Auschwitz + Birkenau

It’s still fairly difficult to put into words what visiting Auschwitz & Birkenau concentration camps was like, but I’ll try the best I can to describe it.

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July 19 was an extraordinary and unforgettable day.

I woke up in a crappy hotel room in Prague, at 4:15 in the morning. By 5:00, the tour bus was loaded up with 35 students, 7 chaperones, 1 Romanian tour director, and 1 Italian bus driver + suitcases upon suitcases upon suitcases.

The 5-ish hour bus ride from Prague to Auschwitz was long. I think it felt even extra long because we knew what was coming. And while we were anxious and excited (weird word choice) to see something so monumental - something that not everyone will be able to see in their life - we were also utterly dreading it.

Our Tour Director, Octavian, had already visited. He said he wouldn’t be going inside with us, but rather just dropping us off at the entrance. He said that seeing it once was enough for a lifetime. It was too depressing to witness again.

About half way through our drive, we took a break at a gas station. It had started to rain. I checked the weather at Auschwitz and it was due to rain all day. “Fitting,” I thought.

Back on the bus after our potty break, Octavian decided to put Schindler’s List on the little TV screens. He said it would help “prep” us for the day. Some students thought it was boring because it’s in black and white, so they took a nap. Other students stayed awake and watched this classic movie for the first time. All of the chaperones were awake watching. We’ve seen it before, but it had been awhile.

As the ending of the movie approached, those of us that had stayed awake began to weep.

And then once the credits started rolling (along with those tears down our cheeks) we pulled into the parking lot for Auschwitz.

Again, I thought, “how fitting…”

We grabbed umbrellas and ponchos, and told students that if they didn’t mind, to leave their phones and cameras on the bus. We wanted them to be *in* the moment. Not be *behind* a screen.

Silently, everyone got off the bus. We were ushered along to the entrance to meet our tour guide.

I took my phone with me. I knew I’d want to take a couple pictures for my US History classes when we cover the Holocaust. Otherwise, I wanted to keep my phone away like I had told the kids to. And for the vast majority of the 2-hour tour, I did.

Some photos of our tour:

This tombstone was repeated more than 20 times in different languages on each one. It was beautiful to walk by and see so many world languages representing in remembrance of the victims.

I choked back tears as hard as I could while writing this post. Every word I wrote, and every photo I inserted, made a very specific image flash before my eyes: It was the suitcases.

There’s a room of suitcases in one of the buildings that has been turned into a museum. The suitcases got me. Hard. In the gut, soul, heart, brain, and fingers down to my toes.

Piles upon piles of suitcases with people’s names on them. Real people who were told to pack up one single suitcase of their belongings. They were given hope that they would need their belongings.

Each person wrote their name and address on the suitcase. They thought they would be returning home one day.

Just 10 days prior, I had put my name and address on my suitcase. I knew I would need my belongings. I knew I would be returning home with them. And in case the luggage was lost, it would find it’s way back home to me in Colorado. Guaranteed.

Just earlier that morning, our little tour group piled suitcases upon suitcases on the bus. With no hesitation that it wouldn’t be joining us in Poland.

The feeling of complete and utter loss just destroyed me on every level.

And it still destroys me today.

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I will never forget those suitcases. The names and the addresses on them. Written in beautiful cursive, so typical of the 1930s.

I will never forget the gas chamber as I silently walked through it. The clear-as-day scratchings in the walls as people clawed for their lives at it.

I will never forget the END of the railroad tracks. Literally the end. There was nothing after it. No more stops after Birkenau. It was their final destination in this life.

I will never forget how glad I was that it wasn’t sunny. I didn’t want the sun to be out. I was so grateful for clouds and rain. I didn’t feel like we deserved sunshine on this day.

I will never ever ever forget the atrocities of the Nazi regime inflicted upon 1.1 million innocent lives at Auschwitz + Birkenau, and the approximately SEVENTEEN MILLION victims of the Holocaust.

-Jaclyn