Arbeit Macht Frei

For people the world over, few relics have come to symbolise the Nazi Holocaust more than the infamous wrought-iron sign straddling the entrance to the Auschwitz death camp, bearing the cynical words Arbeit Macht Frei - "Work sets you free". The gate itself was constructed under German orders by Polish political prisoners who had arrived in late 1940 and early 1941.



Its construction was part of a general overhaul of the camp, which included replacing temporary barbed wire with high-voltage fencing and concrete posts. The 5m (16ft) sign was made by prisoners in the metalworking detail under Jan Liwacz, a master blacksmith. It is believed that, in an act of defiance which went unnoticed, the prisoners reversed the B in Arbeit, giving it the appearance of being upside down.





Arbeit Macht Frei



The phrase Arbeit Macht Frei itself was coined by the 19th Century linguist, ethnologist and author Lorenz Diefenbach. The Nazis latched on to it and a sign bearing the inscription appeared at the Dachau concentration camp, set up by Heinrich Himmler in 1933 to use dissidents as slave labour. The phrase later became part of the Nazis' deception for the real use of the concentrations camps. Ultimately for most the freedom referred to could only be achieved in death.



Now, in an act of gross disrespect the sign was stolen, apparently for financial gain last week. The 90lb bronze sign, which topped the main entrance gate at the memorial site, has since been found in northern Poland following a nationwide hunt. It had been broken into three pieces. Five men, aged between 25 and 39, were arrested and taken to the southern city of Kraków, the nearest main city to Auschwitz, for questioning. The sign, which translates to "work sets you free" was stolen before dawn on Friday. The theft prompted international outrage.







Andrzej Rokita, the local police chief in Krakow - where the men were being questioned - said the theft had been financially motivated, and it remained unclear whether it was carried out to order. "From the information we have, none of the five belong to a neo-Nazi group nor hold such ideas," Rokita said of the suspects.



Many people seem not to understand why the theft of this simple sign is an act of desecration. More than one million people, mostly Jews, died at the Auschwitz camp, which Nazi Germany built in occupied Poland during the Second World War. Auschwitz - Birkenau is both the grave and memorial for over a million people who were cruelly murdered by the racist Nazi State. The Nuremburg race laws of 1935 established beyond doubt the racist nature of the Nazi State and its fellow travellers. Before being murdered by industrial means in batches of up to 800 and their looted bodies being incinerated in grotesque crematoria the victims at Auschwitz were robbed of their dignity and identity, their names were not even recorded. The Auschwitz Memorial Museum cries defiance at the racists and says these people must be remembered, had names and their lives were important.



As Winston Churchill said in 1944 when the scale of the genocide at Auschwitz became clear;



"There is no doubt this is the most horrible crime ever committed in the whole history of the world, and it has been done by scientific machinery by nominally civilised men in the name of a great State and one of the leading races of Europe.”



That is why our testament to their memory is important and every act of desecration and denial is a twisted attempt to justify the murder of the innocent; Jew, Pole, Russian, Czech, Homosexual, Gypsy, Hungarian, Socialist, Jehovah’s Witness and many more. Men, old people, women and children.





Birkenau Barracks



We must not allow their memory to be insulted. Remember the Shoah and respect the memory of the victims.



For a fuller account of Auschwitz-Birkenau see;



http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/04/auschwitz-birkenau.html



Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum



http://en.auschwitz.org.pl/m/



For some idea of what has been lost see;



Jewish Kraków



http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/04/jewish-krakow.html



Jewish Prague



http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/11/jewish-prague.html



Jewish Kos



http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/06/jewish-kos.html





Gate of Death, Birkenau

Kraków – The Heart of Poland

Kraków’s destiny was to be a great city at the heart of Europe and it is very much the centre of Mittel Europa. The city was created by trade where the routes from the south to the Baltic converge with the routes from the East to the West. And Kraków is also the heart of Poland, a country which has disappeared from the maps 3 times in history and in the 20th century alone this city experienced Austrian rule as the capital of Galicia, General Piłsudski’s flawed military dictatorship in the inter-war period, the Nazi invasion and occupation which saw one fifth of the population die and the years of Soviet dominated totalitarianism before regaining its rightful place as an independent nation again.


Dominican Church

Kraków is the fascinating spiritual, cultural and educational capital of Free Poland and was the actual capital and seat of the Polish Kings for over 400 years. It is a city wrapped in legend which in its vitality captures the greatness and strength of Poland and in its melancholy the unspeakable suffering and cruelty which it has witnessed. For centuries Kraków was the capital of Poland, the seat of kings, drawing great scholars and artists from the whole world. It is their talents and imagination we must thank for the city’s rich legacy of unique historical relics, which reflect the most important trends in European culture.

A city forged in battle, war, conquest and fate, Kraków is in many respects the most Polish of all this nation’s cities. The ancient seat of kings and intelligentsia comes steeped in legend and myth, and evokes the most fanciful of images, from dragons occupying the catacombs of Wavel, to Tartar hordes repelled at the gates, to an earnest Vladimir Lenin plotting revolution while sitting in the city’s cafes. The city has much of interest. The renaissance Royal Castle at Wavel, the gothic St Mary’s Basilica, the historical trade pavilions of the Cloth Hall, the former separate Jewish city of Kazimierz, and even the Nowa Huta district, absorbed by Kraków together with its socialist-realist, industrial architecture, are all places which make a visit to Kraków extremely worthwhile.


Kraków cafe

Kraków has always been, in many respects, a charmed city. With a history that dates back to the 4th century settlement of Wavel Hill, Kraków has fortuitously avoided destruction since the pesky Mongols stopped bullying the area in the 13th century, growing into one of the most prominent cities in Central Europe. The most important city in Poland not to come out of World War II looking like a trampled Lego set, even the Soviets failed to leave their mark on the enchanted city centre during 45 years of supervision, forced to erect their grey communist Utopia in the outlying suburb of Nowa Huta. As a result, Kraków is today one of the most beautiful showpieces of Eastern Europe – a claim validated by its historic centre’s inclusion on the first ever UNESCO World Heritage List in 1978, along with the nearby Wielicka Salt Mine and only ten other places in the world. A city of majestic architectural monuments, cobbled thoroughfares, cultural treasures, timeless courtyards, priceless artworks and legendary beer cellars and gardens, Kraków’s historic centre is the pride of Poland.

