Day Six - Auschwitz-Birkenau

This morning we took the bus to Oswiencim (the German's named it Auschwitz). We first visited the synagogue and the Jewish Museum, about the history of the Jews in the town of Oswiencim. The town used to be a thriving center of Jewish life, well over 50% of the population was Jewish. The synagogue managed to survive the war due to its use as a storehouse. Today there are 0 Jews living in Oswiencim, yet the synagogue appears fully functional with many siddurim and a sefer Torah. The Museum also contained an exhibit on the Jews from Oswiencim who survived the war and their lives today, many in Israel. It was amazing to read their stories and see pictures of their happy families today.
Then we went to the outskirts of the town to the camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau. We started with a tour of Auschwitz, which is very much intact. We walked through the barracks, many of which have been converted into exhibits. The exhibits helped to show the magnitude of the horrors that occurred at this place. The first few were about the many different people, Jews and non-Jews, who were sent to Auschwitz from all over Europe. Many of whom were forced to buy their own train tickets, as they were told they were being resettled to a better place. In the next set of exhibits were the many different things collected by the Nazis which help people to better understand the number of people who were murdered and also the extent of the cruelty and dehumanization inflicted by the Nazis. What struck me the most in this exhibit was the room full of hair, which after being shaved off of mainly women's heads was to be used to make carpets and other such things. The collection of baby clothes and toys brought tears to my eyes as I thought of the horrible treatment of children and babies, who were murdered before they had a chance to live. We left Aucshwitz and headed over to Birkenau, 2 miles away, and were struck by the train tracks which lead right into the center of the camp, stopping at the area where the people were seperated and marched either into the gas chambers or into barracks that were actually horse stables. The majority of this camp was destroyed by the Nazis to try and cover up the atrocities that occurred there, all that remains are some of the barracks and the chimneys of those buildings whcih were burnt down. The camp is enormous and perhaps the size of this one camp of many, helped for me to begin to understand the number of people who were murdered.
We returned to Krakow and prepared for Shabbat, it was important for me to feel Jewish and to be a practicing Jew, after seeing the remains of the attempt to destroy Jews and eliminate Judaism from the world. We went to the Remuh synagogue in Kazimierz for a lovely Kabbalat Shabbat. We were amazed at the amount of people who were at services who were not Jewish. After services, we (along with the majority of the Jewish/wanna-be-Jewish population of Krakow) made our way to the JCC for dinner. We were so grateful to be with such wonderful people after such a difficult day.