Auschwitz

My desire for this trip started with last year’s 8th grade class. As we began reading the Elie Wiesel’s autobiography Night, these particular students bombarded me with questions. As this was only my second year teaching this book, and I can in no way say that I know it in the way that I know To Kill a Mockingbird, their questions made me anxious. Each day we would read a little and then the questions would begin.

“What did Auschwitz look like? How big was it? Were there just Jews in concentration camps? Did the people in surrounding towns know about these camps? Why did they get on those trains? Why didn’t the inmates try to escape the camps? What did they eat? Where did the sleep? Did Hitler ever come to Auschwitz? What happened after they survived? After they died?”

Each day had me on edge, I knew some of these answers, but many more that I did not. I also knew that my vague answers were not good enough for the boys. They wanted so much from me and from our unit of study that I needed a way to get it to them. I did so much research and reading in the last year about Auschwitz-Birkenau (where Elie and his family are sent), but mainly what I needed was a visual. The boys didn’t want to hear me say, “Auschwitz was located 30 km from the city of Krakow...” They wanted to see it! I found some great websites that gave us interactive maps showing how large Auschwitz, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Auschwitz-Monowitz were (Auschwitz, though commonly referred to as one camp, was actually separated into three camps- Elie Wiesel spent time in all three sections). I was so proud of myself for finding these maps and photos, but when class was over there was still this sense of something missing. They hadn’t gotten their fill of information; they wanted (no-needed) more. But how do I get more? How much more reading can I do? So when Mrs. Wilson and I heard about the Winchenbaugh grant generously donated to teachers looking to travel to enhance their curriculum, we knew that a trip to Europe studying sites of the Holocaust and World War II would greatly benefit both ourselves and our students.

Yesterday, that desire became a reality, as Mrs. Wilson and I toured the death camp, Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau. The Nazis destroyed much of the Auschwitz section when they heard troops were coming in, so much of it was burned to the ground, in hopes of concealing their deeds. The Auschwitz museum has built replicas in its place, but used the artifacts that could not be concealed. The Nazis burned many of the records of those kept at Auschwitz, yet they did not destroy the luggage with the names of the victims, the millions of shoes (both adult and children), or the pounds of human hair the Allied armies found in storage bags. All of this was on display in the replicas of bunkers. We saw the infamous bunker 11 where the Nazis perfected their use of Zyclon B- later used to gas the one-million Jews that died at Auschwitz-Birkenau. We saw cell 18 in Bunker 11, where Fr. Maxmillian Kolbe was sent to die of starvation in a retaliation punishment. Some of you know his story- he offered himself to the Nazis for this punishment in place of a Polish man who cried when they started to take him. Fr. Kolbe bravely took his place, and lasted 14 days without food or water. The SS men were tired of waiting for him to die and gave him a lethal injection to the heart-later claiming he died of a heart attack. In his cell, Pope John Paul placed a candle (one of four he placed in the country of Poland). We also saw the gallows where many inmates were hanged for trying to escape, or for taking extra food, or simply used as a reminder for other inmates to “behave.” The same can be said for the wall of execution, where the SS men took the inmates from bunker 11 and shot them in the head. The inmates were lined up and brought out one by one to the wall. From there we went to see the gas chamber and first crematorium used on the site of Auschwitz. Because the room was small and there were only three ovens in the crematorium, they could only kill about 300 inmates a day. That upped the need for a more efficient way of killing for the Nazis and so they created a mass killing center at Auschwitz-Birkenau (camp 2).

When we arrived at Birkenau, the first thing to see is the railroad that goes nowhere. It was all a trick to get the Jews to think they were at a checkpoint before going on to Krakow, their final destination. However, this was their final destination. Mrs. Wilson and I saw yesterday, the spot where SS men forced the Jews to disembark their train cars and line up for selection. Some were sent left, some were sent right. Some lived and some died. What struck both of us the most at Birkenau was the sheer mass of the site. I have read the dimensions, I have calculated the number of deaths, I have seen the pictures of huddled inmates, but I was still unprepared for the blocks of barracks that went on for what seemed like forever. There are only 22 barracks left standing, but hundreds of chimneys (for a heating system that wouldn’t work, but looked good to the Red Cross) left that showed where more bunkers once stood. It was an amazing site to behold.


I am still anxious about the questions that I will get this year when I read Night with my new set of 8th graders, but I can provide so much more than pictures, maps and statistics now. For now: I have walked the dirt road of those who suffered, I have touched the walls where they once leaned, and I have prayed where they once prayed. I know I speak for both Mrs. Wilson and myself, when I tell you that seeing this place has changed us, as teachers and as human-beings. I feel so grateful to be here to bear witness to such a place.