To understand the importance of Kraków to Poland’s sense of nationhood you have to understand the tortured history of a country which was once great but was wiped off the maps of Europe by surrounding powers. Austria, Prussia and Russia imposed the first partition of Poland in 1772-73. The constitution of May 3, 1791, restored hereditary monarchy and reforms the political system. The constitution is the second democratic constitution in the world (after the USA’s), but is short-lived. Prussia and Russia carry out a second partition of Poland in 1792-93. One year later, in 1795, Austria, Prussia and Russia impose a third partition of Poland and Kraków becomes part of Austria.


Franciscan church

Between 1807-15, Napoleon establishes the semi-independent Duchy of Warsaw which includes Kraków. After Napoleon’s defeat and the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Poland is partitioned anew with a large part going to Russia. The Republic of Kraków is established as an independent entity for a short period between 1815-1846, but the city is eventually absorbed into the Austrian partition.

After WWI, the partitioning powers of Germany, Austria and Russia collapse and the independent Second Polish Republic arises. In 1918, the Austrian army in Kraków disarms and Poland regains independence on November 11 after 146 years of foreign occupation. WWII begins in 1939 with the September 1 invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and the September 17 invasion by the Soviet Union. On September 6, 1939, the Nazis take over and begin their occupation in Kraków. On November 6, Jagiellonian University professors and other Kraków intellectuals are arrested and transported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. In 1941, the Jewish ghetto in Podgórze is established. As well as killing one fifth of the Polish population during WW11 the racist state of Nazi Germany commits the greatest mass murders of the modern era on Polish soil

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/04/auschwitz-birkenau.htmll

and enslaves most of the adult male population as forced labourers from the “inferior races.” By the end of the war the Polish nation is deeply traumatised.

From 1945, Kraków undergoes ‘Sovietisation’. All property and businesses are nationalised, organised religion comes under attack and opposition leaders are imprisoned. The history of post-war Poland through 1989 consists of the distribution of power by the USSR to chosen individuals and the Soviets’ attempt to maintain their hold. Poland, however, did not take well to Soviet domination, as even Stalin said that implementing communism in Poland was like trying to put a saddle on a cow. The effect was a constant effort by the Poles to claim and practice their independence. Poland, for example, is the only formerly Communist-reigned country whose religious practices and churches weren’t severed, restricted or all together destroyed. The beauty of Kraków is tarnished by forced industrialization such as the monstrous steelworks of Nowa Huta (New Factory) constructed in the late 1940s. The factory and surrounding blocks of workers’ residences, built on top of Kraków’s best farming soil, is the USSR’s obvious attempt to undermine Kraków’s cultural and religious intelligence.








Rynek Główny

The layout of Kraków is relatively straightforward. The “Old Town” radiates off the square known as Rynek Główny. This was the largest plaza of medieval Europe and one of the worlds finest with its spectacular landmarks and has remained the hub of the city since the 13th century. The old town is oval shaped and the site of the walls is marked by the Planty. Kraków’s medieval city walls were largely demolished after 1807 save the part with the main gate, its adjoining towers and the great barbican. Fortunately, a green belt of public parks called Planty took up the emptied area of 52 acres in the 1820s.


Planty Kraków

It takes an hour to two hours to walk around the Old Town historical district down the leafy alleys among old trees. And the stroll is the more delightful as Krakow’s ancient buildings reveal their unusual aspects. On the other hand, it appears also a journey through the art of gardening for the Planty ring actually proves to be a chain of some 30 gardens in varied styles. Joining the main town and the seat of the Polish Kings, Wavel Castle, is the Royal Road which was the ceremonial route for the coronations and funerals of the monarchs. Continue beyond Wavel and you will cross over what was once a bed of the Vistula River and is now a tramway and a park to arrive in the Kazimierz where for hundreds of years a unique and successful Jewish and Christian culture flourished.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/04/jewish-krakow.html


Vistula

It is often compared to Prague in the guides due to it being a medieval city overlooked by a castle. However in truth the Vistula is not the Vltava and Kraków largely turns its back on its river. Nor indeed does it have the same critical mass and variety of the districts of Prague nor its baroque exuberance, Kraków can appear sullen by comparison. So, let us not make spurious comparisons but enjoy and explore this city for its own uniqueness, a vibrant young university city which is in every sense the Heart of Poland.




The Cloth Hall (Sukiennice)

Most essential sites can be seen while taking a walk on what is known as the Royal Road which starts at Floriańska Gate and leads into the Market Square, The Rynek. Take a small diversion at the start to the Czartoryski Museum (ul. Św. Jana 19) where you will find one of only five Da Vinci paintings on display in the world – the Lady with an Ermine. Getting back onto the Royal Route, the Market Square was originally designed in 1257, the year Kraków was awarded its charter and the grid like layout of the old town and its central square has changed little in the years that have followed. Measuring 200 x 200m, the Rynek ranks as one of the largest medieval squares in Europe. It is here that you will find two of Krakow’s defining buildings – The Cloth Hall (Sukiennice) and St. Mary’s Basilica (Bazylika Mariacka).




St. Mary’s Basilica (Bazylika Mariacka)

Tartar invasions of the 13th century left the original St. Mary’s Basilica in a heap of ruins and construction began on St. Mary’s using the existing foundations. It doesn’t matter how many times you see it, the altarpiece, stained glass windows of the nave, and the blue, starred ceiling will take your breath away. The magnificent altarpiece was for 12 painstaking years the principal work of the 15th century German artist Veit Stoss (aka Wit Stwosz), and depicts the Virgin Mary’s Quietus among the apostles. Surrounding the altar are polychrome paintings by Matejko, Mehoffer and Wyspiański. Several local legends are attached to St. Mary’s. The architect of the smaller tower murdered his brother (the architect of the taller), apparently jealous that his structure was shorter and less elaborate. Racked with guilt he then committed suicide by throwing himself off the roof of the cathedral. Nowadays the taller tower is home to one of Kraków’s most enduring traditions. The bugle call played on the turn of every hour apparently takes its origins from an event in 1241. Having spotted invading Tartar forces on the horizon, a lone fire watcher in the tower started playing his trumpet to alert the habitants of Kraków. He was shot with an arrow in his neck, abruptly cutting off the tune mid-melody, but the town was roused from its sleep and defended itself. In honour of this event, seven local firemen now have task of tooting the tune every hour. The first written mention of the tradition dates back to 1392, though a local magazine recently claimed the whole custom was invented by an American in 1929. Attending a service in the Basilica you are impressed with the devoutness of the Polish people. The church is full to overflowing and throughout the mass penitents knell at the confessionals on either side. The church in its Brick Gothic glory betrays the town’s Hanseatic connections but where you see churches like this in Germany, Latvia and Sweden the walls are plain white for they were stripped of their decoration at the Reformation. Here at St. Mary’s you see Brick Gothic in originalis with every surface painted in colour, the heavens represented by the golden stars on the high vaulted roof and everywhere surrounding Catholic iconography in its gilded gaudy richness, statues of the saints, stations of the cross, glowing altars in side chapels and the kaleidoscope of the stained glass windows. It is glorious and joyful as no doubt was intended.


