Madrid 28.11.2011
Nymphenburg November 2011
There I was.
This pretty unexciting building is where I was born. Fate would have it I visited a fire station exactly opposite. Back after 42 years, the original birthing clinic is gone, and all that remains are my parents’ memories – and a Facebook group of people born there. Truly amazing :)
Less excited than I thought I’d be but nonetheless… I always tell people I was born in Glostrup, not Copenhagen, so there you are.
Auschwitz
There is a long list of WW2 must-sees, such as Arnhem, Eben-Emael, The Dams, countless more, and Auschwitz is at the very top. I was fortunate enough to pass by Krakow and Auschwitz on the way back from Warzsawa recently, and pay a visit to the camps. As usual, I do wish I had more time; on the other hand, I am glad that I was able to be there at all.
I am still struggling as to which angle to approach the visit. Nothing I will write here and now will come even close to the amount and intensity of impressions experienced there. It was a cold and misty Saturday morning, about -5°C. Being early, the whole place was pretty much empty, and the lifting mists enveloped the whole place in an eerie light, which I can’t be thankful enough for. It made one thing “easier”, important to me: to try and immerse in what life and particularly death, must have been like then.
Now, a few days later, I am still trying to sort through all feelings and emotions experienced. I am thankful and glad to have been privileged to “experience” the place , in particular with the given light conditions and peacefulness.
I am afraid I will have to focus on a very few issues, although I really would like to dwell on so many of them. Perhaps the objective issues first to serve as a frame for the story. Even though I had read about the camp, the real thing does come as a surprise – in particular, Auschwitz I, the original camp, is nothing like I had imagined. Instead of being somewhere totally remote, it is nowadays in the middle of an industrial settlement. But as soon as you go through the infamous “Arbeit macht frei” gate, you are thrown back many many years.
It’s not the dwellings, but the ubiquitous signs that really do give you an impression of how much Death was present at this place.
If you did the wrong thing, you died. If you did nothing, you died. If your guard was in a bad mood, you died. Anything, really, you died. Period. out. Over. Roll call. one person missing? Your fault or not, you died. You tried to escape? Your entire family would be brought to Auschwitz.
If this all was bad enough, a visit to block 11 must be one of the most intense trips into the killing mind of mankind. This, for instance, was the courtyard where thousands and thousands were shot.
Block 11 is to the right, where inmates were incarcerated, tortured, suffocated, starved to death, beaten, and much more. This is taken from a room where you would be undressed, and led to the shooting wall with a Schussfang, a contraption that would catch bullets and ricochets.
Incidentally one of the wraths outside had been laid down by German President Christian Wullf two days ago, commemorating the liberation of the camp January 27, 1945.
There’s so much more to Auschwitz I that can’t be shown here, it saddens me. The medical experiments, the barracks, watchtowers, the crematorium including the very first gas chamber, but to name a few.
If Auschwitz I was a glimpse to the past, Auschwitz II – Birkenau, located a five minutes’ drive away, would blow you away so much, it is hard to grasp. All the films, documentaries, pictures, tales, they would come together here. Auschwitz Birkenau is so vast, it sends shivers down your spine, again and again.
Standing on the Judenrampe, where trains would arrive, I tried to feel what it was like then. Families who survived the transport would be separated right here and there. Women, children, or anyone seen unfit to work, to one side. And off to the gas chambers. Undress for showers, they were told. Here is where hundreds of thousands of women, children, weak, feeble, politically uncorrect, and others went down the stairs, minutes away from their deaths.
Whereas in Ausschwitz I, death is ubiquitous, in Auschwitz II – Birkenau it is the industrial scale of mass murder that is so awe-inspiring – in every possible negative sense. Of all impressions that I took in, this one was probably the most helpful in even remotely understanding the psyche behind the Endlösung:
Ludwig Posener was lazy at work, did not comply with the order to work “faster” and therefore was sentenced to 5 days in the “standing cell”, a 1,5 square meter hell with four inmates. So tight, you could not move, sit, or do anything, and where hundreds, or probably more thousands, would die of unimaginable pains.
This “Meldung”, extrapolated, helps understand why it all happened. Take enough goons, give them power, and it will happen. And they will feel great, god-like, exerting the power their little minds is craving for.
My personal opinion? No grudge against the Germans. I am pretty sure it will not happen here again. I live in Germany and I love it. But it is not about Nationalities. I think it is in the nature of humanity. Since WW2, take for instance the Soviet Gulag system, Cambodia and its killing fields, the Rwandan genocide of even the events of Srebrenica not so far awas from here and not so long ago. It is my opinion that all these deeds are all based on the same “thing”.
Still, it is so hard to grasp, and I probably never will fully understand what went through the minds of the organisers, or, thankfully, not experience the torments of the victims. I do think, though, that what happened here and in other places must be ever present in people’s minds. It is probably the only way to prevent this from happening again – and, even more, to be thankful for the quality and safety of life we experience in Western Europe today. Actually, being able to pop in on a Saturday morning, snap a few pictures, and leave again, is probably the most remote thing possible from the happenings there during the War.
I am glad I made it here. I hope, one, day, my children will make it too.
The rest of the pictures to be found here.
Comrades!
This one’s tough to convey. I’m in a little town in what would be former East Germany. As a half Soviet, walking into this time capsule struck me really hard. There’s gotta be a Honecker effigy hanging around somewhere?
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Welcome to Irakli West's personal pages on the Web. I am Danish, live close to Munich in Germany, and run FWnetz, an online magazine and training resource for firefighters. In real life, I am Regional Manager Northern Europe for Paratech, teach Heavy Rescue (it's fun, challenging and serves a good purpose) and try to learn more about USAR. I am a member of the Munich Volunteer Fire Department as well as @fire, a USAR and Wildfire NGO outfit.
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