they both lost. Gniewko sunk the black near the beginning of the game, so they decided to keep playing, then Artur sank the black and the white went in after it. Unfortunate ending!

Lila's Pharmacy
The next day, we went to visit Lila's pharmacy and her old house which it is attached to. The pharmacy was cool, and is in the old Polish style. Unlike the pharmacies in Australia, everything is behind glass on the counter, even things you don't need a prescription for, like vitamins. We even got the see the little lab, where they mix up some medicines, there were even locked up poisons too! Then we went up through several floors, where they keep the offices, files, storage, and a room where someone sleeps every night, in case of an emergency call.
Then we went to see the house, where Lila's mother, Clocia, lives. She is 86 years old but Artur doesn't think she has changed much since last time. The last time he was here, Lila lived in that house, so this is where he visited them 15 years ago. Clocia was lovely! She seemed quite fragile, but she was so lively! As we had just visited the concentration camps the day before, Artur asked her about her husband, Zygmunt, who survived the Zackenhausen concentraton camp. While Zygmunt was alive, it was a taboo topic, but to our surprise, Clocia spoke very openly about it. She told us that he was lucky to get out alive, as he was so close to throwing himself on the electric fence while he was in there. He was so desperate and desolate, but the night before he was going to do it, he had a dream of his family, and he believed that meant they were still alive, so he didn't take his own life. She showed us pictures of him after the war in England, as a lot of the survivors were taken away for recovery. They met after the war, and thats when they married.