I have spent the last week in and around Krakow in Poland. This is the nearest big town to Auschwitz and Birkenau. One of my sons is doing research there - on why young people choose to visit Auschwitz, so I took the opportunity to go there too. I've always been curious about the place, and a couple of years ago I read Victor Frankel's "Man's Search For Meaning" which I found very moving. In preparaion for my visit my son recommended I read Primo Levi's "If This Is A Man" and "The Truce". Again moving and thought-rpovoking books.
I was nervous about visiting the actual place, but went anyway. The display cabinets - spectacles, human hair, shoes, documents, shaving brushes, clothes has a numbing effect. Standing in one of the gas chambers .. viewing the place and the gallows where a camp commandant had been hung after the war .. standing in front of a wall where the inmates were shot ... seeing the punishment cells - as if just being there wasn't punishment enough ..
The most disturbing bit for me though was at the end when I climbed into one of the guard towers at Birkenau - I shivered and felt sick. It took me a few minutes to realise why - suddenly I no longer imagined myself as an inmate, now I was one of the people who perpetutated the horror.
I'm still processing my feelings about my visit, but in some strange way that I can't quite get to grips with yet irt affirms life and not death.
