Auschwitz: crowd puller…

SO, this week in Poland, and whilst here spent some time looking around the southern city of Krakow, and the nearby Auschwitz and Birkenau ex-Nazi concentration camps. Much has been written about the atrocities of the second world war and the 1.1m people murdered in this small part of Silesia, so I won’t add anything here.

Reflecting on my visit, what struck me were the CROWDS. The car park heaved with coaches disgorging a gazillion sightseers. New regulations at the museums now mean individuals can no longer wander around on their own, but are required to join one of the many guided tours. These groups are hurled around with little time to reflect at significant sites where especially egregious activities occurred (the crematoria; the gas chamber). Instead there is a growing anxiety that the guide’s voice is getting fainter in the radio headphones – where has she gone?

A couple of things to note. First, the fact a civilised and cultured country as Germany in the 1930s could stoop to such a level means no person or nation can risk the moral high ground of ‘this can never happen here’ – indeed, the UK, US and Switzerland all turned Jews, fleeing Nazi atrocities, away from their borders during the war. Second, Auschwitz and Birkenau closed only 13 years before I was born. This is not ancient history, and whilst other genocides have happened since, it is the systematic and scientific nature of this holocaust that appals. The ‘Final Solution’ was not the wild and reactive slaughter of Rwanda in 1994, but an organised and methodical programme of extermination.

Each person visiting these sites will have particular memories. For me, it was the piles of shoes. For others, the tonnes of hair, or the suitcases, or the small fire reservoir made to look like a swimming pool (in order to expedite rapid and trouble free transfer, Nazis often deceived Jews by promising a ‘new life’ in Poland, with fine living conditions and rewarding work).

Today, in spite of the crowds of people (I’d love to ask some of them why they’re here), a quote from Robert Burns comes to mind: “man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn”. The camps at Auschwitz, Birkenau, and elsewhere are testament to the indescribable cruelty people are capable of, given the right circumstances.