Whatever you have heard or read about Auschwitz cannot possibly describe the unspeakable horror of this place. Now I know why Elie Wiesel described this death camp as "Planet Auschwitz." It is unearthly, surreal, and hellish.
My mother suffered her greatest loss here: the separation from her mother at the gates of Auschwitz-Birkenau followed by the realization that both of her parents were murdered--gassed and cremated within moments of arrival. Today, I walked along the tracks that brought my mother and grandparents as well as members of my father's family and then to the gas chambers and crematoria where they perished. I saw with my on eyes what the Holocaust denier say never happened.
My guide, Shimon (see picture) took me first to Auschwitz I, the camp made famous by its iconic gate, "Arbeit Mach Frei" (work makes you free.) Built in 1941, this camp served as a prototype for the larger extermination that was to take place in Auschwitz-Birkenau, located a 5-minute drive away. In Auschwitz I, Nazis experimented with Zyclon B to see how much of the deadly gas needed to be administered to kill not just hundreds, but thousands at a time. I saw the torture chambers. I saw where medical experiments were performed. I saw where the firing squads killed political prisoners.
Also at this first camp, several of the buildings have been transformed into exhibit areas. Of all the exhibits, the most horrifying for me was the hall of human hair, mountains of tresses shorn from the dead and used to make rugs. This image will haunt me for a long time.
I stayed at Auschwitz I for two hours. Unlike my visit to Auschwitz of 25 years ago, this time I was escorted by a private tour guide. When I first visited the death camp in 1985, I was young and naive enough to rent a car in Krakow and drive to Auschwitz alone. There were no organized tours. There was only one marker that referred to "1.5 million Poles died here." There was no reference to Jews, even though 90% of those who died in Auschwitz were Jewish. I left quickly, unable to stomach the little that I saw. I never even saw Auschwitz-Birkenau on that trip a quarter-century ago.
Today my guide Shimon muscled me past the organized tours of Polish school children and adults who arrived in large buses, past the book store, and past the museum tour entrance. In somber, Slavic-accented tones, Shimon gave me the history of this nightmarish place. Knowledgeable, sensitive, and professional, Shimon also asked me about my mother's experience here so that he could guide me more effectively. I was surprised to learn that my mother never was in Auschwitz I and never saw the gates that promised freedom. In August, 1944, she and her parents arrived directly from Lodz into Birkenau. Shimon told me that based on what my mother remembered, she was sent to the transit camp while her parents were sent to their deaths a few hundred yards away. One month later, my father's family came from Budapest and also arrived directly to Birkenau.
It is a long walk from the Birkenau train ramp to the gas chambers where my grandparents met their end. I could not muster the strength to take many photos, feeling that to do so is somewhat disrespectful. The suffering that took place on this hallowed ground is still palpable, even though two of the crematoria no longer exist and though my mother's barracks are also gone. The barbed wire fences remain. The empty guardhouses still stand watch over the ghostly terrain.
I stood in front of the remains of two crematoria, and, not knowing the words to a Jewish prayer for the dead, I simply read aloud the names of my family who died in this forsaken place:
Hinda Dworja Dobrzynski Galas, my grandmother
Abram Michal Galas, my grandfather
Berta Shlesinger Munk, my great-grandmother
Gizella Stein Munk, my great-great-aunt
Irma Weisz Krausz, my great-aunt
Gyorgy Krausz, my cousin
Tamas Weisz, my cousin
Magda Munk, my cousin
Rachel Estera Dobrzynska, my cousin
Agnes Weisz, my cousin
I spoke my father's mother's name, Rosza Weisz Munk. She survived Auschwitz.
Last, I uttered my mother's name: Fayga Galas. She too survived Auschwitz. She stayed there for a few weeks, no doubt in shock, and was deported to Bergen-Belsen and then to Salzwedel, a labor camp. But I know my mother's life ended at Auschwitz where she let go of her mother's hand and never saw her again.
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