Kaitlynn O'Reilly: Birkenau

Cattle Cars

The journey at Birkenau started at the train tracks with a cattle car.  This location was the first one used by the Nazis for unloading their prisoners and then marching them at gunpoint to Birkenua. Later, the Nazis switched to using the rails that led directly to the gas chambers.

Grumpy cat

On the long walk from the train tracks this grumpy cat watched our procession.  

The long walk to Birkenau

At the first Birkenau is so far off in the distance that the actual size of the camp is hidden.  As we approached I was shocked that I could not see the far end of it.  I don’t mean the opposite side of the camp, but the outer limit to the left could not be seen.  After the size comes the train tracks which run down the middle of camp, separating the expanse into two.  These two are then broken down into gated and fenced smaller sub sections.  

End of the Train tracks in Birkenau

We stood at the guardhouse where selections took place.  We looked at photographs showing the thousands of people in one transport.  Then we turned to look back at the tracks and we saw only emptiness.  The presence of absence is heavy here.  One can stand in Birkenau, do a full turn and never see the camp’s border.  The ruins go on forever, the paths go on forever, the barbed wire followed by trenches goes on forever.  Standing in Birkenau makes one feel small.  

Behind the Barbed Wire

For some it is harder to make a connection to all the victims who died at Birkenau.  Maybe because Birkenau had more of a sense of peace to it due to its openness, silence, and birch trees.  However, these are the reasons that I connected with Birkenau much more than Auschwitz I.  For me Birkenau was a more personal experience.  The sheer immensity of the camp, seemingly endless, envelops its visitors.  It was not raining like it was at Auschwitz I, but the cold was felt by all.  I cannot imagine being out in the cold, on that damp day, wearing only pajamas and wooden clogs.    

Ruins of Barracks

Birkenau is approximately 200 soccer fields or about two kilometers long.  It extends into the forest and the fallen barracks look like a forest of chimneys.  The ruins fit the decay of the human condition that occurred in the camp, the lack of humanity and God in the Nazis.  Ruins which symbolize more than a reminder of what was.  

Drainage Trench Dug By Prisoners

And as I walk amongst these ruins, between the barbed wire, I notice all the drainage trenches with their steep sides.  Each of these trenches was dug by prisoners.  This camp was built by the early transports, just as the ghettos which walled Jews in were built by Jews.  The Nazis forced their prisoners to build their own prisons and then they killed them there.  Birkenau is lined with drainage trenches because the water table is so high, these trenches followed as a constant reminder of the prisoners who died whilst digging them.  

To the Gas Chambers

Our journey through the camp would invariably take us to the ruins of the gas chambers.  We stood in the trees where too many people also stood waiting unknowingly for their deaths.  The gas chambers were all ruins, only their foundations still stand.  Some were blown up by the Nazis to hide their crimes.  There were dug ponds near to the crematorium for the removal of the human ash.  This ash is still visible as well as pieces of human bone.  The ground in this place is covered in the ashes of the dead.  The peace of Birkenau, where deer or cats sometimes play, is the holy peace of a cemetery.  

"FOR EVER LET THIS PLACE BE
A CRY OF DESPAIR
AND A WARNING TO HUMANITY,
WHERE THE NAZIS MURDERED
ABOUT ONE AND A HALF
MILLION
MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN,
MAINLY JEWS
FROM VARIOUS COUNTRIES OF EUROPE."