Day 24 - Auschwitz - reader discretion advised

From Czestochowa we set off for Auschwitz, Poland, the home of one of the concentration camps.  Being involved with pro-life for such a long time, we have often referred to legalized abortion as the "american holocaust" and being in Auschwitz gave me the very same feeling of evil as I had when I was standing inside an abortion clinic.  To be present in the same place where millions of innocent human beings lost their lives because thousands believed it was the right thing to do was soul shaking.

In the first camp we visited - Auschwitz - we observed over 20 brick buildings that were used to house the prisoners.  We also saw the "hospital" were the notorius Dr. Josef Mengele experimented on twins as young as 5 years old. Here is a link to learn more http://www.auschwitz.dk/doctors.htm, but proceed with caution.

I saw rooms filled with the suitcases, shoes, eyeglasses, other personal items and the hair shaved from dead gas chamber victims. The hardest part to see in all these different rooms was the children's shoes and baby clothing.

All throughout the buildings were pictures of prisoners and scenes of atrocoties.  Someone asked ir they were authentic and how were they gotten.  It appears the german soldiers used to take pictures to show off to their friends, to boast about how they were ridding their society of the undesirables.  Some how these pictures fell into the hands of the liberators and were preserved immediately.

I walked though the halls of standing cells - 4' by 4' by 8' cement rooms where 4 men to a room were forced to stand for 3 - 7 days without ever leaving as punishment for usually insignificant things.  I saw the cell where the germans tried to starve/suffocate St. Maximilian Kolbe.  He lasted 16 days and when he wasn't dead, they got tired of waiting so they gave him a lethal injection.  His crime - A prisoner was sentenced to the starvation/suffocation cells, but Maximilian knew he had a family, so he offered to take his place.

They showed us the execution wall where prisoners were lined up and shot in plain view of all the other prisoners as a deterrent to escape or resistence.  We entered the gas chamber where hundreds of thousands were killed and saw the holes in the building where the lethal gas canisters were dropped in.  Needless to say we all walked around in silence, in shock of how evil this event truly was.

Our guide was excellent and she shared so many details with us I could not begin to repeat.  She did recommend a movie, The Gray Zone, that I hope to see soon.

This camp was originally a Polish military camp, built in the middle of a residental area.  The germans occupied the camp and proceeded to evacuate all of the residents in immediate proximity so they could destroy their homes and expand the camp.  Not only were the prisoners gased but were also incinerated as a way to dispose of the bodies.  I asked the guide how the people surrounding the camp couldn't smell the burning flesh and she said they did smell it.  They knew what was taking place, but chose to believe it was "the bad guys" that were being murdered for crimes they had committed.

This camp became too small for the huge number of prisoners the germans were taking so they expanded to Auschwitz - Birkenau, about 2 miles away.  Most of this camp was destroyed by the germans after the liberation, to destroy the evidence.  What was left standing were the chimneys of the thousands of buildings used to house the prisoners and of the 4 incenerators.  Also still standing was the infamous building where all the prisoners were processed in: get their arm tatooed, record their names and where they were from and have their heads shaved.  There was a set of train tracks that ran though the building and ended at a large concrete platform inside the camp.  The prisoners disembarked the trains here and waited to be processed.  I prayed on that platform for all the victims and all the germans.  What a sobering experience.

Auschwitz-Birkenau buildings, approximately 50' by 200',  housed between 750 and 1000 men or women.  All that was in there were wooden planks stacked 4 high which were used to sleep on.  They slept about 6 persons per the space of 2 double beds.  The "bathrooms" were in a seperate building and it consisted of 2 100 foot troughs with a wooden plank covering them.  Each plank had 2 rows  of 12" wholes cut out spaced 12" apart.  There was one bathroom for every 5000 people and they could only use in in the morning before work or in the evening.  At first there was no waste removal system, but because the guards were getting sick from the prisoners because of the unsanitary conditions, the germans installed a system to carry away the waste.  Can you imagine in you wildest dreams living for one day in conditions like this.  Food was scarse and prisoners didn't ususally live longer than 3-6 months.

At this camp they were killing 10,000 A DAY!!!!!!!!!!!  And it was estimated that 3 - 4 million were killed at this camp alone.

We had a Franciscan monk on the bus with us and we always began and ended each trip/stop with prayer.  When we got on the bus, he led us in a very moving prayer, for the victims, the germans, the survivors and for all of us experiencing the american holocaust.  It was very powerful and the perfect way to end our visit to Auschwitz

The bus was very quiet after departing Auschwitz and on our way to Kalwaria Franciscan Monastery in Zebryzydowska, Poland.  As we approached Fr. pointed to a castle on the hill and said, "that is where we will be sleeping tonight"  I thought he was kidding, but he wasn't and it wasn't really a castle.  It was a monastery/retreat center, that looked like a castle.  Unfortunately we only had about 12 hours there, but there were 40 small chapels scattered over the grounds that covered about 5 acres of rolling hills.  We heard the history but did not get to visit the chapels, just saw pictures of them.

It was a peaceful place to stay after such a moving day.  The chapel there was dark, heavy and lots of carved wood.  It felt safe and protective and we all spent time in it after dinner.

Early to bed so we can rise at 7:00.  Leaving for Krakow tomorrow.

love ya,