Auschwitz
It was strange how suddenly we came upon Auschwitz. I was expecting it to be in the middle of nowhere, but there were residential houses and shops and more on the borders of the compound. not so much around birkenau, but around the smaller site.
they didn't do much to the interior of the buildings, even after they converted them to museums. They're still quite bare and sterile. I'm sure it was anything but sterile when in was in use though.
It was really sad. they had some kind of plaque over the gate that meant something about working making you stronger/liberated or something like that. but in reality the soldiers were making them work hard hours to kill them. It was cold there as well, because it's winter, and it was snowing too. I guess it really drove home how hard it would have been for those people. They weren't given anything warm when they were sent to work. All they had was those striped pyjamas and thin shoes.
they told us about how they gassed the prisoners as well. no, first they told us about the train rides. Jews were stuffed into cattle cars and sent to Auschwitz by rail. There were no toilets and little ventilation on the cattle cars either. There was no food or water given to them, so many people just died on the train ride, especially the ones coming from thousands of kilometres away. That would be people coming from greece I guess. I mean that would've have sucked for any survivors too. being stuck in a tightly packed train next to a corpse. they said that sometimes the people weren't let out for 2 weeks. good god that was terrible.
and after that ordeal, when they arrived in Auschwitz, they were told that they would be allowed to take a shower and freshen up. The soldiers were even nice to them and reassured them by saying things like 'remember where you left your bag, so you can get it later.' then they would show them to the gas chamber, where they fitted fake shower fittings some times. Then the soldiers would suddenly turn brutal and start shoving more and more people in which is when they'd realise something is wrong because there were so many people that you couldn't actually take a shower and by then it was too late because the soldiers closed some solid doors on them before dropping cyclone b in through the chimneys. it causes you to slowly asphyxiate internally. apparently it was a painful death that could take up to 20 minutes. if you were lucky enough to be near the chimney you'd die in a few seconds.
and after they were dead, the soldiers would take the bodies and shave their hair off, and take any jewelry they had on them like gold teeth before burning them. They used their hair to make fabrics. I saw a room full of dead people's hair. It was really REALLY creepy. It made me gag. piles and piles. they used the crutches and fake limbs of the handicapped people and sent them back to germany or somewhere for injured nazi soldiers to use.
they also burned it. a lot of it. but they killed so many people that they couldn't classify all the goods and couldn't burn it in time before the russians came. They burned most of the people though, because they knew that this industrial mass killing was a serious war crime and they didn't want there to be any evidence of it. thus burning the bodies and throwing the ashes in the river, same with suitcases and identification documents.
I learned today that roman polanski was alive during the war. we were told that his mother died in Auschwitz, but he was spared because while preparing to depart for a concentration camp, his father gave him some money and pushed him through a hole in the ghetto wall. He survived the war by changing his name and in the care of some awesome roman catholic polish family.
they didn't do much to the interior of the buildings, even after they converted them to museums. They're still quite bare and sterile. I'm sure it was anything but sterile when in was in use though.
It was really sad. they had some kind of plaque over the gate that meant something about working making you stronger/liberated or something like that. but in reality the soldiers were making them work hard hours to kill them. It was cold there as well, because it's winter, and it was snowing too. I guess it really drove home how hard it would have been for those people. They weren't given anything warm when they were sent to work. All they had was those striped pyjamas and thin shoes.
they told us about how they gassed the prisoners as well. no, first they told us about the train rides. Jews were stuffed into cattle cars and sent to Auschwitz by rail. There were no toilets and little ventilation on the cattle cars either. There was no food or water given to them, so many people just died on the train ride, especially the ones coming from thousands of kilometres away. That would be people coming from greece I guess. I mean that would've have sucked for any survivors too. being stuck in a tightly packed train next to a corpse. they said that sometimes the people weren't let out for 2 weeks. good god that was terrible.
and after that ordeal, when they arrived in Auschwitz, they were told that they would be allowed to take a shower and freshen up. The soldiers were even nice to them and reassured them by saying things like 'remember where you left your bag, so you can get it later.' then they would show them to the gas chamber, where they fitted fake shower fittings some times. Then the soldiers would suddenly turn brutal and start shoving more and more people in which is when they'd realise something is wrong because there were so many people that you couldn't actually take a shower and by then it was too late because the soldiers closed some solid doors on them before dropping cyclone b in through the chimneys. it causes you to slowly asphyxiate internally. apparently it was a painful death that could take up to 20 minutes. if you were lucky enough to be near the chimney you'd die in a few seconds.
and after they were dead, the soldiers would take the bodies and shave their hair off, and take any jewelry they had on them like gold teeth before burning them. They used their hair to make fabrics. I saw a room full of dead people's hair. It was really REALLY creepy. It made me gag. piles and piles. they used the crutches and fake limbs of the handicapped people and sent them back to germany or somewhere for injured nazi soldiers to use.
they also burned it. a lot of it. but they killed so many people that they couldn't classify all the goods and couldn't burn it in time before the russians came. They burned most of the people though, because they knew that this industrial mass killing was a serious war crime and they didn't want there to be any evidence of it. thus burning the bodies and throwing the ashes in the river, same with suitcases and identification documents.
I learned today that roman polanski was alive during the war. we were told that his mother died in Auschwitz, but he was spared because while preparing to depart for a concentration camp, his father gave him some money and pushed him through a hole in the ghetto wall. He survived the war by changing his name and in the care of some awesome roman catholic polish family.
posted by Napoleon at
2:35 am
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