10th Dec '08 - Auschwitz

5am -

Yesterday took the bus to Auschwitz and took a guided tour. 330 000 Jews from England were designated to be killed by the Nazis, once they took that land. The list was on display showing where the eleven million Jews they planned to exterminate came from. It was all terrible. 400 000 official prisoners at Auschwitz and Birkenau. 200 000 died there, often recorded as from natural causes. Though many unregistered were also killed. For example, at Birkenau they were sorted straight from the train. Those who were fit to work (approx 25%) and those who went straight to the chambers of death. 1.1 million Jews and a total of 1.6 million people were killed at these camps. There was a wall at which bullets were put in the back of prisoners heads, with pistols... the wall of death. Too much to write about. Hair and teeth removed from the dead. Hair for textiles. Shoes, clothes, suit cases, utensils, piled up ready for export.

The development of it all. First the Polish elite were prisoners at Auschwitz. Remove the identity of the people. It was on 20th Jan 1942 that the "final solution" for the Jews was decided upon. 1940 they planned on shipping them to Madagascar. 1941 to Siberia. Extermination was easier. 1944 seemed to be the most efficient time of the killing, particularly of Hungarian Jews - off the train in Birkenau and sorted like cattle. Going to the gas-chambers not fearful of what awaited them. They were being given new land to live on. First they needed to be disinfected/showered etc. Naked they went into the rooms, where shower nozzles hung and motors ran outside to drown out any noise of those before being killed.

The death was an internal asphyxiation, the gas preventing the passage of oxygen (I think) from the lungs to the blood, or the blood onwards. Twenty-three minutes all in the chamber would be dead. After thirty minutes they opened the doors.

Bikenau, purpose built (Auschwitz was an old Polish army barracks), had sections for women, Jews, Gypsies etc Triangles showed your reason for condemnation. I remember pink was for homosexuals, two triangles forming the star of David for Jews, and another for those of the resistance...

One hundred and forty-four prisoners escaped in total, out of about eight hundred who attempted. Those that made it, by being out of the camp working, or stealing an SS uniform, helped get the news out about what was happening. If prisoners escaped others were punished, not just those who aided the act.

Most prisoners of war could not be taken to places like Auschwitz and Birkenau because their motherlands had signed the Geneva convention. They went to other camps. Colditz, for example. However, the Russians had not signed this convention and I believe three million of their captives were killed (or is that the total number of Russian soldiers that died during this war?). They were the only soldiers at Auschwitz and Birkenau.

Well, I cannot get emotionally involved with it all. Horrible. Shocking. But a part of what humans do... perform a task and shut out the affect on others. It goes on now in different guises. The Americans go to war in Iraq and (whether for "greater good" motives or not) the commanders shut out the killing and pain they have to cause. Oil companies side with Burmese Generals to get a contract, somewhat supporting the regime and its ruthless government. They say if they didn't less scrupulous companies would be in the country. My point is that in life many a blind-eye is turned and that these atrocities were more concentrated examples. I'm not saying oil companies shouldn't be in Burma (not for oil though!)... I'm largely ignorant...