Plaszów: Memorial and Future

Entrance sign in front of Plaszów

On our last exploratory day in Poland, we had the opportunity to go on a walking tour through Kraków and visit the Plaszów Concentration Camp. After seeing Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II, I was slightly unimpressed by the preservation of Plaszów. This sight is marked with a few select signs marking the entrance to Plaszów and different historic locations. The camp is located off of “Abraham” and “Jerusalem” street and what once used to be a place of brutality was now a normal neighborhood.

The ground was dry and arid and appeared to be a simple walking trail. When we asked our tour guide about the topography of the camp she mentioned that in one point in time Plaszów was more built up, but for only a short period of time before the Nazis were forced to destroy their own structures before the end of the way. The area before the camp served as the local park and today, the transformation of concentration camp back to a park is complete. However, you can still see indentations in the walking path that exhibit the place where the Nazi soldiers used to place Jewish tombstones a form of cobblestone. Placing grave markers face down into the dirt is disrespectful to the culture. Since then, the tombstones have been removed and were made into a memorial wall in a nearby cemetery. Still, while we were walking around there were bikers and people casually strolling on this same path.

Memorial in the area of Plaszów

The main difference between the beginning of the park’s formation before the war and the park now is the presence of  markers that serve as memorials.  The memory of the events that occurred on this land is sustained only through specific monuments. The first monument is a cross that was erected in honor of the victims who died here. It is removed from the main path of the nature preserve but can still be seen from the walkway. We did not have the time to approach the memorial very closely, but the placement of the cross in amidst of Jewish suffering was meaningful to me. This showed me that there is hope for even further betterment of Jewish-Christian relationships and that, at least while that monument stands, the events of Plasków will not be forgotten.

The townspeople and people of neighboring towns continue to preserve this memory in a more active manner. Each year in a March of Memory is held walking people from the center of town to one of the memorial sites in the camp. This past year, these events took place on March 13^th, and the walk culminates with the placing of stones on the Jewish memorial that displays the remembrance of “horrible bestiality, ruthlessness, and pain” caused by “Hitlerism”. This memorial also states that “the last cry of despair is the quiet of this cemetery” showing that even as the Jewish people have preserved through this time of suffering, there is still a reason to not forget these events so that genocide will cease and the Shoah will never happen again.

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Interpreting the Events at Auschwitz II-Birkenau

The railroad inside Auschwitz II-Birkenau

I did not purchase any type of phone plan or data plan for this trip so when we returned back from our excursion on Tuesday morning, we were all in disbelief when we heard of the terrorist attack on Brussels, Belgium, not too far away from Poland.

On this same morning, we visited Auschwitz II-Birkenau, where we were able to see approximately 400 acres of the Nazi camp from the watchtower at the entrance of the camp. More than 300 barracks for living, washing, and working were visible from the tower. Many of the buildings in sight were still intact, but a good number of buildings were dilapidated or destroyed over time.

One of the most striking sites in the camp begins outside the 12 km of fencing that encloses the area: the railroad. About a mile outside the camp, our tour guide gave us the opportunity to see an original cattle car that was used for the transportation of the Jewish people into Bikenau. The cattle car rests on an abandoned rail that was utilized at the time of the Nazi regime. In remembrance, visitors of the car have placed stones on the rail, in accordance with Jewish customs. 

The railway outside of the camp was extended inside the gates of the camp during the later years of the war in order to transport Jewish people of Hungarian descent inside the camp. The people on the cattle cars, unaware of the conditions that they would face once they left the stifling conditions of the cars, were forced onto the platforms. From there, people were forced to leave their clothes and belongings, the things that they carried with them in order to begin a new life (or so they thought). People were then forced into two lines: one for men and one for women and children. These lines were then evaluated by Nazi doctors who looked at each person and pointed to the one direction for a registration line, and the other direction to send that person into a line leading to the gas chambers. Walking along the railway and on that same platform in the camp, I looked around to imagine what the last moments of a person’s life would have been as they were pointed to the direction of the gas chambers.

