The Gate

I'm not sure if anything could have fully prepared me to enter Auschwitz. Walking out of the visitor center towards Auschwitz - I, the fences are apparent. Layered, barbed and electrified, they are more than you would probably see at any normal prison, but this is not a normal prison. The guard towers loom overhead and around the corner is a most infamous piece of history – the gate, "Arbeit Macht Frei," "Work Makes You Free," stares straight through all the those who pass under it just as it did years ago, and just like that you're in the epicenter of the Holocaust.

In the past two weeks, our group has experienced a lot. Not all of it was as distressing as our time at Auschwitz and Birkenau. Before Poland, we went on two short trips to Terezín, another concentration camp, and Kroměříž, home to the old palace of the archbishop of Olomouc, both in the Czech Republic. In Poland we explored the jewel city of Krakow and some of it’s more interesting attractions.



Terezín is a saddening place just like Auschwitz. It was a dual concentration and transit camp, meaning prisoners were detained, starved, and often tortured there, but towards the end of the war it served as a camp which Jews were brought for a short time before being transferred to an extermination camp like Auschwitz. It also bears the mantra "Arbeit Macht Frei" on its front gate. The most interesting part of Terezín is that it was actually used as propaganda tool by the Nazis. In efforts to fool the international community of the realities within their camps and the ghettos, the Nazis cleaned up the camp in Terezín to look hospitable, built fake shops and restaurants, and bribed the Jews to act like they were living comfortably. They even shot a propaganda film there to throw the allies and the rest off their trail. After visiting the former camp we went to a small museum memorializing the arts and culture of the Terezín Jewish ghetto. Though sad, it was inspiring to see the paintings and drawings that artists produced in the Ghetto. In particular, I liked the work of Bedřich Fritta and Leo Haas.



Kroměříž was a vacation spot of the archbishop of Olomouc, so the palace was his summer home. It also seemed to be where he kept most of his stuff. Ornately decorated rooms filled the palace. Notable is the "game room" where the walls are covered in hunting trophies and ancient weapons all the way up to the ceiling. The banquet hall, though, is most famous for being featured in Miloš Forman's film Amadeus. Outside the palace are some beautiful gardens one of which is free to the public and filled with nice vegetation and some animals that roam freely. After the palace tour we visited the ancient wine cellar beneath it still in operation. Walking through the mold-covered stone foundations of the palace was a little disturbing (apparently the mold is perfect for properly aging wine) but the "tasting" at the end was very enjoyable. I say "tasting" because at the frequency at which our guide was opening new bottles it more or less felt like we were guzzling the wine. That's the Czech Republic for you.


Ostrava, Czech Republic was along the way on our trip to Poland. It sits near the border and was formerly the industrial center of the Czech Republic largely due to the large deposits of high quality black coal in its vicinity. While there we stopped by the remains of an enormous steel factory now a museum allowing visitors to walk among the enormous structures and even see the inside of one of the old blast furnaces. It was impressive to see this place and imagine oneself in the life of a Czech steel worker.

A distant factory in Ostrava, Czech Republic

 The four air heaters attached to the blast furnace.

Krakow, Poland is not quite what I expected. I had heard that it wasn't very big and that there wasn't much to see or do. This was completely wrong. Krakow is in fact a bustling city quite similar to Prague, though significantly smaller. Restaurants, cafes and traditional shops are abundant. Many buildings wave the Polish flag proudly, and icons of the city’s legendary dragon, Smok, litter the tourist shops around the main square. My favorite part of our time in Krakow was undoubtedly the Wieliczka Salt Mine just outside the city. I strongly encourage a visit if you have the chance. The second oldest salt mine in Poland, it produced salt from the 13th century until 1996 when the mine was closed due to low salt prices and flooding. Water in a salt mine is very bad news if you were wondering. Now the mine is open to tourists, but don't worry, the entire complex is outfitted with pumps and monitored daily to keep the water out. It's a good thing too because walking through the mine is a breathtaking experience. Rock salt sculptures and reliefs decorate many of the caverns, especially the great chapel, a huge hall which can now be reserved for weddings. There is also a cavern so tall that an it held two records for the highest underground base jump and first underground hot-air balloon flight. Public tours explore the oldest parts of the mine, the top levels about 400ft down, but the whole complex of mines is absolutely humongous – we only saw 1% of it on our tour. It was truly an incredible experience.

The staircase leading down to the Wieliczka Salt Mine.

Auschwitz was the final stop on our journey in Poland. As I went through that infamous gate, I began to realize that I felt – confused, and that feeling never really left me. This was odd. I thought I was pretty well acquainted with the Holocaust. I’ve read several books, I’ve been to the museum in Washington, I’ve listened to accounts of Jews that experienced it, and we were all well prepared for what we were going to see and experience at Auschwitz. But as I saw and listened and walked I couldn’t shake the questions: “why would anyone do this?” and “how could anyone do this?” I know the reasons, but I still couldn’t shake their utter unbelievability. I think I started to really understand how the Jews and the Allies and the international community – even though they heard what the Nazis were doing – still couldn’t believe what was happening at Auschwitz. The Jews didn’t put up much of a fight and the Allies didn’t immediately try to liberate the camps because they just couldn’t believe what they heard was happening there despite all the evidence. I was there, stepping on the same earth as millions of people who suffered and died as well as the people who committed such atrocities, and still couldn’t entirely grasp the reality of what happened. In fact, I felt even more baffled than I had before, and I’m not really sure why. Despite all of this, however, I did have some moments of clarity about Auschwitz. We walked as a group through Auschwitz-Birkenau down the same long stretch along the tracks that so many walked to the gas chambers and their death. Our guide had asked us to remain silent as we walked in memory of them and in that silence I heard the birds and I saw the trees that rose up from the demolished crematoria to a blue sky and sunshine. It felt peaceful. There were no ghosts there, at least not to me. I held onto that thought as we finished our tour. On the whole, seeing Auschwitz was sort of a conflicting experience and a little bit indescribable. I decided not to take any photos while I was there, but it wasn’t a matter of respect for the dead. I wanted to experience Auschwitz without any distraction but my own thoughts and it turned out I was distracted plenty by them alone. It’s certainly a place that must be experienced. I can’t say that I found understanding or even comprehension, but perhaps that’s too much to expect from Auschwitz.

Until next time.
Trav