Kraków Map

Poland’s most historic city, currently weighing in with 11 major theatres and 30 museums, Kraków has always been the ‘Cultural Capital’ of Poland, and bore that banner on behalf of all Europe back in 2000. Galleries include Bunkier Sztuki (the Art Bunker), Starmach and Pauza. Classical music fans will be spoilt for choice at the Philharmonic and Kraków Opera, while those who favour something more contemporary should beat a track to Rotunda and Loch Ness. The cultural depth of the city is easily revealed by the range of its festival calendar, with annual standouts like the Street Theatre Festival, Jewish Culture Festival and the Kraków Film Festival, offset by more eccentric endeavours like the annual Dragon and Dachsund Parades (respectively), the Pierogi Festival and Juwenalia (student mayhem!).

The National Museum was granted its first statute in 1883 and was created as a municipal institution to avoid control by the then occupying powers in Vienna. The museum’s mission is to protect the nation’s legacy by promoting world and Polish art particularly that of the Kraków artistic community. It is Krakow’s if not Poland’s most impressive museum with impressive permanent exhibitions which are displayed alongside an ever-changing calendar of temporary exhibitions.


The Royal Road




All Saints Kraków

Continuing down the Royal Route takes you along ul. Grodzka where you pass the church of St. Peter and Paul with its impressive statues of the 12 apostles guarding its front boundary. Moving off to your right, fans of the late Pope John Paul II should take a walk around his former residence nowadays housing the Archdiocesan Museum (ul. Kanonicza 19-21). You then come to Wavel Castle, the defining landmark of the city, and itself worthy of several hours of exploration. For Poles this castle and cathedral complex is a symbol of national strength and patriotism; the ancient home of kings, and the material embodiment of Polish resistance and culture. Perched on top of a 50m-high rock on the edge of old town, it is today remarkably intact and accessible to visitors, though in an effort to preserve the exhibits only a limited number of visitors are allowed to enter each day.


Wavel Cathedral






Wavel

The glorious ensemble that is Wavel, perched on top of the hill of the same name immediately south of the Old Town, is by far the most important collection of buildings in Poland. A symbol of national pride, hope, and self-rule and not least of all fierce patriotism, Wavel offers a uniquely Polish version of Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey rolled into one. A gorgeous assortment of predominantly Romanesque, Renaissance and Gothic architecture dating from around the 14th century onwards, visiting Kraków and not seeing Wavel is like playing tennis without a ball.
The scene of the crowning of almost every Polish king and queen throughout history, the current Wavel Cathedral is the third to be built on the site. The first cathedral was built of wood, probably around 1020, but certainly after the founding of the Bishopric of Kraków in 1000 A.D. Destroyed by fire it was replaced by a second cathedral that subsequently burnt down again. The current building was consecrated in 1364 and built on the orders of Poland’s first king to be crowned at Wavel, Władysław the Short (aka. Władysław the Elbow-high, 1306-1333), who was crowned among the charred rubble of its predecessor in 1319. Considered the most important single building in Poland, Wavel’s extraordinary Cathedral contains much that is original, although many glorious additions have been made over the centuries. Arguably not as stunning as that of its cousin St. Mary’s in the Rynek, the interior of Wavel Cathedral more than makes up for its visual shortcomings thanks to the sheer amount of history packed inside. At its centre is the imposing tomb of the former Bishop of Kraków, St. Stanisław (1030-1079), a suitably grand monument dedicated to the controversial cleric after whom the Cathedral is dedicated. Boasting 18 chapels, all of them about as ostentatious as you’re ever likely to see, of particular interest is the 15th-century Chapel of the Holy Cross, found to the right as you enter and featuring some wonderful Russian murals as well as Veit Stoss’ 1492 marble sarcophagus to Kazimierz IV.


Plac Nowy


Kazimierz

Further on is Kazimierz, the district that housed Kraków’s Jews for some 500 years. In the last decade it has been rediscovered, and its hollowed-out Jewish culture gradually reintroduced. Peeling façades and wooden shutters hide dozens of smoky cafes, each one affecting an air of pre-war timelessness. This is an area of Kraków that cannot be missed. Crossing the river will take you to the Podgórze district, the site of the former Jewish Ghetto. Today fragments of the Ghetto wall can be viewed, as can the sight of Oskar Schindler’s factory (ul. Lipowa 4) which is scheduled to open as a proper museum in autumn 2009. There’s more to the historic Jewish quarter than cemeteries and synagogues. Lying between shops selling buttons and spanners, you’ll find the heart of Krakow’s artsy character. Peeling façades and wooden shutters hide dozens of smoky cafes, each one affecting an air of pre-war timelessness. Alternative, edgy and packed with oddities this is an essential point of interest to any visitor.

While Kraków’s main square, Rynek Główny, makes all the postcards and photographs, it is Plac Nowy in Kazimierz that has emerged as the spiritual centre of Kraków sub-culture. Lacking the splendour of the Old Town, Plac Nowy is, if anything, something of an eyesore – a collection of unkempt buildings surrounding a concrete square filled with chipped green market stalls and rat-like pigeons flapping about. If you want something completely different from the Old Town, however, here it is. Kraków is split by the river Vistula (Wisła). At 1,047km it is Poland’s longest river and flows into the Bay of Gdańsk (Zatoka Gdańska).

Immortalised by Thomas Keneally’s book ‘Schindler’s Ark’, and then later in the Spielberg epic ‘Schindler’s List’, Oskar Schindler is a name synonymous with Kraków. A hard-drinking, profiteering playboy, Schindler does not fit the standard mould for a hero, though neither was he the typical Nazi. Credited with saving 1.200 Jews his actions continue to serve as an example and inspiration. Born on April 28th, 1908 in what is now Svitavy, Czech Republic, Schindler enjoyed a privileged upbringing and was a childhood friend with the Jewish family residing next door. The 1930s economic crisis saw his family firm slide into bankruptcy, and like so many disaffected German’s he signed up to the Nazi party.


