You knew this was coming.
I decided to check out Krakow because a) everyone says its the best city in Poland, b) the New York Times told me to and c) sometimes it's nice to be a regular tourist and not have to take notes with my Professional Reporter's Notebook.
Krakow indeed has heaps to recommend it, including three UNESCO World Heritage Sites -- one of which is Auschwitz-Birkenau. So homegirl booked a visit. The drive, which takes about an hour, was actually pretty scenic and the weather was in the low 70s and sunny. I don't know about you folks, but I expected to roll up to the town of Oświęcim only to have the sky cloud over and then take a long ominous road to a rural concentration camp. Not the case! Auschwitz I, which is home to the famed "arbeit macht frei" sign, is pretty much in the village. My minibus pulled into a parking lot and parked amongst a sea of similar vehicles. Then we wandered past a cafe (!?!?!) and a small giftshop (?!?!?!) before starting our tour. Maybe I've seen too many Spielberg films, but shouldn't shit be a little more ominous than this? I don't know, maybe I'm 87 years old but I don't think a tour of the world's most heinous concentration camp should include a guy carrying a Fanta and wearing flip-flops (that's right, I said it). There were also WAY too many people there. Does writing a guide mean I'm a snob about this stuff? No. It means I've been to enough places that I know a well-run site when I see it, and this wasn't it. People were freakin' herded all over the place, it was overcrowded and ridiculous.
Anyways.
The tour itself (outside of my aforementioned bitching) was crazy. I mean, crazy-appalling. I mean, crazy-shocking-appalling. Tour guide Monika took us through several former bunks that now house various exhibits, including an entire hallway of mugshots featuring people who made their way to Auschwitz. There's also a giant room filled with nothing but hair (the Nazis used human hair to make cloth...gag), a room filled with suitcases (in which you can still see the names/birthdays of the people who owned them) and a trip to an underground prison that's straight nauseating. The two hour tour of Auschwitz I ends with a visit to a gas chamber and crematorium (you can snap a pic of the ovens...which is where I draw the line). Outside you can see the gallows where the original commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolph Hoess, was hanged in 1947.
From there you hop back in your minibus and drive a short way to Auschwitz-Birkenau (the third part of Auschwitz, known as Monowitz, isn't part of the tour. It was a camp built especially for the slave labor used at Buna-Werke industrial complex. Originally the camp prisoners would walk the 4.5 miles to the complex each day from Auschwitz, but being malnourished they showed up unable to really put in a solid 18 hours of work, so they built this minicamp closer to Buna-Werke).
For me, Birkenau was the really head-exploding part of the tour. I had *no idea* just how massive the camp was. And let me tell you: it was huge. After passing through the main entry where the cattle trains brought in prisoners you see endless barbed wire fencing, a few wood buildings, and then miles of brick chimneys. Because the original bunks were basically temporary wooden structures, the museum used what was left of the many bunks to construct one solid row of buildings, and the remains of the rest are simply the chimneys. Row after row after row. It definitely made the numbers more vivid. I tried to get a picture that would show it, but I'm not sure I succeeded:
We also saw one of the train cars and the remnants of the gas chamber and crematorium, which the Nazis blew up right before the camp was liberated -- didn't really cover their tracks, but it makes for an impressive pile of rubble. When the tour is over you can wander or hit the GIFT SHOP. I'm not sure they actually call it that, but you can go inside and buy books, postcards, posters of the camp (the fuck?) etc. Umm...no. I can't with that, I really can't. It just seems disrespectful. Then again, maybe letting tourbusloads of people tromp all over the site is disrespectful. I don't really have the answer. I am glad I went (and as Tricia says, "you will probably have to stare at a pretty flower for a day or two, after Auschwitz") but I'm still a little skeeved by how it's conducted (oh yeah, and by the atrocities).
Yowsa.
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