Learning About History Can Be Hard

One of the sights we saw this week was Auschwitz concentration camp. Even though we had prepared to go there, it was a place I didn't really want to visit. But it's one of those places that you have to visit. Our trip started with a one and a half hour bus ride to the town of Oswiecim. If the ride had been much longer it may have been more memorable because Jenna was feeling car sick. Luckily she made it and felt much better once we got off the bus.

The web sight for Auschwitz recommends visitors be 14 and older. If you know our family, you realize that only half of us are that old, (Seth is close!). But what do you do when you are traveling as a family and don't have a friend or family member to leave the younger ones with? If you arrive before 3:00 you have to visit with a guided tour. Thinking that would be hard with our younger children, we decided to enter after 3:00 when we could visit on our own which would give us more flexibility as we tried to make the visit age appropriate. Our bus arrived at 2:30 so we found a bench outside and ate our snacks. (Eating snacks on benches seems to be a common occurrence for us). It was a good thing I ate then, because it was much later until I even felt like eating again!

At 3:00 we were able to pass under the gate “Work brings freedom”.  We took a family picture, and joked that it wouldn't make a very good Christmas card picture. I'm not sure how to describe my feelings as I walked around the camp. I felt sadness, anger, frustration, grief, helplessness, and horror. As we went into the museums, we left Joe and Jenna outside until we had previewed them and decided which ones they should see. The museums are in the actual buildings (called blocks) that were used for housing, medical experiments, torture and interrogations. After seeing the one about interrogation, and punishments Sam said the ones who were killed in the gas chambers right away were the lucky ones. After exiting that museum I just had a sick to my stomach kind of feeling. I wasn't sure I wanted to see anymore and I sure didn't want to think about eating. But I continued on.

Gate into Auschwitz

After visiting the first camp we took the shuttle bus to Auschwitz II also know as Birkenau. The Germans built that camp in 1942 when they realized the first camp wasn't big enough. I was amazed at the size of the second camp and it's mind boggling to realize it was all planned out. We only had 45 minutes to spend at the second camp in order to catch our bus back to Krakow. We followed the train track to the end of the line. That is where prisoners were unloaded and either sent to the gas chamber or chosen to live a little longer. At the end of the war, the Germans blew up the gas chambers so now they are just piles of bricks.

End of the rail line.  Straight down the track is the entrance to Auschwitz II.

Remains of a Gas chamber

At the end of our day, some of our family members were hungry and grabbed a hamburger, but I still didn't want to eat anything. There is also a restaurant at the camp, but that is the last place I would want to eat!

A few days after visiting I'm still not sure how I feel about it. I am glad I went, but right now I don't think I ever need to return there. Even looking at the photos we took gives me a chilling feeling. I hope we didn't scar our kids for life by taking them there. I hope as they get older and learn more about the Holocaust they will remember being there and that they can do their part to make sure nothing like that happens again. We talked about tolerance, and accepting others despite our differences. I hope in some small way our family can be better people after taking the time to visit Auschwitz.