Schindler Factory

Hot on the heels of the invading German army Schindler found himself arriving in Kraków in 1939 where he took charge of a formerly Jewish-owned enamel factory. Motivated by greed he principally employed cut-price Jewish labour, and involved himself in the thriving black market. Living a careless, lavish lifestyle his world and motives appear to have changed after witnessing the emptying of the Podgórze ghetto. Both Keneally and Spielberg pay particular importance to his fascination with the plight of a small girl dressed in a red cape and Schindler would later claim, ‘Beyond this day, no thinking person could fail to see what would happen. I was now resolved to do everything in my power to defeat the system.’

He arranged for workers housed in the notorious Płaszów camp to be moved to his factory, shielding them time and time again from deportation and death through bribery and cunning. With the war coming to a close, and ‘his Jews’ facing the prospect of death marches and gas chambers, he miraculously managed to persuade Nazi authorities to relocate his factory and his workers to Brunlitz. Estimates suggest he spent four million marks during the war on protecting his workers, with his wife even selling her jewellery so as to provide funds for medicines and food. Moreover, in the seven months he spent as director of a shell factory in Brunlitz, not one usable shell left the production line.



Following the war he emigrated to Argentina with his wife to settle as a farmer, though by 1957 he was declared bankrupt and returned to Germany alone. Financial woes were to blight him for the rest of his life. Regarded as a traitor to the fatherland he was cold shouldered by Germans and more business ventures fell by the wayside. By the time of his death in 1974 he was fully dependent on the charity of those he had saved. Buried in Jerusalem, his acts of courage have been honoured by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Amongst Nations. Schindler sights in Kraków include the house he lived in at ul. Starszewskiego 7, before moving permanently into his factory on ul. Lipowa 4.


Nowa Huta

No visitor can leave Kraków without being struck by its beauty. Almost overwhelming at times it’s a city of pristine townhouses and cobbled alleys. Feminine in its touch it has none of the brutal rotting concrete horror shows of Warsaw, or so you’d think. But fans of communist architectural genius need not panic. Of course there’s the Socialist Realist city of Nowa Huta close by, but there’s also three equally amazing abandoned oddities within the city limits. First off there’s the Skeletor (szkieletor) tower rising above rondo Mogilska . This 22 storey structure is rated the tallest building in the city, and is a remarkable reminder of the follies of communism. The 91 metre tower has never been occupied, standing empty for over a quarter of a century. Originally designed in 1968 to serve as a congress hall and office block work commenced in 1975, with local authorities pressuring architects to make it as tall as possible. Another eight floors were hastily added to the original blueprint, with a TV studio, hotel and panoramic terrace all part of the master plan. Alas, Poland’s economic crisis hit soon after and all work on it was abandoned in 1979, never to be resumed. Today the monster stands fenced off from the public, a ghostly reminder of the golden dawn promised by the nation’s leaders. Recently acquired by GD&K and Verity Developments it’s more than likely that the coming years will finally see it transformed into something completely glittery. In the meantime don’t miss a visit to this astonishing white elephant.


Skeletor Tower

Next up on your tour of forgotten Kraków is what the Forum Hotel (ul was once Marii Konopnickiej) described as ‘a legacy of the era of Soviet hospitality’. You’ll know why when you visit. Essentially a concrete oblong set on sticks construction on this beauty began in 1978, with the ribbon cutting taking place 11 years later. Even still when it was unveiled in 1989 it came to be regarded as one of the most futuristic buildings in Kraków. Awarded four stars the hotel featured perks unknown in 80s Kraków; air-conditioned rooms, an outdoor electronic clock with temperature displays, swimming pool, minigolf and casino. Bond would have loved snooping round these corridors. Having passed from the Orbis brand to the Sofitel in 2001 the hotel was closed at the end of 2002, apparently because of a construction fault that led to frequent flooding of the basements. Today the vacant building is owned by the Wavel-Imos group, and though its future is uncertain it sometimes finds itself rented out to function as Poland’s longest billboard.


St. Stanislaus Skala - Statue of John Paul II

Finally, there’s the Liban Quarry, right by the Kraków Krzemionki train station. Originally established in 1873 as a lime quarry by Liban & Ehrenpreis, the area was utilized by the Nazis as a labour camp for Poles, with Płaszów camp lying adjacent. After the war it saw heavy industrialization, and you’ll still see great big rusting hulks of industrial leftovers lying around. Although the quarry closed in 1990 that didn’t signal the death of Liban. Overgrown and neglected, Liban has become a natural sanctuary for lizards, harriers and waterfowl. It was here in 1993 that much of ‘Schindler’s List’ was filmed in 1993, with half a million dollars invested into recreating Płaszów camp. Amazingly traces of the film set remain visible, including barbed wire fences and gates, and a visit here is a haunting trip through times past.



The enterprising tourist should consider picking up the Kraków Card, a superb piece of plastic that allows you free travel on trams and buses, day and night. The best bit though is free entry to 30 Kraków museums, an impressive saving for the serious tourist. Two and three day cards are available, priced at 50 and 65 złoty respectively and they are valid until midnight on the day indicated on the reverse. For a full list of vendors and benefits visit

www.krakowcard.com


Barbican

Crowned in 1384 at the age of eleven, Queen Jadwiga was destined to become the greatest queen in Polish history. Grandniece of Casimir the Great, the last of the Piast Kings of Poland, and the youngest daughter of Louis the Great, King of Hungary, Jadwiga was selected by Polish nobles to end absentee rule by foreign monarchs. Jadwiga of Anjou’s betrothed whom she loved was William of Hungary but she was not allowed marry for love by her Nobles. Their choice was the dreaded Jagiello, ruler of pagan Lithuania, who agreed to unite the vast Lithuanian territories with Poland, release Polish prisoners, defend the united countries against the Order of Teutonic Knights, and lastly, embrace the Catholic faith. The marriage of Queen Jadwiga and King Jagiello starts off more than four centuries of a jointly governed Polish-Lithuanian state. These were the years of Poland’s greatness and to this day Queen Jadwiga is revered as the incarnation of Polish nationhood and a saintly woman who sold her jewels to endow the university named after her husband, the Jagiellonian University. Poles still go to her crypt in Wavel and more than 600 years after her death every day ordinary people place candles and flowers on her tomb. This place is the heart of Polish Nationhood. Jadwiga of Anjou, Queen of Poland was canonised a Saint by another Pole who helped Poland reclaim its sense of nationhood and identity, Pope John Paul II on June 8, 1997.


