|
By
Sam Maas
Harlaxton College Web Design Student
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Auschwitz was the largest German Nazi concentration and extermination camp complex, and today it is one of the only concentration camps still standing. It has become an icon to many of the suffering
that Hitler and his SS army caused. Yet the site is left almost abandoned on a distant side of town, as if the people of Oswiecim, Poland, wished it weren’t there.
Located in German-occupied southern Poland, Auschwitz took its name from Oswiecim,
situated about 50 kilometers west of Kraków and 286 kilometers from Warsaw. The camp commandant,
Rudolf Höß (in English commonly Hoess or Höss), testifed at the Nuremberg Trials that 3 million people
had died at Auschwitz during his stay as a commandant. Later he decreased his estimate to about 1.1 million.
The death toll given by the Soviets and accepted by many was 4,000,000 people. About 90 percent of them were
Jews from almost every country in Europe. Most deportees were killed in gas chambers; other deaths were caused
by systematic starvation, forced labor, lack of disease control, individual executions, and medical experiments.
Every year some of the Harlaxton students visit this site in remembrance. As Professor Bruce Anderson, who teaches political science at Harlaxton College, put it, it is a
place that “everyone can identify directly with what was going on.” [for more of this interview see audio].
Yet it might be one of the hardest places to find in Europe.
Katie Weed and Brandon Spotanski are two of only three students to travel there this year. Spotanski said,
“It’s almost like the people of Poland wanted to forget it, because there are hardly any signs and the buildings
leading up to it are covered with graffiti. It’s not at all what I expected.” But to Spotanski it was an
experience he would never take back. He says, “Everyone learns about Auschwitz, but not very many people get
to go, and to be able to walk where everyone else walked it’s like jumping back in time.”
To Weed the experience was similar. Her reaction was very emotional, saying, “You’re heart literally hurt
just to see it. It was just sickening. But it was definitely worth going to and life changing.”
Anderson elegantly sums up the experience saying, “It can be a period of remembrance, but it’s a warning and
it’s a warning to everybody this can happen, and this can happen again.”
|
BLOG: Have you been or do you plan on going to Auschwitz? What are your thoughts on the trip?
|
One of Auschwitz's gates.