Photograph by Maciek Mabrdalik
The gateway sign says "Work Will Set You Free," a monstrous lie told to the men, women and children imprisoned there.
January 27, 2010 marked the 65th anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation by Soviet soldiers. The Nazis operated the camp between May 1940 and January 1945. In 1947 the Polish government began maintaining Auschwitz as a museum and memorial.
The issue now is that Auschwitz is deteriorating. It has 155 buildings and hundreds of thousands of artifacts.
Photograph by Maciek Mabrdalik
Human Hair shorn from prisoners for use in German products is exhibited in cases but, as human remains, will be allowed to decay.
According to Smithsonian.com, The Auschwitz camp covers 50 acres and consists of 46 historical buildings, including two-story red brick barracks, a kitchen, a crematorium and several administration buildings. In addition, Birkenau, (officially labeled Auschwitz II) a satellite camp about two miles away, covers over 400 acres and has 30 barracks and 20 wooden structures, railroad tracks and of four gas chambers and crematoria. In total 150 buildings and more than 300 ruins at the two sites.
Currently dozens of barracks have cracked walls and sinking foundations. Certain areas have been closed for safety reasons.
Photograph by Maciek Mabrdalik
The Polish government in 2009 asked European nations, the United States and Israel to contribute to a fund from which the Auschwitz museum could draw $6 million to $7 million a year for restoration projects. Last December, the German government pledged $87 million—about half of the $170 million target endowment.
Interestingly enough until 1990, the museum’s directors were all former prisoners. The last survivors are living links to what happened at Auschwitz however they will not live forever. Many believe that preserving the are is important especially for younger generations.
Auschwitz was designed to work its prisoners to death. According to Smithsonian, most of the hard labor assisted in expanding the camp and other labors such as gravel mining and farming, earned money for the SS. The Nazis term for it was, Vernichtung durch Arbeit or “Destruction through work”. New arrivals to the camp were often greeted with a speech. “You have arrived here not at a sanatorium, but at a German concentration camp, from which the only exit is through the chimney of its crematorium.”
As many of us are aware, prisoners were cramped into tight spaces, starved and tortured. According to Smithsonian, Auschwitz physicians would conduct cruel experiments on prisoners. At times doctors would look for ways to sterelize women with toxic chemicals. Doctors would also study the effects of starvation and cold on the human body.
In 1940, the Nazis began using carbon monoxide gas in euthanasia programs in Germany mental hospitals. The purpose was to rid of mentally ill or disabled individuals.
Eventually a cyanide compound called Zyklon B was created. In 1941 Soviet prisoners of war were placed in the basement of Block 11 which was known a a punishment barrack and pellets of Zyklon B were thrown in. These were the first gassed inidividuals of Auschwitz.
According to Smithsonian, "For the man in charge of Auschwitz, the gas chamber was a welcome innovation. 'I had always shuddered at the prospect of carrying out executions by shooting.' commandant Rudolf Hoss wrote in a lengthy confession while awaiting execution after the war. 'Many members of the Eisatzkommandos, unable to endure wading through blood any longer, had committed suicide. Some had even gone mad.'"
I find it quite interesting that the heartless guards and authorities of Auschwitz could show even a hint of humanity. Enough that they could not bear certain methods of death for their prisoners.
It is true that those of us who have not experienced Auschwitz for ourselves can never know the horror that existed and the horror that continues to live within its survivors.
For the majority of my life I had lived in close proximity to a neighbor who survived the camp. From time to time my mother and he would exchange Christmas treats and whenever he would grace us with his polite presence the topic of Auschwitz would some how find its way to him and us.
He is an old man now but still carries the tattoo of his inmate number on his arm. His now deceased wife was also a prisoner of Auschwitz. I am curious as to how he feels about the goal to preserve the camp as a museum and memorial.
Auschwitz first opened to the public in 1947. Workers have repaired and rebuilt deteriorated parts of the camp. From barbed wire rings which continues to rust, to crumbling gas chambers and walls. In fact this past December (2009) the Arbeit Macht sign was stolen by individuals who meant to sell it to a collector. The sign was recovered but cut into three pieces and was in need of repair as well.
So basically the aesthetics of Auschwitz becomes less authentic over time. The argument is whether preserving the camp is worth it. Some feel that those who come to Auschwitz are there for insincere reasons and that the camp over time will not clearly depict struggle that existed there.
And for others whether visiting for the first time, or returning as a surivivor, Auschwitz is a great teacher.
According to Smithsonian, one of the most passionate advocates for the preservation of Auschwitz is Wladyslaw Bartoszewski. "Born in Warsaw in 1922, Bartoszewski, 87, was a Red Cross stretcher-bearer when the German Army invaded the capital city in September 1939. Plucked off the street by German soldiers a year later, he was sent to Auschwitz. He'd been there seven months when the Red Cross arranged for his release in April 1941-one ofthe few inmates ever set free.
After Auschwitz, he helped found an underground organization to help Poland's Jews. He fought against the German Army during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. He was jailed three times: twice as an active dissident during Poland's early communistera and once for his support of the Solidarity movement in the 1980s. Today, he is chairman of the International Auschwitz Council.
Nothing, he says, can replace the actual site as a monumnet and memorial. "It's great that you can go to a Holocaust museum in Washington D.C.", he says. "But no one died in Washington in the Holocaust. Here - here is a massive cemetery without gravestones. Here they spent their last moments, here they took their last steps, here they said their last prayers, here they said goodbye to their children. This is the symbol of the Holocaust."
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