Collegium Maius

Karol Józef Wojtyła (18 May 1920 – 2 April 2005) reigned as Pope and Sovereign of the State of the Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death almost 27 years later. His was the second-longest pontificate. He has been the only Polish pope, and was the first non-Italian since the Dutch pontiff Adrian VI in the 1520s. He was born 40 km from Kraków and his character was forged in response to the daily inhumanity he witnessed during the Nazi occupation. Wavel Castle was the base for Hans Frank, the odious lawyer, who was Governor of Poland under the Nazis with the Western half of Poland in Silesia being annexed to the Reich. Poland felt the full force of Nazi racism with Jews and Gypsies being killed as part of the “Final Solution” and the “Inferior Race” of Poles conscripted into slave labour.

The pope lived for 40 years in and around Kraków, and when he last visited a staggering crowd of 2.5 million gathered at Błonie field. As a youth, Wojtyła was an athlete and often played football (soccer) as a goalkeeper; he was also a supporter of Polish club Cracovia Kraków. His formative years were influenced by numerous contacts with the vibrant and prospering Jewish community of Wadowice. School football games were often organised between teams of Jews and Catholics, and Wojtyła would voluntarily offer himself as a substitute goalkeeper on the Jewish side if they were short of players.



As an 18-year-old-student, he took spartan quarters at ul. Tyniecka 10, just across from the Grunwaldzki Bridge. A plaque honours his darting presence in basement room of the house. In those days he was known as quite a sports fanatic: an avid swimmer, skier and an adept goalkeeper, it was during a spell studying in London that he began following the (mis)fortunes of Fulham football club. Upon graduation in 1938 he entered the Jagiellonian University to study Polish language and literature. In September 1939 Poland fell to Nazi Germany, 174 Professors were brutally taken off to a German labour camp (50 never returned) and the University closed. The young Wojtyła spent his days breaking rocks at the Zakrzówek quarry (later at the Solvay chemical factory), his nights studying theology - and in defying Nazi edict by performing in underground theatre. The first non-Italian pontiff in more than 400 years heard mass every morning at the Church of St. Stanisław Kostka (ul. Konfederacka 6). He would preach his second mass there on November 3, 1946. The day before he delivered his first in the Crypt of St. Leonard, underneath Wavel Cathedral. Between 1958 and 1963 he resided at ul. Kanonicza 19, now the archdiocesan museum. His final Kraków home (1963-1978) was the Bishop’s Palace, adjacent to the Basilica of St. Francis on ul. Franciszkańska 3. A statue of a sprightly looking Pope John Paul II stands inside the courtyard.




Archbishops Palace



Karol Wojtyła’s character was formed by living under and resisting two totalitarian systems’s which denied individual’s humanity. Whilst criticised for his conservatism you can understand that war time Kraków led to his condemnation of abortion, euthanasia and virtually all uses of capital punishment, calling them all a part of the "culture of death" that is pervasive in the modern world. He also campaigned for world debt forgiveness and social justice. John Paul II has been credited with being instrumental in bringing down communism in Eastern Europe, by being the spiritual inspiration behind its downfall, and a catalyst for "a peaceful revolution" in Poland. Lech Wałęsa, the founder of the ‘Solidarity’ movement, credited John Paul II with giving Poles the courage to rise up. "The pope started this chain of events that led to the end of communism," Wałęsa said. "Before his pontificate, the world was divided into blocs. Nobody knew how to get rid of communism. "He simply said, ‘Do not be afraid, change the image of this land...’ "

“Warsaw, Moscow, Budapest, Berlin, Prague, Sofia and Bucharest have become stages in a long pilgrimage toward liberty. It is admirable that in these events, entire peoples spoke out — women, young people, men, overcoming fears, their irrepressible thirst for liberty speeded up developments, made walls tumble down and opened gates.” ”

— Pope John Paul II (1989)



In Kraków even to non-believers he is respected and revered as the person who in 1989 precipitated the events which lead to Poland reclaiming its nationhood and identity. Opposite the palace where he not just lived as Archbishop and Cardinal but also hid in the basement for six months as a secret seminarian after 6 August 1944, ‘Black Sunday’, when the Gestapo rounded up 8,000 young men in Kraków to avoid an uprising similar to the previous uprising in Warsaw there is a wall by the Franciscan Church. Looking down on this wall is the window where Karol Wojtyła used to speak to the young people of Kraków after Sunday mass and here too each day you will find lanterns and flowers laid in memory of the city’s favourite son just as you see in the Cathedral on the hill of Wavel above the town at the tomb of a Queen who also reclaimed Polish nationhood. This is the Heart of Poland and it still beats strong in tribute to these resilient people.

I've relied upon and quoted from a number of excellent local resources in compiling this piece including;

Jewish Kraków

www.jewishkrakow.net

Kraków site devoted to Jews from Kraków

www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/krakow/

Kraków Info

www.krakow-info.com

Galicia Jewish Heritage Institute

www.galiciajewishmuseum.org/

Cracow Life

www.cracow-life.com/poland/

Auschwitz - Birkenau

Work makes us free

The term holocaust originally derived from the Greek word holókauston ( ὁλόκαυστος ), meaning a "completely (holos) burnt (kaustos)" sacrificial offering to a god. Its Latin form (holocaustum) was first used with specific reference to a massacre of Jews at York in England by the chroniclers Roger of Howden and Richard of Devizes in the 1190s. The biblical word Shoah (שואה) (also spelled Sho'ah and Shoa), meaning "calamity," became the standard Hebrew term for the Holocaust as early as the 1940s. Shoah is preferred by many Jews for a number of reasons, including the theologically offensive nature of the word holocaust, as a Greek pagan custom. But the ancient Greek meaning of the word seemed terribly apt as we headed the 60km or so from Krakow to the Polish town of Oswiecim to pay our respects to the victims at the mass murder site of Auschwitz - Birkenau where so many bodies of the victims were burnt in crematoria.


Auschwitz I layout

There have been genocides in history, the 8 million South American indigenous people’s estimated to have perished in silver mines in Bolivia and in the 20th Century and before WWII writers such as Winston Churchill used the terms to describe the destruction by the dying Ottoman Empire of the Armenian population of Turkey, as well as the attempted destruction of the Greek and Assyrian populations, a process observed by a joint Germano-Austrian military mission. But what makes the Nazi Holocaust of Jews and others in Germany and 23 occupied and allied countries unique is the scale, the premeditation and the sheer cold ruthlessness and cruelty in implementing the policy for a “Final Solution” agreed at the Wanesee Conference in 1942. Every arm of Nazi Germany's bureaucracy was involved in the logistics of the mass murder, turning the country into what one Holocaust scholar has called "a genocidal state". But, before all this happened the German public had come to accept the “Fog and Night” killings of the Nazi’s political opponents and the killing of 70,000 disabled and mentally ill people in the name of racial purity. Before all this happened the Nazi Reich had turned hospitals into places where people were murdered and Courts into places where the Law was denied. As Churchill was later to declare about the Holocaust; "... and it has been done by scientific machinery by nominally civilised men in the name of a great State and one of the leading races of Europe."

