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A Glimpse of Hell
by Calum Harvie

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A Glimpse of Hell
by Calum Harvie

There is nothing remarkable about the train ride from Krakow to Oswiecim. It is like any other rail journey in Poland. Each bright green carriage is filled with a mixture of families on excursions, dour businessmen late for meetings and small groups of young backpackers. The mood is happy - some people talk excitedly, others drink endless cups of free tea provided by the train staff. When the train arrives in Oswiecim, groups of backpackers walk in the same direction to the edge of the city, but as their walk progresses, there is a noticeable change in mood. The once chattering voices grow silent and the spring falls from their step. By the time they reach their destination, the former Polish army barracks, the backpackers wear somber, funereal expressions. It has struck home; this is Oswiecim, better known by its German name, Auschwitz.

Other tourist groups have arrived at the same time by bus. Not all are as quiet as ours. Two women complain that their bus journey was uncomfortable, but even they are struck dumb as they walk through the jaws of the wrought iron gates, which bear the grotesque inscription "Arbeit Macht Frei" - Work Makes Free. Once through the gates our guide, Jan, meets the group. Before the tour begins he asks everyone to show appropriate respect while inside Auschwitz.

"As I'm sure you will appreciate, this site is one of great sorrow and importance to many people," he tells us with a soft Slavic voice. "I was a prisoner here for two years. My mother and sister died in the gas chambers here". A man in the group starts to sob.

The Auschwitz concentration camp was not one, but three camps. The tour begins at the first and best-preserved camp, known simply as Auschwitz I. The Nazis established a concentration camp here, a complex of red brick army barracks deserted by the Polish army in 1940. The first prisoners were Poles, prisoners of war, and gypsies. As the number of prisoners grew, so did the concentration camp. Two additional main camps were established: Auschwitz II - Birkenau, about two kilometers from Auschwitz I, and Auschwitz III - Monowitz. From the beginning of 1942, Auschwitz played a central role in the murder of millions of European Jews. The majority of Jews to arrive at the camps were sent straight to the gas chambers housed at Auschwitz II - Birkenau. When the war drew to a conclusion in 1945, the Nazi guards, known as Schutzstaffel, or SS, attempted to hide their mass murder by destroying most of the Birkenau camp, although Auschwitz I was left largely intact. After the war, Auschwitz became a permanent memorial to the victims of the Holocaust and in 1979 it was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List.

The group follows Jan through a succession of accommodation blocks that now house a series of exhibitions of the grotesque events that took place only sixty years ago. Several of the showcases bring home the sheer scale of the murder committed at Auschwitz. There are displays of suitcases, clothes, jewelry, spectacles and other personal belongings taken from the Jews as they arrived at the camp. Many were told these items were to be kept in storage for them to collect when they left. Most did not leave.

A few members of the group gather around one display cabinet. Behind the glass is a large dusty-brown pile of fiber. Jan comes to them and explains that it is human hair, shaved from the heads of inmates upon arrival at the camp to prevent an infestation of lice. In the adjacent case is a collection of several hundred rusty green canisters, similar in appearance to paint tins. These, as Jan explains, contained Zyklon B, the cyanide-based disinfectant used to put the Jews to death in the gas chambers.

The group finds the tour around Auschwitz and Birkenau surreal. It is hard to grasp the numbers of people put to death here. Everywhere there are monuments to mass murder - the preserved underground gas chamber; the cramped hut where six people were forced to share one filthy tier of a bunk bed, the length of rail track raised off the ground by three posts from which thousands of men, women, and children were hanged. Yet interspersed are reminders that this is now a museum, and no matter from what angle it is looked at, it is still a tourist attraction. So the group witnesses the uncomfortable sight of grinning tourists being photographed next to a set of gallows. People flock to the souvenir bookshop; some are even staying at a guesthouse only five hundred meters away from the camp entrance.

The tour has lasted almost three hours and the tired group trudges back to Oswiecim station to catch a train back to Krakow. People are subdued, but not silent. Their visit has filled them not only with sadness, but also hope. Our guide, Jan, has shown that man's ability to survive is greater than his capacity for evil. In times like these, this is a very positive message.