The victims had no hope...
Tessa Watkins • Published 19 Feb 2012 08:00
TEARS rolled down their cheeks as they stood at the spot where millions of families had been ripped apart.
The only sound the whistle of the icy wind slicing through the air as heads bowed in sombre memory, and snowflakes fell from the gloomy skies to settle on the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.
Nearly 200 students - 20 of them from the Reading area - joined the Holocaust Educational Trust's Lessons From Auschwitz tour last Thursday [9] to learn about the horrors of the Second World War.
The tour takes in Osweicim, the town where the Auschwitz death and concentration camps were located, as well as Auschwitz 1 and Auschwitz-Birkenau, the sites where millions of Jews, Poles, Gypsies, Soviet prisoners of war and homosexuals were murdered by the Nazis.
Six million Jews were butchered between 1939-45 and 1.5 million of these perished in Auschwitz alone.
Despite seeing the infamous buildings in photographs, films and books, it is difficult to comprehend just how vast the camps were until standing inside them. Students shivered and snow crunched underfoot as we walked beneath the sign, "Arbeit macht frei" - Work Makes You Free - which marks the entrance to the camp.
As we made our way to block four, heads bowed against the bitter cold, we saw piles of broken spectacles, smashed and bent, thousands of hairbrushes and combs, a filthy baby shoe, a tiny floral dress and a mountain of battered suitcases, etched names still clear: 'L.Bermann, 26.12.1886, Hamburg.'
But it was the stomach-clenching mounds of hair which caused the sharpest intake of breath - piles and piles of it, dark, blonde, long, short, often still plaited - viciously shorn off to be sold on for profit.
The snow began to fall thick and fast as we sought shelter in a large, stark, cold room with stone walls and a small posy of commemorative flowers. It was one of the gas chambers, where millions thought they were entering showers but instead perished from poisonous fumes, their bodies burned in the furnaces next door.
Frost-covered flowers already lay on the railway tracks at Auschwitz-Birkenau, which was covered in a blanket of snow as we stood at the spot where the tiny hands of youngsters were wrenched from their parents as families were ripped apart without the chance even to say goodbye.
Heads bowed in prayer inside the gas chambers as London Central Synagogue Rabbi, Barry Marcus, stood in front of a montage of photographs confiscated from the prisoners, leading the students in a memorial ceremony, which had to be moved inside as the temperatures hit minus 15C.
Shivering in our layers of clothing, warm gloves and sturdy shoes, it was difficult to comprehend how the victims had survived even the freezing conditions. Instead we paused to place candles on the railway tracks and - unlike those millions who never got the chance - we made our way out of the camp.
What kept us going was the thought that there was an end to the cold for us, that we could escape the icy winds that battered us, get back on the coach and return to our warm homes.
But for the victims there was no end, no let-up, no hope. And as I looked around at the frozen young faces around me, some with tears still glistening on their cheeks, I knew that they were struggling to deal with these thoughts too.
Harriet Langshaw, 16, from The Abbey School, said: "It has been such a haunting experience and one that will stay with me for quite some time.
"I was not sure what to expect, but it has been unlike anything I could have imagined - a chilling day in every sense of the word.
"The piles of hair were so shocking and really drove home the conditions they must have lived through.
"It is a different experience for everyone, but we must make sure this never happens again.
People think it is an isolated event, but there are still hate crimes in the world which we must get under control."
Sonia Nath, 16, who lives in Earley and attends The Kendrick School, said: "I don't think the experience has really hit me yet. The scale and size of Birkenau was completely overwhelming - we walked for 20 minutes and did not even get from one end of the camp to the other.
"You see the train tracks in movies and photographs and you read about the camps, but nothing compares to actually being here.
"I know this will stay with me for a long time, especially the piles of hair - the fact that it was turned into material to be sold shows it was all just a business for the Nazis."
Jenny Murray, 17, from Wokingham, a Reading Blue Coat student, said: "It is difficult to grasp what went on until you are actually there. You hear the camp is big but you cannot imagine the scale. Being there makes it all so real and we only saw a small proportion of the camp. It is difficult to comprehend.
"The vastness of Auschwitz-Birkenau was shocking - from the watchtower you cannot see anything else. The plaits of hair and the baby clothes were also horrific, as was the fact that they kept these items as mementoes of what they had done."
Will Stone, 17, also from Reading Blue Coat, who was picked to read a poem during the memorial ceremony, said: "When I saw the piles of hair and the other items that were taken from the bodies, like gold teeth - anything that was worth any money - it really hit home.
"It's been so overwhelming. I thought I understood it before I came here but you soon realise that it is completely incomprehensible."
This article appeared in Reading Chronicle 19 Feb 12
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