“The one who does not remember history is bound to live through it again” George Santayana
Does anyone else have a morbid fascination with World War II and the Holocaust, or is it just me?
Maybe I was exposed to Schindler’s List at too early an age. Maybe I was dragged to the Holocaust museum in DC on one too many field trips. Maybe it’s my Polish heritage and the fact that I grew up next door neighbors with one of the original Band of Brothers, Patty O’Keefe. Who knows? But for whatever reason, I developed a strong interest in WWII, and WWI for that matter.
This tumultuous period of European history has encouraged and inspired some of my more off the beaten track trips in Europe, like to bunkers in Belgium to Nazi secret police headquarters in Hungary. Owing to my odd obsession with history, one of my favorite things to do why traveling is to visit historic places, especially ones I have researched and read about.
And the one place that has been the notorious epicenter for the Holocaust and disturbingly at the top of WWII haunts I’ve wanted to visit: Auschwitz, the infamous concentration camp in Poland.
I finally journeyed out to Krakow, land of my ancestors, and to Auschwitz during Easter week in 2008.
It was a gray, overcast day with intermittent snow flurries when I arrived at the camp in Oświęcim, Poland. The ground was soggy and the mud squished around my sneakers as I walked from barrack to barrack. I can still remember thinking that it was April, how on earth did anyone survive that hellhole in the dead of winter wearing those terrible striped pajamas? Most didn’t.
Without a doubt Auschwitz is the saddest, most depressing place I have ever been. The whole place smells like death. It’s truly horrible. Trodding amongst the ruins of the gas chamber and crematorium, I felt a deep disgust with humanity. How could something like this happen?
It is one thing to read about the Holocaust and see it in films, but to walk around the grounds of a place like Auschwitz, is a whole other matter entirely. To see a room filled with shoes of prisoners, then another room filled with suitcases, one filled with hairbrushes, another with eye glasses, and finally a room filled with hair, I mean, how do you even begin to digest that?
You can’t help but leave a place like Auschwitz in tears.
I hardly took any pictures that day, and I was angry at all the tourists that did. I just felt…wrong.
I took this shot as we entered the camp, following the footsteps of millions unlucky souls before me, I passed underneath the poignant wrought-iron sign Arbeit Macht Frei, “Work will set you free.” This photo is of the original sign. It was eventually stolen and replaced with a replica in 2009.
Why would I visit somewhere like this on vacation? Why write about something so deeply and utterly sad? Because we have to remember. Things like this need to be faced and not forgotten. Auschwitz was a good reality check, and I reminder of not only how precious life should be, but of my own fleeting humanity.
Ok, I have waxed poetic enough for the day. I’ll end on a lighter note, here are my six favorite, epic World War II films.
2. Casablanca
5. The Pianist
Have you ever been to Auschwitz or another concentration camp? Would you go had you the opportunity? Are you interested in historical travels? What’s your favorite WWII movie?
About the author
Congratulations, Liz for yours posts !
I remember, many years ago under the Soviet occupation,
visiting Tallinn in Estonia, on one of the old walls of the Toompea Castle,
somebody made a graffiti in English –
“The only way is Love” !
Hi Liz,
I found your blog while researching Iceland, and stumbled upon this post.
It’s quite the coincidence, you know! I just realized that I’ve been there around the same time, late April 2008. I visited Auschwitz with my school, when I was 16. We went on March of the Living, which is an international program consisting of a 1 week visit to Poland’s many WWII landmarks, ending with a very emotional march, together with all delegations from every corner of the world, from Auschwitz to Birkenau.
We prepared for about a year before traveling there. We took history lessons as well as had meetings with survivors; we read stories from the time, we watched movies… We debated, we asked questions, tried to find answers… and for some reason I thought I was well prepared to see Auschwitz. Boy, was I wrong.
No one is never prepared to see Auschwitz or walk Auschwitz. Nor will anyone ever be.
As I walked inside and smelled that which you describe as the smell of death (if I close my eyes I can still feel it), everything I had learnt in the past made no sense anymore. Because the truth is that nothing makes sense inside that horrible place. My mind went blank in horror. I just stood there in silence and disbelief.
Needless to say, it was a very emotional trip. It made me think not only about the times of the war (my great grandparents fled Poland as the war was starting) but it actually made me think about my life today, about what it would feel like if something like that ever happened to me or anyone I love. I started to look back on everyone I knew, everything I had lived so far…
But what really touched me was the fact that I was for the first time, in my head, giving a face, a name, a life, to each person who died in there, or anywhere during the war (or any war) for that matter. We hear numbers and statistics all the time, but never really stop and think about the people behind those numbers. When in Auschwitz, deaths stopped feeling like a number. When I saw those pieces of luggage, I didn’t just see bags and suitcases. I saw names. I saw hands carrying those belongings. I saw people dreaming of a better life.
When I saw those gigantic piles of hair I didn’t just see hair. I saw identities being stolen… I saw women combing their hair, preparing for some important dinner, for flirting with some handsome man, teaching their kids how to do their hair… and then saw death.
But being in Poland was not only about death. We also got to see what life was like before the war. See how people lived, what they ate, what they enjoyed, what made their lives worthwhile. And to think most of those towns don’t even exist anymore…
And you’re right. The only way to stop this from happening again is remembering. Remembering and teaching the next generations! reading, asking, visiting, exploring.
Hope all is well!
M
You are absolutely right in this post. People often do not realize how great tragedy was the Second World War. I think you should ever visit the Museum at Majdanek.
Hi, I enjoyed reading your blog 🙂 just found this post about Auschwitz… and felt like it was me writing this, because I felt the same. You should watch the “Life is Beautiful” if you haven’t yet, one of my favorite movies about WWII.