 

A drawing by Marian Kołodziej

The next day, we had the opportunity to visit an artistic exhibition created by a holocaust survivor. The title of the exhibition was “Negative of a memory: Labyrinth” by professor Marian Kołodziej, a KL Auschwitz survivor. This artist was one of the first prisoners in Auschwitz holding identification number 432. In this exhibition, he displayed gaunt imagery of what were intended to be human figures. The reason it was difficult to ascertain that these images were human was not because he was a poor artist. The inability to recognize human features was due to the fact that the images appeared emaciated and it was difficult to understand that these were his fellow prisoners in Auschwitz, all depicted with their identification numbers.

One of his images depicted the two lines of people, paying homage to the events that occurred in Birkenau by the railway and platform. His drawing displays one line of people who look exhausted and beaten, and another side of people with expressions of pain and defeat. Visiting Birkenau and seeing the physical site of these wrongdoings was one thing, but attaching the facial expressions of people with these physical structures allowed for a deeper connection with the events that occurred in Birkenau, and the memory of the people who were murdered there.

In connection with the events that took place in Brussels the same morning we visited Birkenau and after visiting the exhibition, I became more aware of how blind we are as bystanders to certain atrocities. It made me question my own thoughts about attacks and other recent events that have taken place with the intention of killing innocent people. These two events provided me with an opportunity to engage in solidarity and change my perception of events that are distant from myself.

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Honoring the Dead: Then and Now

Grave Markers at Jewish Cemetery
Photo by Kristie Botti

During our first few hours in Poland, we had the opportunity to visit the Jewish Cemetery in Oświęcim. After receiving a tour with the most intelligent Sister Mary of the Center for Prayer and Dialogue, our group discovered that many Jewish landmarks of Oświęcim were destroyed during the Nazi reign. One of these landmarks was the Jewish Cemetery in the center of the town. Sister Mary unlocked the gate for our group and we hesitantly wandered inside the gates. This was one of the first major landmarks in Poland that we visited, and anti-Semitism was immediately visible in the dilapidated cemetery. We were informed that after the war, this cemetery was destroyed, and the grave markers were thrown about the plots of land, cracking in the process. As I walked into this cemetery on the first day, I internalized all of the eeriness of nature that was before me. Sister Mary informed us that this cemetery has many unidentified graves, and because of the Holocaust, there is no one alive to take care of them. Only volunteers have been dedicating their time to help beautify the cemetery after a big movement for repair was initialized.

The results of the repaired cemetery are profound. Grave markers are aligned in an orderly fashion within the fenced area. They stand erect as a symbol of strength. It is a fitting symbol in the environment that we have experienced at Auschwitz, giving me the first sense of the strength of the Jewish people here in Poland. It represents the courage and strength that the Jewish population had during this time period in battling adversity and overcoming hardships through restoration.

It seemed symbolic that each erected tombstone was marked with a painted number, like the tattoo numbers on the skin of Jewish prisoners inside concentrations camps. Even in death, each of these people was just a number. Still, these nameless graves were honored with the Jewish custom of placing stones at the site of death, honoring those who lost their lives during the Nazi reign. These were present in various areas in the cemetery that we observed.

Mass Grave Memorial Site at Auschwitz-Birkenau
Photo by Marina Falisi

After visiting the cemetery, I had a similar experience when we took part in a memorial service in Auschwitz-Birkenau at the site of a field that serves as a mass grave. It was here that we were able to honor the lives of those whose bodies and ashes lie beneath the surface of the field. There are no grave markers and no numbers, only a memorial that reads, in several different languages, “To the men, women, and children who fell victim to the Nazi genocide. Here lie their ashes.  May their souls rest in peace.”

It was here that we were able to recite the El Malei Rahamim. Together we prayed, “Exalted compassionate God, grant perfect peace in Your sheltering Presence, among the holy and pure, to the souls of all our brethren, me, women, and children of the House of Israel who were slaughtered and suffocated and burnt to ashes. May their memory endure, inspiring truth and loyalty in our lives. May their souls thus be bound up in the bond of life. May they rest in peace. And let us say: Amen.” Upon the finishing of our prayer service, each Iona student placed a rock on the surface of the memorial markers that are positioned before the mass grave. This was a powerful image displaying the change of attitude towards Jewish resting places.

The graves in both the Jewish cemetery and at Birkenau were unmarked and the result of cruel Nazi rulers. However, even with all the destruction in Birkenau, after all this time, the Jewish people that are buried in the field are resting without a number, with the respect and compassion shown by the visitors of the site.

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