Aschwitz-Birkenhau Visit
The first thing to say to anyone wanting to visit this major death camp is to be prepared, go with an open mind and absorb what you are told and what you see. I will try to explain in my words what happened to me, my views and as you might expect, how we as a race must never let this happen again, in any shape or form.
I have for a very long time wanted to visit, to pay my respects and offer my peace to over a million souls that perished in such a barbaric way, either within 30 minutes, in the gas chambers with the notorious cyclon B, to many days from being experimented on, to several months; all depending on how you were selected at the time of your arrival. I will go into this a little later.
The nearest airport to Auschwitz is Kraków, and it takes just over 2 hours from London to fly there. The city has many interesting places to visit, including Schindler’s factory, who tried to rescue as many as he could, once he discovered what was really going on. There are the Ghettos, and this will give you a sense of what was happening before the forced removal to Auschwitz.
There were many concentration camps scattered over Europe but this one was the largest and people were transported here from all over Europe and fed the propaganda that this was going to be the last place they would come to before going to the promised land. Of course, this was so far from the truth, other than their demise.
The day of the visit
There are many tours and times to visit, I recommend the early one, as I discovered many visitors from all over Poland arrive each day. This did mean a 5 am coach pick up from my hotel and just under a 2-hour drive to Auschwitz. As you get closer, the atmosphere on the coach begins to change, and your guide will explain the rules of the visit and what you have to do. Security is tight at the camp and similar to an airport, so your bag will be scanned and you will pass through the “loop”. Try to bring as little as you can, you are allowed water. You will be walking in total over 5 miles during your visit, so sensible shoes and clothing are essential. There are a few areas that photographs are not allowed and it is clear why; respect where you are, this is a memorial and it is overwhelming.
From the car park and security, it has been carefully arranged that you can’t see the camp, and you are taken downstairs to collect your headset and audio transmitter, for your guide to talk to you without having to shout.
You are then taken into a long, wide tunnel, and over the PA system, the names of those who were killed are read out on a continuous loop. I would imagine it’s just run once a day.
When you leave the tunnel, the camp is then in front of you, and you walk about 5 minutes to the famous entrance “Arbeit Macht Frei” (work sets you free) how far from the truth this was and yet those taken here, like us visiting calmly walked inside not knowing what was going to happen. You are then shown where the “orchestra” sat playing each day as prisoners were brought past from the main gate or taken off to do work as dictated by the Third Reich. They were instructed to play “upbeat” music to enable the counting process at roll call, and at the start was a male-only orchestra, but towards the end was a mix of female and male musicians. Probably as they were depleted of male players, due to their extermination.
You are then walked around the various buildings and shown the horrendous display cases of people’s hair, which was removed when they arrived, to shoes, cases, and many medical aids, from crutches to walking frames, wheelchairs – anyone who had a disability was murdered very quickly upon arrival. You are shown where they slept and the overcrowded rooms, and the extermination block and wall where initially they were led to be shot.
They realised, of course, that a bigger plan was needed to terminate the 1000’s that were arriving each day, which is when the experiments of using gas (Cyclon B) were decided upon.
The last building you are shown is where Dr Josef Mengele experimented on both the forced sterilisation of females and horrid experiments on children, mainly twins, which he had some bizarre fascination. Plus, of course, other children with disabilities they were killed at his pleasure.
You are then walked towards the only remaining gas chamber, through the inner perimeter electric fence, to this area that shows this bunker; just outside the entrance, is the actual gallows that were used to execute Rudolf Hoess after the war and the Nuremberg trials. His living accommodation was less than 50 yards from this gas chamber, where he lived with his family and children, his youngest being born at the camp. Again, the mix of horror and yet family life went on close, side by side.
You are then allowed to enter the gas chamber, passing through the solid metal door that was sealed once you were inside, a dark space, with dim lights, and remains of scratches on the wall where the occupants tried in vain to escape once the gas started to take effect. The gas canisters dropped in through the roof vents, and in less than 30 minutes, all would be dead.
The second inner door would be opened, and this led to the cremators where the bodies were burnt, and then the ash taken to nearby forests to be scattered. Remember all this within yards of family homes.
Of course, this was not big enough for the number of Jews and others to be killed, so we were then put back on the bus and driven the 10 minutes to Auschwitz 2 – Birkenau “The final solution”. The more seen camp on tv and films with the famous building that has the railway passing through into the wide area where the tracks divide. This is where the sorting began…. In a very efficient way.
Trains would arrive, and the people jumped down or were helped down onto the ground. There were no platforms like we all know, so quite a big drop. They were lined up, women and children, the sick and disabled in one line and everyone else in another. The real shock hit me, that would mean, all 3 of mine would be terminated and probably my eldest experimented on under Dr Josef Mengele ….. I shuddered… and had a gut-wrenching moment.
They were told to leave their belongings as they would get them back later. One senior officer would be at the front of the lines, then deciding whether people turned right (spared) or left (the gas chambers) and the line would slowly walk the ½ mile or so towards their death. Of course, still not realising this was going to happen. The design of them was quite amazing, if that is the right word, for such a horrendous place. They were built semi-underground to disguise them with the main entrance being down a slope, so all could enter easily, into this large room, with hooks and benches and told due to the length of time they had been travelling they were to have a proper shower and be clean for the next part of their journey to the promised land. The guide said there was rarely any panic, and although the numbers far outweighed the number of guards and as a collective could have stopped it, we all comply, especially if things were done calmly.
So they removed their clothes, hung them on the hooks, and were told to enter the second room, which even had fake shower heads in the ceiling. The inner solid door was then shut, and an officer dropped the Cyclon B in through the roof and waited…..
The Third Reich didn’t do any of the horrid parts themselves… the captives who were spared cleared the clothing from the first room, and when ½ hour or so passed and all were dead, would then go in and start to cremate the bodies – again the ash was taken to the local forests for dumping. They would be able to kill up to 1000 per day, and they had 4 chambers on the site in total towards the end of the time before the Russians found the camp.
At one stage, there were too many for the chambers to deal with, and huge fire pits were dug where the bodies were just dumped and set alight.
There is a memorial at the end of the camp to honour the dead, and it’s very moving indeed.
We were then shown a hut where the ones who were kept alive lived, if you can call it living. Packed into small multilayer bunks, with no heat, sanitation, and disease was rife. Told about the small amounts of food they had, and yet still expected to work long days. Their life expectancy was usually about 6 months, which again was a shock as I thought the ones that were “spared” made it… only a very few did. As I thought about this horrid place, in some ways, it would have been better be picked for extermination than this additional suffering, which still left the majority to be murdered. The full operation of this camp was 18 months to again show you the scale of how many were terminated in a relatively short amount of time.
We were then left to walk back and take in this area of such horror and sadness and make our way back to the bus. It was a surreal journey back through beautiful countryside to Krakow. Nature concealing these bad events.
To summarise, I do feel everyone should visit and absorb what went on here; to see what extremism can do when it takes power and how we can accept and follow rules even if they do not make sense. Even if we are inflicting such bad things on our own people as the captives, in the hope of staying alive, would do.
Extremism at any level, Is not acceptable and we must call them out at an early stage, which sadly in 2025, we are not doing enough to stop history repeating.
Thanks for reading
Richard – 22nd May 2025