Konzentrationslager Dachau was the first concentration camp established in Nazi Germany - the camp was opened on March 22, 1933. The camp's first inmates were primarily political prisoners, Social Democrats, Communists, trade unionists, habitual criminals, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, beggars, vagrants, hawkers.



In the late 1930's the Nazis killed thousands of handicapped Germans by lethal injection and poisonous gas. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, mobile killing units following in the wake of the German Army began shooting massive numbers of Jews and Gypsies in open fields and ravines on the outskirts of conquered cities and towns.





Eventually the Nazis created a more secluded and organised method of killing. Extermination centres were established in occupied Poland with special apparatus especially designed for mass murder. Six such death camps existed: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, and Treblinka. Large-scale murder by gas and body disposal through cremation was conducted systematically by the Nazis and Adolf Hitler's SS men. Victims were deported to these centres from Western Europe and from the ghettos in Eastern Europe which the Nazis had established. In addition, millions died in the ghettos and concentration camps as a result of forced labour, starvation, exposure, brutality, disease, and execution.






Gate of Death, Birkenau

You can read all you want and see as many documentaries as you want but nothing quite prepares you for the experience of visiting the profane cruelty of Auschwitz and the scale and bleakness of the killing machine known as Birkenau 3km away.

All over the world, Auschwitz has become a symbol of terror, genocide, and the Holocaust. It was established by Germans in 1940, in the suburbs of Oswiecim, a Polish city that was annexed to the Third Reich by the Nazis. Its name was changed to Auschwitz, which also became the name of Konzentrationslager Auschwitz. The direct reason for the establishment of the camp was the fact that mass arrests of Poles were increasing beyond the capacity of existing "local" prisons. Initially, Auschwitz was to be one more concentration camp of the type that the Nazis had been setting up since the early 1930s. It functioned in this role throughout its existence, even when, beginning in 1942, it also became the largest of the death camps.


Birkenau from the air August 1944




Camp Band

At first sight Auschwitz I looks disarmingly normal, a Polish Army Barracks of 20 barrack buildings built in the 1920s to which the Germans added a further 8 brick built barracks in the same style. But here you find horrifying stories of Auschwitz-Birkenau and a clique of fanatical, ruthless SS-men. And you find stories to bear witness to goodness - in Auschwitz the missionary Jane Haining refused to reject her children and showed herself to be a saint. And Oscar Schindler came to Auschwitz to save 300 Schindler-women from certain death. He managed to do it - the only shipment out of the Nazi death camp during WW2.


DEVELOPMENT PLAN OF THE STAMMLAGER OR MAIN CAMP OF KL. AUSCHWITZ

In his book Sheltering The Jews the Holocaust historian Mordecai Paldiel later wrote:

"Never before in history had children been singled out for destruction for no other reason than having been born. Children, of course, were no match for the Nazis' mighty and sophisticated killing machine .."

Prisoners at Auschwitz were slowly and systematically starved, and their pitiful rations were barely enough to sustain a child: one cup of imitation coffee in the morning, and weak soup and half a loaf of bread after work. When food was brought, everyone struggled to get his place and be sure of a portion.



The Auschwitz concentration camp complex of over 40 camps was the largest of its kind established by the Nazi regime. It included three main camps, all of which deployed incarcerated prisoners at forced labour. One of them also functioned for an extended period as a killing centre. The camps were located approximately 60 kms west of Krakow, near the pre-war German-Polish border in Upper Silesia, an area that Nazi Germany annexed in 1939 after invading and conquering Poland. The SS authorities established three main camps near the Polish city of Oswiecim: Auschwitz I in May 1940; Auschwitz II (also called Auschwitz-Birkenau) in early 1942; and Auschwitz III (also called Auschwitz-Monowitz) in October 1942.



Auschwitz I, the main camp, was the first camp established near Oswiecim. Construction began in May 1940 in an abandoned Polish army artillery barracks, located in a suburb of the city. The SS authorities continuously deployed prisoners at forced labour to expand the physical contours of the camp. During the first year of the camp’s existence, the SS and police cleared a zone of approximately 40 square kilometres’ (15.44 square miles) as a “development zone” reserved for the exclusive use of the camp. The first prisoners at Auschwitz included German prisoners transferred from Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Germany, where they had been incarcerated as repeat criminal offenders, and Polish political prisoners from Lodz via Dachau concentration camp and from Tarnow in Krakow District of the Generalgouvernement (that part of German occupied-Poland not annexed to Nazi Germany, linked administratively to German East Prussia, or incorporated into the German-occupied Soviet Union).


More than 4,000 children were sent from France to Auschwitz, and every one of them was murdered.

Similar to most German concentration camps, Auschwitz I was constructed to serve three purposes:

1) Incarcerate real and perceived enemies of the Nazi regime and the German occupation authorities in Poland for an indefinite period of time;

2) To have available a supply of forced labourers for deployment in SS-owned, construction-related enterprises (and, later, armaments and other war-related production); and

3) To serve as a site to physically eliminate small, targeted groups of the population whose death was determined by the SS and police authorities to be essential to the security of Nazi Germany.

Like most other concentration camps, Auschwitz I had a gas chamber and crematorium. Initially, SS engineers constructed an improvised gas chamber in the basement of the prison block, Block 11. Later a larger, permanent gas chamber was constructed as part of the original crematorium in a separate building outside the prisoner compound.

At Auschwitz I, SS physicians carried out medical experiments in the hospital, Barrack (Block) 10. They conducted pseudoscientific research on infants, twins, and dwarfs, and performed forced sterilizations, castrations, and hypothermia experiments on adults. The best-known of these physicians was SS Captain Dr. Josef Mengele. Between the crematorium and the medical-experiments barrack stood the "Black Wall," where SS guards executed thousands of prisoners.


"Black Wall"

Auschwitz-Birkenau also contained the facilities for a killing centre. It played a central role in the German plan to kill the Jews of Europe. During the summer and autumn of 1941, Zyklon B gas was introduced into the German concentration camp system as a means for murder. At Auschwitz I, in September, the SS first tested Zyklon B as an instrument of mass murder. The "success" of these experiments led to the adoption of Zyklon B for all the gas chambers at the Auschwitz complex.


