Gas Chambers and Deportation

Today on March 18th 2019 me and my class visited the concentration camp of Auschwitz on our spring break trip to Poland. This was personally my first time to be in Europe and to ever experience something like this.

On this day we took our first tour of part 1 of the German Concentration Camp. Once we first got their we saw the famous gate with the words “Work shall set you free.” but in reality it didn’t. While we explored the concentration camp I came across the gas chambers. This was pretty graphic because I saw the scratch marks of the people who were trying to desperately get out as they slowly died. As I was exposed to this environment I couldn’t help but think about the visualization of what these people went through as they were slowly being poisoned and trying to desperately get out and not die.

Another part of the camp we saw was a room full of hair from female victims. This was a shock. One reason because after all of my readings and knowledge of the holocaust I have never heard or seen something like this. Apparently when the females were killed in the gas chambers their hair would be cut off, or if any female victims died their hair would be taken. Once the Nazis took their hair off they would use the hair for themselves. The hair would be used for insulations, parts for boots, and warmth for their cloths, Seeing this made you wonder especially since most of these were ponytails. Who did that ponytail belong to? What was their story before and during this mass genocidal campaign. It just makes you wonder “Wow that use to be somebody's ponytail.”

After we left Auschwitz we went to a railroad track. Their Professor Folly told us how this was where the Jews were deported and where they stood as they were to be sent of to the camp. As I was told about this information I thought about the book we read for the class. The book we read was called “The Holocaust Kingdom”. In the book it would often talk about how Jews were deported consistently to the death camps. While I was there standing the only thing I could think about was the SS men and their dogs forcing people into the trains and dragging others out of their home. While standing in place you can feel the conception of the scene when the Jews were forced out of their homes and place in trains. On March 19th when we saw the train carts you can really see and just sense the over crowdedness when they were forcibly crammed in these karts against their own will.