I hope these thoughts will help others who plan to visit Auschwitz:

1) There is no one Auschwitz. There is Auschwitz 1 and Auschwitz 2. Make sure you give yourselves enough time to visit each. By the time we finished with Auschwitz 1, we were already worn out.

2) Go with a tour guide. We thought we were joining a group with a guide, but that turned out not to be the case. A knowledgeable guide can help maximize your time there. Also, be in a group where you can process what you are seeing among people.

3) Auschwitz 1 is the concentration camp with the sign that reads “Arbeit Mach Frei”. It was not the death camp, but rather a prisoner camp whose conditions, to be sure, were horrendous.

4) Auschwitz 1 is a series of barracks or blocks that housed prisoners. Its layout was confusing to its inmates, and it’s still confusing to visitors.  It’s not clear which direction you are supposed to go. So we ended up wandering around and getting frustrated by the enormity of it.

5) Auschwitz 1 is now a museum. Some (most?) of the barracks have been turned into individual exhibits.  However, most of the events that are depicted in the exhibits happened in Auschwitz II, which is also called Birkenau.

6) Some of the exhibits are organized by country, but it is not clear from the outside which is which. This makes for a disjointed presentation. In the confusion, we missed some of the most important exhibits, including the Yad V’shem exhibit in Block 29.  The guide book we purchased at the entrance was awful and didn’t even mention this.

7) Four of the barracks contain the belonging of people who were sent there.  The most moving of these rooms are the collection of bags, hair, even tallises that the Nazis (may their memory be blotted out) stole. They are held behind glass which is not doing a good job of preserving its contents. Of course, the sights are heart rendering.

suitcases

 

jars and mugs

 

tallises

 

shoe polish

And this one, just beyond belief, crutches and prosthetic limbs:

 

8) There is an intact gas chamber you can go into. It is frightening. I recited kaddish there.

9) The so-called Auschwitz museum is awful and reflects its communist origins. Clinical descriptions, little historical information, old fashioned technology. One totalitarian regime describing the actions of another totalitarian regime. The guide book is completely inadequate in describing how to navigate through the camp. It is time for all who care about Holocaust memory to upgrade the experience and information for visitors. If Poland is to be a western country, the museum must be brought up to western standards.

10) When you finished visiting Auschwitz 1, there is a shuttle bus to take you to Auschwitz 2. It is very poorly signed. We had to ask someone, who said “wait next to the snack shop.”

11) However sick and broken you feel after visiting Auschwitz 1, nothing prepares you for the enormity of Auschwitz 2, also known as Birkenau. This is where almost all of the killing was done.

the end of the rail line

12) Unlike Auschwitz 1, which is fairly intact, Birkenau is a vast area that contains only the traces of the barracks that housed hundreds of thousands of people who were not immediately killed.

 

 

The gas chambers and crematoria were destroyed by the Nazis. (One actually was destroyed by the inmates in a revolt in late 1944.)

 

 

13) Again, the signage is completely inadequate and you end up wandering.

14) Because of the destruction, you have to try to imagine the horrors, not really possible to do. You see the railroad tracks that brought the people in. You see the platform where the people were selected for life or immediate death and the pathways toward to various gas chambers. There is a famous photograph of a mother leading her small children that helps bring the reality home.

 

15) It is not humanly possible to really grasp the implications of what you are seeing. The mind simply cannot comprehend. I walked around more sick to my stomach, cursing the Nazis and saying “Never Again,” than in tears. What you see is beyond tears. At the site of one of the destroyed crematoria I again recited kaddish, keeping in mind my relatives, the Jews of Zambrow, and everyone else killed there.

17) On the way out, I walked slowly on the grass between the barbed wire fence and the railroad tracks.

I spotted something in grass, and it turned out to be a 200 zloty bill (worth about $50). If I don’t believe in coincidences, it must mean something. I may be the only person ever to leave Auschwitz a wealthier person than when he or she came in.

18) As you leave, there is a collection box that asks for money to “help us.” Talk about wrong time, wrong place. Chutzpah.

19) Don’t make Auschwitz your final stop. The next day we went into a beautiful museum in the Old Synagogue in Krakow. It had a video that depicts the richness and variety of Jewish life in the city on the eve of the war. There were beautiful works of art. Incredible havdalah spice boxes.

Seeing these boxes is when I cried. Only when your focus returns to the people killed do you realize what Auschwitz really means.

 

Seeing these boxes is when I cried. Only when your focus returns to the people killed do you realize what Auschwitz really means.