RS Krakow Trip
Three weeks ago, the Religious Studies department left DCGS, destined for Poland as part of our educational visit to the Auschwitz concentration camps, as well as the Krakow ghetto and other historically significant locations.
After arriving in Krakow and hastily dropping off our bags, we were taken to the famous medieval ‘Main Square’ - the largest in Europe - covering more than forty thousand square meters. Nonetheless, its grandeur was indisputable and truly a sight to behold - especially in the shadow of St Mary’s Basilica, whose towers loomed over the square's eastern side.
On the second day, we departed from the city centre toward the camps; Auschwitz I and II being located about forty minutes away. Our first stop was Auschwitz I: the former Polish army barracks, converted by the Nazis in the early days of the occupation to a concentration camp to house political prisoners and other people the Nazis deemed ‘enemies of the state’.
Upon arriving, we saw those famous words ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ adorning the black iron gate. The tragedy and sorrow captured by these three words and their bitter significance were hard to describe. All the students were profoundly moved, setting the tone for many of the other locations to come.
As we entered the camp, we became submerged in the palette of grey and brown that made up our surroundings, which in all but words, proclaimed death. On our journey, we passed numerous buildings of varying size and notoriety, distinct in every way save for their shared connection to the same unforgettable crime.
Some of these buildings we were able to enter, inside which there were exhibitions displaying accounts and photographs of the evil that had taken place there less than a century ago. One of the long corridors was lined with 6-foot-tall piles of human hair: during the latter years of the war, hair became the primary fabric for German military uniforms, of which millions were produced. The collection on show was but a sample of the masses of hair discovered by the liberating Red Army.
In a second corridor, we found piles upon piles of shoes, small and large, boots and slippers - the work-shoes of a grown man and the tiny crib shoes of a little girl. This visualisation of the damage the Nazis dealt to so many groups of people was uniquely horrifying, crystallising the scale and tragedy of the holocaust and the innocent lives that were lost.
Before we left the first camp, we walked through the only gas chamber that remained intact (unlike those of Birkenau that were destroyed). The tiny room - no larger than that of a school classroom - was said to have been able to accommodate nine hundred people at full capacity. The adjacent room was a crematorium where ovens were situated, primed to conceal the monstrous nature of the death chambers.
Birkenau was a completely different experience. The buildings were made from timber and seemed more hastily assembled owing to their rickety look. It was evident that the camp gave no consideration at all to its inhabitants - its design focussed on maximising human suffering, as our tour guide showed us.
For me at least, the horror of Birkenau did not stem from the individual horrors we encountered but from its sheer scale. Auschwitz Birkenau spans 420 acres of land. As cliché as this comparison has become, that is approximately 400 football pitches of land dedicated to the suffering and extermination of over a million people. It’s a size that is hard to comprehend.
I doubt that, in my lifetime, I will ever bear witness to something as demonstratively disgusting as what I saw at Auschwitz. This trip has led me to believe that everyone who is able to should visit Auschwitz and appreciate its significance.
Aside from Auschwitz, there were many other things we saw on our trip to Krakow, including the Jewish Ghetto and Oskar Schindler’s factory. Additionally, we visited the Jewish quarter and various sights around the city and heard eyewitness testimony from the relative of a holocaust survivor. All these places and events were no doubt thought-provoking and fascinating in their own right, but I believe delving into them would detract from the monument of Auschwitz and all we saw. It was, without question, the most meaningful and memorable visit I will likely ever experience.
Writer: Daniel (Year 11)
Editor: Maximus (Year 13)
