Our UNESCO project – Auschwitz Birkenau – Part 1
I was a bit surprised when I discovered that the remnants of the most infamous of concentration camps had made it to the World Heritage List. I found this information on the website of UNESCO:
At the centre of a huge landscape of human exploitation and suffering, the remains of the two camps of Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau, as well as its Protective Zone were placed on the World Heritage List as evidence of this inhumane, cruel and methodical effort to deny human dignity to groups considered inferior, leading to their systematic murder.
The brother of my maternal grandmother stayed here for some time. He was the perfect example of being at the wrong place at the wrong time; as a prisoner of war, he first arrived at Bergen Belsen and if that wasn’t enough, he ended up in Auschwitz. We don’t know exactly about the how and the why, since he never talked about his experiences in both camps. All that we know is that when the camp in Auschwitz was liberated, he was lying on a huge pile of dead bodies. When a nurse saw that he was still breathing, he was saved.
Auschwitz Birkenau was the biggest concentration camp that the Germans built. It’s located about 50 kilometers to the west of Cracow and existed of Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II – Birkenau and Auschwitz III – Monowitz and another 45 satellite camps. When The Viking and I arrived on a beautiful summer morning in Auschwitz I, we were told that we had to join one of the many groups; you can only visit the camp as an individual visitor before 10 am and after 3 pm. At least that’s how it is in the touristic season.
Since we don’t like crowds, we thought it was better to go to Birkenau first. It’s only a couple of kilometers away from Auschwitz and already there, you get an impression of how methodical the Germans were in exterminating the Jews and all the other unlucky persons who stayed there. The barracks, the barbed wire and the crematoria make you feel powerless and stupefied by all this cruelty.
I think the pictures tell the whole story…
14 Comments on “Our UNESCO project – Auschwitz Birkenau – Part 1”
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Ingrid is a Worldette!
Very humbling.
Dit is erg pijnlijk onze famile heeft een paar familie leden die de dood kampen in de tweede wereld oorlog niet hebben overleefd en alhoewel ik in 1961 geboren ben draag ik ook de wonden van wat er tijdens de tweede wereld oorlog is gebeurd, het is geweldig dat jij hier aandacht aan besteed zodat mensen het niet vergeten en hopelijk leren zij hiervan, dank je wel
My parents took me on a tour of Dachau when I was young. I have never forgotten it. Horrifying.
Excellent post Ingrid. Sometimes we have to see and hear what horrifies us to ensure that it never happens again.
Very good pics.
Why were you surprised it was a heritage site?
Hi,
Truly a terrible part of history.
Your are right the pictures do tell the story.
Thank you for taking us there. It is truely a reminder of how cruel people can be to one another. Hopefully reminders like these will prevent this from happening again.
Thanks all! I was surprised it’s on the UNESCO list, because it’s not exactly a beautiful place…
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What an astounding and moving story about your great-uncle. My sister’s father-in-law–a Norwegian, and not Jewish either–spent time in Birkenau because he was a foreign student (one of the many groups rounded up) in Germany when the war started. He was, of course, studying German because he had had such an affinity with German friends and wanted to teach German back home (and later, still did). He spoke a little later on about his time at Birkenau, but not a lot, understandably. R and I visited Dachau and Plotzensee ourselves and I felt ill for ages after both of those visits. But I think everyone who can, *should* see one of these places and experience what it’s like just to be there so much later, when they’ve already long been “sanitized” and emptied of their true horrors. If we forget, we are doomed to repeat . . .
And people do forget and/or become ignorant… I saw a documentary not so long ago, and some German teenagers do not know what Auschwitz is about…
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