Birkenau under construction by the Auschwitz inmates

Near Birkenau, the SS initially converted two farmhouses for use as gas chambers. “Provisional” gas chamber I went into operation in January 1942 and was later dismantled. Provisional gas chamber II operated from June 1942 through the fall of 1944. The SS judged these facilities to be inadequate for the scale of gassing they planned at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Four large crematorium buildings were constructed between March and June 1943. Each had three components: a disrobing area, a large gas chamber, and crematorium ovens. The SS continued gassing operations at Auschwitz-Birkenau until November 1944.

In July 1942 Heinrich Himmler again visited Auschwitz. There were approximately 30,000 inmates there at the time, most of them Jews and Polish political prisoners. He inspected the main camp, the expansion at Birkenau, and the synthetic rubber factory being built in nearby Monowitz. Himmler also witnessed the gassing of Jews, and he promoted Rudolf Höss, Auschwitz’s commandant, to SS Lieutenant Colonel.


Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler inspects Monowitz, July 1942

Sixty miles northeast of Warsaw, the SS built a death factory called Treblinka. Unlike Auschwitz, its only purpose was to kill people. Ultimately, about 800,000 Jews, many of them deportees from the Warsaw ghetto, were gassed or shot there. It was second only to Auschwitz as the most murderous place in the Nazi state. A clearing in a forest and memorial stones are all that is left of it today.




Gas Chamber Auschwitz I - All the others were destroyed

New arrivals at Auschwitz-Birkenau underwent "Selection" on the Judenrampe, the platform where the trains halted after going into the camp through the “Gate of Death.” To be sent to the right meant slave labour; to the left, the gas chambers. The SS staff determined the majority to be unfit for forced labour and sent them immediately to the gas chambers, which were disguised as shower installations to mislead the victims. The belongings of those gassed were confiscated and sorted in the "Kanada" (Canada) warehouse for shipment back to Germany. Canada symbolized wealth to the prisoners. The vast majority of the victims - who came from both Western and Eastern Europe including Belgium, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, and other countries - were unaware of their destination and of their fate. They were transported like animals in cattle-cars and arrived in a state of total collapse to the camp. Most of the people actually never really entered the camp, but just crossed it on the way to the gas chambers.


Luggage being collected from an arriving train at Auschwitz

The dehumanised minority often became registered prisoners with shaved heads in striped uniforms. Jews chosen for slave labor were stripped of everything, including outward differentiation between male and female. Prisoners' personal identities were taken mainly by the act of tattooing their arms with numbers - replacing their personal names. As you walk about Birkenau it is not difficult to picture the squalor and anguish that victims had to endure. The living accommodation tended to be built like makeshift barns. There were no foundations, and little defence against the elements. Unsurprisingly, inmates were plagued by ill-health - the bitterness of the Polish winter must have been unbearable.


Judenrampe Birkenau


Selection Birkenau ramp

During the Holocaust, concentration camp prisoners received tattoos only at one location, the Auschwitz concentration camp complex, which consisted of Auschwitz I (Main Camp), Auschwitz II (Auschwitz-Birkenau), and Auschwitz III (Monowitz and the sub camps). Incoming prisoners were assigned a camp serial number which was sewn to their prison uniforms. Only those prisoners selected for work were issued serial numbers; those prisoners sent directly to the gas chambers were not registered and received no tattoos.


Auschwitz survivor Sam Rosenzweig displays his identification tattoo.

Initially, the SS authorities marked prisoners who were in the infirmary or who were to be executed with their camp serial number across the chest with indelible ink. As prisoners were executed or died in other ways, their clothing bearing the camp serial number was removed. Given the mortality rate at the camp and practice of removing clothing, there was no way to identify the bodies after the clothing was removed. Hence, the SS authorities introduced the practice of tattooing in order to identify the bodies of registered prisoners who had died.

On October 7, 1944, several hundred prisoners assigned to Crematorium IV at Auschwitz-Birkenau rebelled after learning that they were going to be killed. During the uprising, the prisoners killed three guards and blew up the crematorium and adjacent gas chamber. The prisoners used explosives smuggled into the camp by Jewish women who had been assigned to forced labour in a nearby armaments factory. The Germans crushed the revolt and killed almost all of the prisoners involved in the rebellion. The Jewish women who had smuggled the explosives into the camp were publicly hanged in early January 1945.


Zyklon-B

With the Soviet Army fast approaching the fit Auschwitz prisoners were led onto evacuation marches to other camps westwards with many dying or shot enroute. In January 1945, the SS set about their final steps to remove the evidence of the crimes they had committed in the camp. They made bonfires of documents on the camp streets. They blew up crematoria II and III, which had already been partially dismantled, on January 20, and crematorium V, still in operational condition, on January 26. On January 23, they set fire to “Kanada II,” the complex of storage barracks holding property plundered from the victims of extermination. The almost 9 thousand prisoners left behind in the Main Camp (Stammlager), Birkenau, and the sub-camps as unfit to join the evacuation march found themselves in an uncertain situation. The majority of them were sick or suffering from exhaustion. The SS intended to eliminate these prisoners, and only fortunate coincidences prevented them from doing so. The SS did manage to murder about 700 Jewish prisoners in Birkenau and the sub-camps in Wesoła (Fürstengrube), Gliwice (Glewitz IV), Czechowice (Tschechowitz-Vacuum) and Blachownia Śląska (Blechhammer) between the departure of the final evacuation column and the arrival of the Red Army.


Soviet troops with survivors

On January 27, 1945, the Soviet army entered Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Monowitz and liberated around 7,000 prisoners, most of whom were ill and dying. It is estimated that the SS and police deported at a minimum 1.3 million people to Auschwitz complex between 1940 and 1945. Of these, the camp authorities murdered 1.1 million. The Soviets were stunned by what they discovered as like most of the outside world the did not realise the scale of the Auschwitz complex which from the air looked like labour camps for the many factories set up by IG Fahren and other German companies in this industrial region of East Silesia. They conducted 534 autopsies on bodies they found and set up a Commision of Enquiry to document what had been found.



Auschwitz is not an easy place to visit but it is a visit which must be made. Each of the barracks at Auschwitz I is a memorial to a different aspect of the Holocaust, for instance one is a monument to Slovakian Jews, another to the Romany who perished here. It is difficult to preserve because obviously it is a memorial and the Polish authorities don’t want to enhance the site in anyway but rather preserve it as a testimony to the victims and a resource for study and research. For me some three aspects stood out.




