Auschwitz Birkenau

Nothing prepares you for it. That feeling of desolation. Of overwhelming sadness that you just can’t suppress. As you step on the ground that once housed millions of Jewish people during World War II the reality of Auschwitz rides over you like a wave. No amount of history classes can prepare you for the sense of loss that inhabits every plank of wood in the sleep quarters and every blade of grass that grows over what was once a gas chamber.

Although there are thirty of us in our group the only sound is that of gravel underfoot and the breeze as if echoes through the empty buildings. Our guide speaks softly in Polish accented English as we enter what was once the women’s quarters. It was here that thousands of women, alone and scared, waited. Waited to live, waited to die, waited for a future that might never come. When looking at the single bunks, their hard wooden frames, it is unfathomable to imagine twenty or more women squeezed into such a small space. Suddenly the musty smell of dirt and stale air becomes stifling and I have to leave. As fresh air fills my lungs my eyes scan the immense land before me. To describe the camp as large does not do it justice. There are remnants of barbed wire as far as I can see and despite its size, the entire place is still.

As I walk towards a square grey building situated near the back corner of the camp there is a sense of foreboding. As thirty of us crammed into the small building we were asked by our guide to look up. Above our heads was an almost indiscernible hole. It was through this gap that Zyklon B, a cyanide based pesticide, would be placed, effectively killing all inside. We were in one of the many gas chambers at Auschwitz. To think of hundreds of people in here when thirty seemed tight was shocking. Imagining the fear they must have experienced was heartbreaking. From the outside it is such an insignificant, banal structure but inside it is steeped in history and lives lost.

It is not until I leave, until I leave Auschwitz behind me, in the past where I found it, that I allow the first tear to fall. The tightness that had been gripping my chest for the last hour was finally released and I lost myself in the memories of others and in a past that was not mine to claim, a past that was completely foreign to me. This unknown culture, so relevant to the identity of this country, was not mine but for an hour it would seem I finally understood.