Oswiecim-Auschwitz June 14

Confronted horrors that have haunted me for years was powerful. We visited the city of Oswiecim, named Aushwitz by Germans. The Stammlager, main camp, was built in 1940, and first housed Pols, including Anna Tilton’s father, not a Jew, who was one the first prisoners sent here. He worked at the camp until he escaped from a transport several years later. Auschwitz is the only camp that tatooed its prisoners. Auschwitz – Birkenau, built 3 miles away, was created in order to accommodate a larger population of Jews. In total, the two camps had over 1.3 million prisoners enter of whom 1.1 million died. Workers from the first camp helped construct Birkenau, which was ready in 1942. Russian troops liberated both camps in January 1945.

Auschwitz Stammlager is very intact. Originally it housed the Polish army. Our guide led us through the dehumanization experienced in the camp. Barracks were mades of brick. Trains stopped outside the camp, prisoners entered with their families and their belongings carried from the ghettos from which they were deported. They were then separated from both, men to one side and women and children to the other side, while belongings were left behind. They were stripped, showered, deloused, shaved of all body hair and placed in barracks, slepping on straw or wooden bunks. Dehumaization included beatings. Surprisingly, until 1943, prisoners were photographed. Many are exhibited in the barracks with dates under the photos reveal ing that most people lived 3 to 8 months before succumbing or being murdered. Three times a day they assembled outside. The camps is very flat and becomes muddy quickly as we discovered. Exhibits in barracks show huge quantities of hair not used in fabric material by the Germans, confiscated shoes, and suitc ases with names and hometowns to which they never returned. Canada is the name for the centers where confiscated goods were sorted and returned to Gemany. Barbed wire fencing double rowed prohibited escape. The first prisoners relocatd to the Stammlager were from Mauthausen concentratino camp in Austria. The were criminals that were given jobs of herding other prisoners and they treated other prisoners brutally without concern. Only a couple of uprisings resulted in suscessful escape. Uprisings and escapes led to more beatings and murders of the prisoners.

Auschwitz – Birkenau was created in order to accommodate a larger population of Jews deported from Ghettos and other concentration camps. It is by far a larger territory; ultimately it accomodated around 90,000 people at a time. It is immense. Much of the camp was destroyed by Germans to disgusie the true purposeof the camp. Together there were 5 gas chambers, one at the Stammlager, two of that size at Birkenau and then two more at Birkenau into which nearly 2000 could be crammed. After they were gassed and dead, the bodies were moved within the same building to ovens and creamated.

This is where many Kahn family members were sent from German Ghettos and concentration campus and killed. This includes my Dad, Karl’s, aunt and uncle, Johanna and Leopold Kahn, with whom he and his parents lived above their department store in Gross Gerau, Germany.

Our guide is a Polish Jew, whom I will call Dovid, from Krakow, and a survivor of Auschwitz Birkenau. His grandmother, mother and sister were murdered whille in the Krakow Ghetto. Dovid was 13 when he, his two older brothers and father were was sent to the Plaistoff concentration camp from the Krakow ghetto. This is the place where Schindlers List describes life in the Plaistoff camp. After being sent to Mauthausen in 1943, Dovid and his father were sent to Auschwitz – Birkenau, in August 1944. He was imprisoned for three months in an infirmary barrack before being sent to a work camp in October 1944.

The first view of Birkenau is the train tracks that enter a couple hundred yards into the camp. Here the barbed wired is double wide and electrified. Guard houses are everywhere.

Our CCHS group enters Auschwitz – Birkenau with Dovid who begins by saying here we come to grips with our emotions about the Holocaust. Chocking back tears, Dovid describes entering the camp on a cramped cattle car of a train with his father and 100 others. A cattle car stand before us, 100 people occupied a space of approximately 120 square feet for three days with no food or water. People stood, deficated and died during on this cattle car. There were thousands of people disembarking from the train. The sorting process was led by Germans, Dad goes left and Dovid goes right. It was the last time he saw his father. I am picturing my Leopold and Johanna entering entering the camp.

Leaving the track we walk to gas chamber number 2. It was blown up by Germans before Russians entered the camp, but the collapsed structures remain. We walk past the Holocaust memorial, turn left and stare into the facility that killed 2000 at one gassing and immediately cremated them to ashes. Dovid lights a memorial candle and asks if we can say Kaddish, the prayer that thanks God for life and is said in honor of the dead. He leads the prayer while we all stand over the death chamber. He turns back and sheds more tears. My brother Gary says he is holding the deportatino papers signed by Leopold and Johanna. I utter their names as is common during a memorial prayer. We begin crying. I try to compose myself long enough to say that saying their names is symbolic of the many relatives Mom and Dad lost in this and other camps. Their loss is our loss, L’dor V’dor, from generation to generation. It is no use to try to stop.

Many embrances follow. First with my brother, then with Hank, then a longer one with Dovid. While holding each other we share names. I ask his father’s name, Jakob, then I ask his Hebrew name, Yisrael, the name the Bible describes Jacob takes after seeing God. It is the same as my Hebrew name and that of my grandfather.

The walk around the camp continues for 4 hours learning of the how different groups were brought to this death camp and suffered worse than death experiences. We return to Krakow.