PseudoGenius: Arbeit Macht Frei

The red brick buildings of Auschwitz look severe and somehow iconic. I don't think i ever knew quite how the looked from history books, and it doesn't actually matter that they are mostly indistinguishable from other red brick building. These are the barracks of Auschwitz, though, so they are somehow more forbidding than other red brick buildings in the same style.

The once-electrified barbed wire around the entire place, at least, sets it apart. The only souvenirs for sale are books and post cards. I can't imagine sending anyone of Shoah/Holocaust postcard, and i resolved not to buy any books because I can't imagine carrying them home.

Our guide was quiet. I honestly think that tours are like college courses. If you get a bad leader, the entire experience will be less than what it should be. She was hard to hear, and she didn't give half the information that other tour guides were giving. So honestly, the experience was not as powerful as it could have been.

And i feel terrible saying that. But it's the truth. i might go back and hope for a different guide.

But here:

The floors and stairs were crumbling and warped from the millions upon millions of people using them for 70 years. The buildings in Auschwitz smelled old. like cement and dust. They felt ominous. always. There were rooms where the entire length of the building was reduced to a hallway because behind the glass there were mounds of different artifacts.

Cookery.
Glasses.
Adult shoes.
Children's shoes.
Hair.

The hardest was a small display cabinet of little baby dolls, and clothing that belonged to infants.

We saw the basement of a building, with rooms that must've been a square yard, and four men were to stand in that room at the same time. And left there. As a punishment.

There were bigger rooms for prisoners who were given extra privileges for turning on the others and sadistically, gleefully beating others. Those who'd gone depraved by being there so long. We saw the crematorium and gas chambers, and if you look to the left over a small fence you could see the villa of Rudolf Höß within 1000 feet.

In Birkenau, the barracks have all been demolished, except for a few that were rebuilt on new foundations. They barracks were build directly onto the ground, which i cannot imagine how that would have been in the winter and when the weather was wet. At the end of the long trail (off to both sides you see a forest of red brick chimneys that had been rebuilt so you could still see the scale of the place), there is a sculpture in memorial at the end. I can't tell you what it was supposed to be. I didn't get a chance to properly look at it long enough and when i took a picture, my phone died. It's been doing that at half-battery, and i don't know if i'll be able to get another one.

Ruins of the gas chambers and crematorium were left, and they still smell like smoke, if you stand close enough.

or if you catch the right breeze.

one of the barracks that was left, when you walk in, feels cold and smells moist. on a 70 degree day.

the bunks are left up, and the conditions of even the "new" foundation were frightening. let alone realizing how people people had to sleep per bunk. and realizing that the plumbing was in a different part of the camp. and that it showed up 2 years after the camp was open. and that even then it wasn't anywhere near enough to accommodate the amount of people there.

kid's shoes

"man to man"

technically i wasn't supposed to take this picture? this was one of the small rooms where four men would have to stand. they had to crawl in, the door is on the floor.