Visiting Poland: Part III

The third and concluding piece on my time in Poland that I want to talk about is walking through Auschwitz II, better known as Birkenau. Actually, that's a lie. I don't want to talk about Birkenau at all. I don't even want to think about it. I've avoided writing this blog since I went there about a week ago. Auschwitz I was originally built as Polish Army barracks. Birkenau is different because it was built specifically to hold and kill human beings. It's 20 times vaster than Auschwitz I. The death camp, Birkenau, seems to go on for miles with no end in sight. The stretch of the landscape appears to suggest that even if one would contemplate escape from this place, it would be futile because first one would have to find where the camp ends. 


I was uneasy about going through the gates of Birkenau. After passing through the entrance (nicknamed Gate of Death) a foreboding shadow swept across my mind. It was at first what I expected: destroyed buildings marked only by its outer frame or a post bearing a number to let passerby know that one once stood there, train tracks that make one feel sick knowing the numbers of souls it carried, fences embossed with barb wire daring someone to embrace it, watch towers that loom and cast fear with its shadow and bright lights every several feet that give off no warmth and like the insect that gets too close ends up lifeless underneath it.    


I was completely unprepared and caught off guard as to what the camp looked like. Birkenau was beautiful. There was grass growing everywhere and scattered here and there were pretty little wildflowers along with dog roses springing from the ground. The trees within Birkenau provided a tranquil forest that made one feel welcome to sit and read below its fresh branches. As strange as it might sound, I was genuinely angry that the camp was pretty. It was because I felt that from all the horrors that had taken place there, the land should honor that by staying ugly. It felt like the ground was in collaboration with the Nazis; trying to cover what had happened there so that no one who came back to that decrepit place would be able to find it. All they would see is the beauty there and continue their search for the barren ground that was so many peoples hell. 


Later that week we read a poem in class that changed my perspective. It was a poem about the Holocaust and at the end of each stanza there was a line that spoke of the earth healing itself by growing grass where there was once nothing but mud. It made me rethink how I felt and instead be grateful knowing that even the land is trying to heal. For all those who had once been kept there and for all those who died there, Birkenau is mending.

Visiting Poland: Part II

"Nothing gold can stay." These were the words that first entered my mind as I walked up the path leading to the infamous gate of Auschwitz. This may seem odd but it truly is what I thought of. The camp was built as Polish Army barracks and was never intended to be used as a concentration camp. In 1940 when the Nazis invaded Poland and began taking mass numbers of Poles prisoner they ran out of prisons to put them. The Nazis solution was to take over the camp we know now as Auschwitz and turn it into a prison for the Polish soldiers. It wasn't until about the year 1942 that the camp began to hold Soviet prisoners, Roma (the correct term for Gypsies) and Jews. So although the camp was built for a good purpose it was twisted and was not allowed to be kept that way by the Nazis. 


The second thing to cross my mind was the size of the place. I had been told beforehand that the camp wasn't that big but for some reason (perhaps the images Hollywood and other movies have presented) I still had this picture in my head of an overly large and threatening prison. However, Auschwitz is rather small. Instead of a vast land the feel was that of buildings that stood tall and loomed over you. Knowing what happened there made me feel like the buildings would grow taller and taller until they would meld into each other and block the sky from view taking all hope away with it. Even the ground was uneven and rocky. I had expected that for tourists they would have smoothed out the walking paths. I'm not sure why I expected that but I did (maybe it's some American standard way of thinking). It was necessary to constantly be watching where you put your feet. It made it all the more hard to imagine what it must have been like for all those who were held there. 


The last part of my time at Auschwitz that I want to tell you about is the gas chamber. I don't have much to say about it. It was the first gas chamber and hundreds of people could be killed at a time there. It was used for a relatively short period of time due to the fact that it was too small for the Nazis and their purpose. The feeling of being in the gas chamber was one that I'll never forget. It was cold and dark and the walls look like they're rotting. The floor, walls and ceiling all look stained and foreboding. The outside of the building is no better, having a large single brick chimney erupting from this small cement barrack. The only word that I can think of is: Why? 

Visiting Poland: Part I

This past weekend my classmates and I went to Auschwitz. We boarded a train on Thursday and 11 hours later we were in Poland. It felt like the hours that I'd spent reading on various topics concerning the Holocaust this past month was all leading up to this point. As if to say that I would soon be reaching the climax in the story that was my time in Prague. I was nervous and anxious about what awaited me there. 


Our first day we went to the Schindler Museum in Krakow, Poland. It was amazing (please excuse my use of an overly common word). The way the museum was set-up is optimal for educational purposes. It takes you through the years of 1939-1945 (the start and end of the Nazi invasion). It's a little hard to explain the actual set-up of the place but I'll try. It is a multi-level building that forces visitors to go a certain way to get to the end. Along the way are 4 cards that you can stamp as sort of signatures of where you're at in the war. 


