Butterfly -Rachel Baio

The entrance to Auschwitz II-Birkenau

I don't think its possible to write to you about the things that I saw today. To explain the feelings that ran through me, and by ran I mean forced themselves through my chest, would be impossible. I still don't know for sure what those feelings are.

                  Train tracks exiting Birkenau

When I imagined Auschtwiz, I imagined Auschwitz II-Birkenau, and I think thats why yesterday was such a weird day for me; because I had expected something different. But today we went to Birkenau and I can promise you that I was not ready for what happened to me there. My expectation was exceeded by tremendous realization after realization of just how big and horrible this lair of evil was.

The main guard tower and the railroad tracks leading into the camp was a sight that always gave me the chills in pictures. It just looks like it would be an entrance to death and despair. I now associate the entrance of Birkenau to the entrance of death. As we drove to the camp I really wasn't feeling or acting in any particular way, I was just wonder how long the drive was, and exactly then is when the road we were on suddenly wound and took us right to the entrance tower. I went speechless and my body filled with complete dread. From that point on I felt like I couldn't breathe; there was just something off with me. I felt heavy...empty...and hopeless. The entire grounds of the camp didn't feel right.

Looking at the train tracks made my stomach twist into a discomfort I felt for the rest of the day. I couldn't believe where I was. This was truly hell. And I haven't even been inside yet. It was like every prisoner was standing with me, looking at the endless railroad that took them into their doom, stuffed like animals in a cattle cart. Before the Jewish prisoners built the internal train stop where their death began, the original prisoners of Birkenau had to walk about fifteen minutes from a train stop not far from the camp. As we walked this trek, I imaged the dread of seeing those terrible towers in the distance and knowing that thats where I was being herded.  I truly don't know what I would've done. I don't know what I would've felt.                                                      
                                                                                       A cattle car used to transport Hungary Jews 

As we walked through the opening of the camp, through that hideous tower, I became more aware of my surroundings, and the motion of uneasiness set in. The first place we went inside was the women's block of death. This was the barrack where the women who were too weak and sick to work were put in a holding cell until it was time for them to be liquidated. The women received no food or water and stayed here because the gas chambers were too crowded. If a woman died, her bunk mates had to move her corpse outside until it was time for them to be murdered. The women knew where they were and what was to come to them in their future. Just hearing that seemed to remove me from my body, and as we entered I felt more and more separate from myself. It was awful in there. The floor was dirt, the beds were wooden boards, and it was so cold. They slept next to each other, possibly 8 of them squished, but they needed the warmth of body heat. The bunks were built to  have 3 levels, with the sickest on the bottom because they didn't have the strength to climb to the middle or top section. The women defecated on themselves throughout the night because they couldn't go outside- the guards locked the barrack. Thinking about these poor women, their bodies of just skin and bone, and that they lost the ability to h
ave their period, made me feel even more empathetic because I am a women. They were so mutilated that they not only lost their identity of a person but as a women too. I walked up to one of the bunks and did something I've yet to do to something in the camps... reached my hand out to touch the artifact. My hand seemed to lock up and resisted to reach further, but something inside me pushed it forward and when I finally grabbed onto the wooden board I felt something that I still do not understand. I felt her with me. Her. Them. Women. And I seemed to become full with presence, and at the same time completely drained of all energy. I had become completely numb.

I needed to get out of there. And I was I did, but I felt just absolute remorse leaving, like I had left a part of me behind in the block. Maybe a part of these women are left behind in this block. There was no hope here. I always try to find hope in things, even when life seems totally hopeless, but there was no hope here.







One of the crematoriums destroyed by Nazis

The bunkers in the Women's death block

The air felt evil...and empty. There was a smell to Birkenau. I have no idea what it is but I'll always associate that smell with the horrors of Birkenau. We were shown so many horrible things. There was the gas chambers, where people were told and tricked to undress and hang their coats up on a numbered hook so they wouldn't forget it. Children were told to tie their shoes together so they could find them when they were done showering. These people had no idea what was happening to them. Or maybe some did, which is even worse. These children had no idea that they were never going to see those shoes again. They were never going to see the outside world again. What was worse came after that. When the bodies were cremated and the ashes were just completely disregarded in ponds and farm land. The Nazis took everything from these people---their belongings, their families, and their bodies---to benefit Germany.


What happened next was the most emotional part of the tour for me. The part where I finally felt something. We were shown the back of the camp, so far away form the public's eye. This is where the ashes and other chambers were located. There was a river filled with ashes of the deceased. Ashes of innocent people. Tens of thousands of innocent people. It was here I finally was able to have a realization of just how devastating this camp was. It was here that I was able to bring myself back into my body and feel again. As I put myself in solitude and stared at the pond my heart suddenly seemed to beat again and it was just filled with this complete feeling of sorrow. I was so sorry. I hadn't done anything to the deceased, but I was so sorry. And I let them know that. And just as my eyes began to tear for the first time since arriving in Poland a butterfly appeared and flew over to me. The butterfly lingered for a while as if to say, "Its okay." My tear never fell. But I was okay because I felt that the souls of these ashes have been liberated in their own way, and that they were finally at peace now.

The pond with victims' ashes

As we walked out of the camp a fire alarm in the near distance started to sound. As if me and my group were being liberated. Let out. Free. But most of the prisoners there would never know the feeling of freedom again. And it didn't seem fair to me that I only had to stay inside this camp for a few hours and they never got to leave.

Auschwitz I was a hard place for me to get a reaction because the whole camp looked like a set to me. Since its a museum I had a hard time visualizing it as a concentration camp rather than an exhibit, and I think thats why it was so difficult for me to put myself there and imagine the devastation. I did not have that issue with Birkenau. The devastation was clear. Nothing looked like it was fake. It was too real.

To feel okay about the horrid things that happened at Birkenau I remember the butterfly. The only symbol of hope and freedom I saw throughout my entire tour. That butterfly can fly away whenever it wants to. It is free.        

                                                    Students from Israel visiting the camp