Auschwitz Shoe Heap


Auschwitz suitcases

Firstly, the cruel and callous way the victims were “harvested” by the Nazis. Their hair was shorn and made into cloth, socks etc. They were stripped naked and their clothes and shoes sent back to the Reich to be used by the German population. Their possessions were looted and dealt with the same way. And worst of all after being killed their eye glasses; prosthetics and teeth fillings were systematically removed by other prisoners who were obtaining a temporary reprieve from the same fate.


Jewish prisoners working in the Siemens airplane factory at Bobrek subcamp

Secondly there was the whole system of slave labour where major companies (many of which still exist) paid the SS for labour and the contracts which compensated them when prisoners were executed. The same contracts also called for the labour to be in good condition so those who were sick or weak were “culled”, sent to the gas chambers or beaten to death by the Kapo, German criminals who were the most brutal guards.



Lastly there were the deliberate policies of humiliating the prisoners and stripping them of the last vestiges of human dignity. The roll calls, the use of dogs, and the 40 seconds you were allowed morning and evening to use the communal toilets, the roll calls in freezing weather for hours on end, the thin striped pyjama uniforms, the public executions and the constant violence. This is most apparent amidst the bleakness of Birkenau where 400 prisoners were accommodated in 300 wooden “huts” with no services which were originally pre-fabricated German Army stables for 56 horses each.




Birkenau Barracks


Birkenau toilets

Despite the fact that the tens of thousands of prisoners who survived Auschwitz were witnesses to the crimes committed there; despite the fact that they left behind thousands of depositions, accounts, and memoirs; despite the fact that considerable quantities of documents, photographs, and material objects remain from the camp—despite all of this, there are people and organizations who deny that hundreds of thousands of people were murdered in this camp, that gas chambers operated there, or that the crematoria could burn several thousand corpses per day. In other words, they deny that Auschwitz was the scene of genocide.




SS Private Oskar Gröning

"It was not long before I was assigned to supervise the luggage collection of an incoming transport. When this was over, it was just like a fairground, there was lots of rubbish left and amongst this rubbish were ill people, those unable to walk. And the way these people were treated really horrified me. For example, a child who was lying there naked was simply pulled by the legs and chucked into a lorry to be driven away, and when it screamed like a sick chicken, then they bashed it against the edge of the lorry, so it shut up.

We were convinced by our world view that we had been betrayed by the entire world, and that there was a great conspiracy of the Jews against us. The children, they're not the enemy at the moment. The enemy is the blood inside them. The enemy is the growing up to be a Jew that could become dangerous. And because of that the children were included as well.

I see it as my task, now at my age, to face up to these things that I experienced and to oppose the Holocaust deniers who claim that Auschwitz never happened.

And that's why I am here today.

Because I want to tell those deniers: I have seen the gas chambers, I have seen the crematoria, I have seen the burning pits - and I want you to believe me that these atrocities happened.

I was there."

Oskar Gröning: SS Garrison, Auschwitz


Auschwitz burial after liberation

Over a million people were slaughtered here, 80% of them when they first arrived here. The vast majority of the victims, roundly 90% were Jews, 430,000 from Hungary and 330,000 from Poland. Also killed here were 22,000 Roma, Poles including many clergy, political prisoners, Gays and Soviet prisoners of war who were first used in the experiments with Zyklon-B, the “cost efficient” poison gas used to kill 800 people at a time. Our Polish guide Lukas was passionate that the memory of this crime scene must never be forgotten and when asked why he worked showing visitors around Auschwitz and Birkenau mentioned that his Great-Grand father had been a prisoner here and like many Poles is bitter that the companies which used slave labour are still trading and are now considered respectable.


The gallows where Rudolph Höss, the first Commandant was hanged


Rudolph Höss before he died



“When they were leading him to the gallows, Höss looked calm. I thought as he climbed to the gallows, up the steps—knowing him to be a Nazi, a hardened party member—that he would say something. Like make a statement to the glory of the Nazi ideology that he was dying for. But no. He didn’t say a word. And during the execution you thought: One life for so many millions of people, is that not too little?”

Stanislaw Hantz

Guard, Auschwitz-Birkenau


The Commandant's house where Höss's youngest child was born

“One woman approached me as she walked past and pointed to her four children who were manfully helping the smallest ones over the rough ground and whispered, ‘How can you bring yourself to kill such beautiful darling children? Have you no heart at all?”

– Memoirs of Rudolf Höss, Commandant of Auschwitz

Reading in July 1944 the first detailed account of Auschwitz, Churchill wrote:

"There is no doubt this is the most horrible crime ever committed in the whole history of the world, and it has been done by scientific machinery by nominally civilised men in the name of a great State and one of the leading races of Europe. It is quite clear that all concerned in this crime who may fall into our hands, including the people who only obeyed orders by carrying out the butcheries, should be put to death after their association with the murders has been proved."



The words of Elie Wiesel, the Nobel laureate and Auschwitz Holocaust survivor, stand as a testament to why we must never forget this dark period of human history:

"For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and the living. He has no right to deprive future generations of a past that belongs to our collective memory. To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time. The witness has forced himself to testify. For the youth of today, for the children who will be born tomorrow. He does not want his past to become their future."

Elie Wiesel, Night, Preface to the New Translation (New York: Hill and Wang, c2006), page xv.

In 1933 nine million Jews lived in the countries of Europe that would be military occupied by Nazi Germany. By 1945 two out of every three Jews had been killed. 1.5 million Children were murdered - more than 1.2 million Jewish children, tens of thousands of Gypsy children and thousands of handicapped children.

In the words of the Holocaust survivor Abel Herzberg: "There were not six million Jews murdered; there was one murder, six million times."

Remember the Shoah and respect the memory of the victims.

“in the world which will be renewed"

“בְּעָלְמָא דְהוּא עָתִיד לְאִתְחַדָּתָא”




In writing this piece as well as information from the Auschwitz site I've relied upon and quoted from some of the extensive resources and documentation which is available to ensure the victims and the lessons of history are not forgotten.

Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum

http://en.auschwitz.org.pl/m/

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

www.USHMM.org

Krakow Info

http://www.krakow-info.com/auschwit.htm

Yad Vashem - The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority

www.yadvashem.org/

Jewish Virtual Library

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/

Holocaust Project

http://www.auschwitz.dk/index.html




See also;

Jewish Kraków

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/04/jewish-krakow.html

Jewish Prague

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/11/jewish-prague.html

Jewish Kos

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/06/jewish-kos.html

Jewish Marrakech

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/04/jewish-marrakech.html