The entire museum is interactive. You can watch videos of testimonies from those who were there and the maps are touch-screen and you can read about what was happening at different locations. Moreover, even the walls and floors are designed to mimic how the people felt at specific times. For example, the second to last room you enter is a dark tunnel that has a huge picture of Stalin to signify the start of the communist regime and the floor consists of uneven and bumpy mats. The message is that even after the war no one could find solid ground to walk on. 


The entire experience was impacting and well orchestrated. I would highly recommend it to anyone who might find themselves in Poland. I very much hope to find myself there again.       

This picture is of a written decree by the Nazi Party to a Polish University. It really made me stop and think. 

The White Lady

Sorry I haven't posted anything for a while. The past week and a half has been extremely busy! 


I got to visit a place called Cesky Krumlov in the Czech Republic. It has a castle sitting upon one of its hills and my favorite part about it is its legends. To be honest, I'm a sucker for legends! I love the idea of something being so odd or wonderful that the people around utilize it to give birth to their own form of entertainment.

There was a woman named Perchta von Rosenberg who was young and beautiful. She had a happy life growing up but when she became of age her father forced her to marry. So she married an older man named Jan von Lichtenstein and he was absolutely horrible to her. It's said that she would write letters to her brother pleading him to take her away from her wretched husband. However, because of the time and how scandalous a divorce would make her and the family look, he refused. 


Eventually, the tides began to turn for her. Her husband became very ill and called for her on his death bed. Perchta came to him and asked her forgiveness for the way he treated her. She point blank refused to forgive him. As a result he became even angrier and cursed her to roam the castle forever! 


Over the years she has appeared to different people in and around the castle. She is known as the Lady in White. If one sees her it is of the utmost importance to take notice of her gloves. If she is wearing white gloves then the news she wants to tell you is great but if she's wearing black gloves... The last recorded sighting of her was in 1938 and she was wearing black gloves. The common belief is that the news she wanted to convey was on World War II and the invasion of the Nazis in the then Czechoslovakia. 


Whether or not this legend is true really doesn't matter to me. But it is so much fun to hear about it and be where she definitely was. Unfortunately, no one saw her while we were there in town. Who knows, maybe next time...

Walking on History

Today I had the privilege of sitting at the same the table while listening to a man named Dr. Rick Pinard. He works for RadioFreeEurope RadioLiberty (rferl.org). What this radio station does is send independent information to countries all over the world whose government has taken control of the news and media. Their tagline is "free media in unfree societies." He talked about what they did in the Czech Republic (then Czechoslovakia) when the Nazis' had infiltrated all news stations. Dr. Pinard shared with us how the slow and calculated their infiltration was in taking over the country.   


He is also an expert in the Holocaust in general but specifically in the Czech Republic. He told us that the very building in which he was speaking to us in had housed three Jews who were taken to death camps. None of them survived. It was an odd feeling to know that the place in which I was sitting was home to three human beings who were forced to leave and taken to their deaths. Dr. Pinard also went on to point out all of the different buildings surrounding us in Prague that were filled with history directly linked to terrible and sometimes courageous stories from that time in history. It was then that I truly realized how fortunate I was to be here in Prague. I am learning about the Holocaust while walking the same streets and touching the same buildings that Nazis' and Jews walked along and touched. Wow.        

Upsidedown Horse

I want to tell everyone about this picture because I think it's an incredible sculpture. The Czech Republic has a very long history of being invaded by other countries and struggling with different ideologies and governments for themselves on the off times that they weren't being invaded. So the Czech people are able to laugh at themselves about that and that's said because if they did not they would always be crying. 

This sculpture is called  "Wenceslas riding an Upsidedown Horse" and it is located in the Lucerna shopping complex (I wish the malls in the U.S. looked like this lol). It was created by a very controversial Czech artist named David Cerny whose main motivation for creating art is rage. Although there is more to its history, the short version of the meaning behind this is that their leaders can't even ride a horse properly or tell when one is dead, let alone run a country.  

My class starts tomorrow and students have to write blog entries about certain material and add them to the class blog page. I thought that I would share what I chose to write on and my thoughts concerning it. 

“Riddle” by William Heyen

From Belsen a crate of gold teeth, 
from Dachau a mountain of shoes, 
from Auschwitz a skin lampshade. 
Who killed the Jews?

Not I, cries the typist, 
not I, cries the engineer, 
not I, cries Adolf Eichmann, 
not I, cries Albert Speer.

My friend Fritz Nova lost his father – 
a petty official had to choose. 
My friend Lou Abrahms lost his brother. 
Who killed the Jews?

David Nova swallowed gas, 
Hyman Abrahms was beaten and starved. 
Some men signed their papers, 
and some stood guard,

and some herded them in, 
and some dropped the pellets, 
and some spread the ashes, 
and some hosed the walls,

and some planted the wheat, 
and some poured the steel, 
and some cleared the rails, 
and some raised the cattle.

