Overland with Kids

“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. Auschwitz-Birkenau 1940-1945.”

(Written on plaques inscribed in many languages between the ruins of crematoria at Birkenau at the International Monument to the victims of Auschwitz, unveiled April 1967.)

Our visit, first, to Birkenau - the largest of all of the Nazi camps of mass extermination - and then onto Auschwitz (only 3km distance apart from each other) were very worthwhile and humbling experiences. Birkenau especially is a very bleak and depressing place - the reality of the atrocities that occurred there are very plain to see - the railway and unloading platform, the main watch tower of the SS where views of the whole prison complex can be seen, the wooden huts, the austere single wooden train carriage on display on the train tracks (a sealed goods wagon where no food was provided and travel could last 7-10 days - many victims dying and 75% of those left, summarily gassed on arrival at camp), the swampy ground, bad sanitation, the brick houses without foundations and the remains of two crematoria and gas chambers (blown up by the retreating SS to conceal their crimes).

Birkenau gives vision to the imagination - the horror, it’s criminal activities and how the millions of people who passed through it’s doors suffered terribly. Jessica commented that although we’d read and learned about what had happened through our trip, she didn’t really know just how huge and serious the damage to human life actually was until seeing it for herself (reading, learning, discussing and writing about via Anne’s Frank biography in the main was one thing - but seeing the mass scale of extermination and the reality of it - quite another). We visited Auschwitz afterwards and were glad we did it in this order as Birkenau was more appropriate to the children’s ages.

The location of Auschwitz was purposely chosen by the Nazis as ‘goings on’ could be hidden from view - unless you were told where it is located - you wouldn’t know where it was or suspect it was a death camp. Approximately 40 hectares around the camp was cleared upon Nazi occupation - the camp originally set-up as an instruement of terror and extermination of Poles before quickly extending mainly to Jews but also Soviet prisoners of war, the affluent and educated whom Hitler didn’t like and gypsies from all over Europe.

At Auschwitz, we were able to watch a short film describing exactly what had happened and although already included and recorded as part of the presentation, we decided against actually showing the children the rooms containing the tons of human hair, teeth, clothing, shoes and other personal effects of the victims contained in the huts on site (Birkenau does not hold such personal effects). We did show Jessica and AJ the re-constructed furnaces at Auschwitz which could burn approx 350 bodies daily and where in each, 2-3 corpses were placed at a time - this was enough for the day and an appropriate end to our day.

We thought long and hard about bringing Jessica and AJ due to their ages, to either of the camps which are now museums and provided both a great deal of preparation and choice in the decision-making about whether to go or not, beforehand. For all of us, the visit was like having come full circle as we had begun our travels in the Netherlands with an introduction to Anne Frank’s house, her family and her life, then gradually working our way through several countries relating to and learning topics about oppression especially about the Jews around the time of World War II. We felt very honoured to have the opportunity to visit Auschwitz -Birkenau - a fitting end to the completion of our trip through Europe.

 

Diary (Blog)