Auschwitz-Birkenou and Terezin Visits

Among all the trips we have done so far, the visit to the concentration camp is understandably not high on my list. I don’t say this in anyway to be disrespectful, I do not intend to offend anyone. Before coming on this trip, I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to go at all on these visits. It’s difficult to explain but maybe it just felt wrong being there. It felt wrong that it was a museum at all, and I didn't know whether me even being there was disrespectful. How can I possibly understand what the conditions were like for these people? Sure, I have read and studied extensively about the Holocaust since 6^th grade in middle school. I've heard all the horrible stories, read the most notable Holocaust books, and watched dozens of movies and documentaries on the subject. I understand why it is a museum, I understand that it needs to be preserved as a momentum of remembrance.

The first thing I must say, is that whatever emotions and feeling you have about your visit prior to and after the trips here – I assure you they are completely normal. Everyone reacted differently in our group, and I felt relieved when we finally discussed our feelings, because I realized I wasn't the only one who was hesitant about going.

I’ll start first with the visit to Terezin. My first impression of the camp was not what I expected. Years had passed since the awful events had taken place, but it simply didn't look like a place of torture and genocide. The camp itself was relatively small. Terezin wasn't known to be a death camp. It was mostly used for prisoners of wars. We were, however, shown the barracks where the prisoners were kept and I think that was the part of the camp that was most touching. The room we saw was small, and for the most part clean. But I couldn’t imagine over 100 people living there. In our group, there was about 30 people and we could barely move. The Jews were kept in another room, a completely dark and even smaller room with one tiny window. It was impossible for them to lay down with so many people

After we visited Auschwitz-Birkenou I realized what a difference there existed between the two camps. Auschwitz -Birkenou was a death camp and Terezin was a used at times for propaganda. Auschwitz-Birkenou was a camp where the final solution was in full swing. The camp we visited was massive. Some of the building had been destroyed, such as living quarters and also all of the gas chambers. After the war, the Nazi did what they could to hide the evidence. Even without the gas chambers and chimneys, what they did to these innocent people is forever engraved in history.

Auschwitz -Birkenou as it stands today, is a quiet almost peaceful place. It’s surrounded today by homes and business, which to me seems a little odd. Terezin was also surrounded by homes and businesses. I wouldn't want to live close to a place that was the scene of a mass genocide.

It’s astonishing to see the difference in size of Terezin and Auschwitz-Birkenou. Many of those in Terezin were transported later on to Auschwitz. Among other differences in the camps I noticed the exhibits were completely different. In Terezin we saw art work of prisoners and in Auschwitz-Birkenou we saw about 2 tons of human hair, thousands of shoes and glasses. What differences in lives these two camps had. Regardless of the different lives styles prisoners in both camps were treated worse than animals. . I cannot understand how people can turn a shoulder to such injustice. It makes sense to me that one person could hate someone so much as to want to harm them, but what I don’t understand is how one person can transcend their hatred to others. It will be something I might never understand.

Lastly, the discussion came up during our classroom talk whether it was appreciate to take pictures at these sites or not. That is entirely up to the visitor’s discretion. I see no harm in taking a pictures of the entrance of the camps for some reason. But once we go in the camp, I feel it is disrespectful. When you take a picture, it’s supposed to be something happy that you never want to forget. It seems a little eerie to me that one would take pictures of where innocent people died. Where they suffered. But alas, I understand everyone has a different view and I respect that.

Overall, the two camp visits were harder to prepare for mentally than the actual visit itself. I wouldn't want to revisit the camps at any point, but I am, however glad that I did go. Experiencing first hand what they might have seen, even if  only a brief piece, during their time there hit home for me.