Some smelled the smoke, 
some just heard the news.
Were they Germans? Were they Nazis? 
Were they human? Who killed the Jews? 

The stars will remember the gold, 
the sun will remember the shoes, 
the moon will remember the skin. 
But who killed the Jews?

                What first caught my eye was the poem “Riddle” by William Heyen. I read it through several times and thought to myself for some length afterwards. I tried to grasp the word choice such as, “herding.” I attempted to comprehend the use of specific names that made everything that much more pointed and real. I strove to understand the decision to include the stars, moon and sun. I sought to take in the effect that his use of repetition had on the voice of the poem and its readers.

With all of that said, the line that had me thinking hardest was the line, “were they human,” while answering the repeated question of, “who killed the Jews?”  I took from it that Heyen was boldly stating that a lot of people killed the Jews and not just the Nazi German Party. Heyen made it clear that anyone who had anything to do with it including hearing about what was happening, smelling the dead bodies, holding the door open for the Jews being sent through the doors and those who cleaned up afterwards all killed the Jews.

In short, the poem “Riddle” had the most significant effect on me. The poem planted itself in the back of my mind with no signs of being pulled from that spot. Now that I have had time to write out my thoughts and ponder its words with academic intent maybe I will be able to move on. I will just have to wait and see.  

I had my first "real" day in Prague. This simply means that I got to go out and about. Many pictures were taken on my venture but before I post those and write of my jovial time on the streets of Prague, I feel I must also talk about what I read today. The book I want to talk about is called "The Holocaust: A Concise History" and it was written by Bergen. I do not wish to share the more well known facts or instances of the Holocaust but rather those pieces that surprised me or made me stop and really think. 


It is so easy to overgeneralize the motives or mindsets of the German people during that time. I feel there are two common views of the German population: those who readily accepted information that Germans were acting on the defensive and ignorant about what atrocities were happening or those who were antisemitic and were fine with whatever means to purge of the Jews. In my reading though, I read of a man named Adolf Eichmann. He was key in transporting Jews to what was called the General Government and several concentration camps from around 1938-1944. In short, he was crucial in years of forced emigration. What caught my interest about this man was not what he did but his reasons for doing so. Once he went on trial in Israel for his crimes he adamantly stated that he was not an antisemitic. His reason for doing so was ambition to further his career and gain positive attention from Hitler. Moreover, Eichmann had NO formal authorization for his actions. 


There was a line in the book that really got me thinking and the first part read, "We tend to assume that shared hardships draw people together." Yes, that's what I thought. I've frequently assumed that when a common enemy is shared that the better of humanity would come together despite previously felt ill feelings all for the sake of each others' lives being made easier. However, the second part of that line read, "Often, however, quite the opposite occurs." The page then goes on to detail the wedge that was furthered between the Polish Jews and Polish Christians. There is more evidence to support these ill feelings being less racial/ religious and primarily based on economics. Life lost its inherent value. In one town in Poland an issue went out stating that 2.2 pounds of salt would be given to those who brought in the head of a Jew. Sometimes the offer would be bags of sugar or the simply the right to whatever possessions the Jew had on them.  


I leave this post with thoughts of sadness towards humanity. Life is something so precious and sacred. Reading these things makes me think of how many people would actually have the courage that I'm sure most of us would like to think we would have. More importantly, however, I am thankful and praise those who did have tremendous courage during that time.         

Arrival

Well I have arrived in Prague finally. I had a 9 and 1/2 hour plane ride from Phoenix to London which was a pretty nice flight! I had the window seat and sat next to a very nice, older Asian couple. I did not get up once while on that flight though, so when it came time to get off my stiff joints forced me to take my time. The London airport was a surprisingly smooth transition to my gate. I may or may not have spoken in a British accent for the 2 hours that I was there... 


The plane from London to Prague was about 2 hours. I am extremely thankful for it being a short flight because the two kids sitting behind me were annoying. The only plus side was that they spoke in a different language which made it take longer for it to become really bothersome.   


When I got off the flight everything seemed to go by quickly! I walked to baggage claim (which for me is half running because I hate walking slow) found the right belt that would be spitting out my bag and the second I got there my bag popped out and I heaved it onto the floor. After that I went to the ATM and got some money (a lot easier than I thought it would be). While I was at the baggage claim area there was a man dressed as a french maid, blonde wig included. I assume this was some sort of traveling bachelor party as he was surrounded by at least 7 other guys. 


Once I spotted some fellow study abroad students we all pitched in and the six of us split a cab. The drive was actually not that crazy. However, I was still feeling the effects of my motion sickness medication so that could be why it didn't seem so bad. It was a 30 minute cab drive and for the majority of it I was unimpressed with the surroundings. There was just a lot of old buildings with graffiti on them and faded out colors. But then we came upon all the buildings that I had seen in the pictures. It is incredible to look at! The first amazing thing I saw was of the picture I posted on my first entry. It is beautiful here!