The latter is much greater in size than Auschwitz, it served as the train station to unload Jewish prisoners, it had two massive gas chambers and is the camp where the majority of Jewish prisoners were executed.
Throughout the tour only a few people in the group asked questions, most of the time everyone kept a respectful silence.
I must admit that after a couple of days I forgot most of what our guide said. What stayed with me is the emotional imprint of the cold and gloomy mood and peoples’ respectful silence as they walked in the camps. However, the mind works in mysterious ways. Sometimes, information or a memory seems forgotten, but actually it is just in the dark. All it needs is a random trigger to bring it to light, and suddenly we remember.
A few days ago I watched the film ‘The Counterfeiters’ – based on a true story about a group of Jewish counterfeiters in a concentration camp working to replicate the British Pound and the American Dollar for the Nazis. In a scene one of the counterfeiters mentions that he survived Auschwitz because of ‘Kanada’. Even before the dialogue explained this detail I immediately knew what he was referring to. My mind unearthed the information from somewhere: after prisoners were unloaded from the train at Birkenau their luggage were confiscated, emptied for valuables, and dumped in a warehouse nick-named ‘Kanada’ – a term chosen to designate a distant and beautiful place. In another scene another counterfeiter goes into full-on panic at having to take a shower with the rest of his team, screaming something like ‘they’re going to gas us!’. Again, my mind immediately dug up this story behind this detail and threw it to the fore.
Having just arrived at Birkenau, the prisoners, while still on the train platform, would line up in front of a Nazi officer whose job was to assess whether they are fit for labour. With a gesture of his thumb the officer would create two lines: one to head to the barracks and the other to take a shower. The men and women heading to the shower were led to a dressing chamber where they would undress, then cram themselves into an elongated shower room where, instead of water pouring down from the shower heads, a lethal gas would drop on them from holes in the ceiling. Minutes later, after the gas has done its job, fellow inmates wearing gas masks would come in to the shower room and remove all jewellery left on bodies, all gold or silver teeth and would scalp the hair off women before taking the bodies to the crematorium.
I respect museums in their role as custodians of knowledge and history, but I do not usually visit these cultural institutions. They tend define information too rigidly and dryly for me, caging my imagination and not allowing it to wander. It is either that or I cannot connect emotionally to what is being exhibited or what knowledge is shared with me. Not so at the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum. Among the exhibits I saw was a large mound of rusted and broken eye-glasses from prisoners that were executed. In one large room, rising to a height of about 5’8 or 6′ and behind a glass window that spans the length of the room, is hair from women that were gassed or killed otherwise. Near that exhibit is a small window where we were shown something that looks like a rug – our guide informed us the item was created from the women’s hair. Another exhibit shows a mountain of worn out shoes that reaches the room’s ceiling, stacked behind glass windows on both sides of a narrow corridor. These displays are all suggestive. Interpretation of their meaning and significance is left to the person’s imagination, which I found to be a very powerful way to conceptualize the horror that happened as imagination has no boundaries.
A particular exhibit that stayed with me is a long corridor of black and white mug shots hanging on both walls. Under each photo is a date range indicating the person’s life span in the camp.
Some lasted years, others months while some lasted not even a day. The faces all look grim, some were even scarred by bruises. A few pictures had flowers fastened behind their frame, put there by a relative or a friend. A mug shot of a young woman caught my attention. She had short hair, her face was round and, on the corner of her lips, I saw what looked to me like a hint of a smile. I looked up at her round eyes and caught a soft glow in them. She looked smart and beautiful. I imagined her an optimist, a woman who greets life with a smile and who is always ready to laugh; a woman who enjoys the moment and every breath of air. I looked at her dates – she only lived for a couple of days. My concentration got interrupted by people bumping into me. Our guide noticed I was missing. She looked in the corridor from outside and called out to me.
Afterwards I felt as if I should have done something before leaving. Had I a flower then I would have fastened it behind her picture, but I didn’t know where to get one. Besides, I did not want to delay the tour anymore than I already have. So, today, using my words and imagination, I place myself back in that busy corridor, in front of her picture. People are bumping into me as they move forwards and the guide calls out to me with a wave of her hand. I signal to my
guide with a nod of my head. In my hand is a flower. I slip it behind the photo’s frame to fasten it against the wall and walk away. The flower holds and gently leans over the woman’s head, its petals bright and beautiful.
Mohamed Asem
Note from the Editor:
Mohamed Asem is a writer from Kuwait and currently on a journey across eastern/central Europe. When he was in Poland he visited Warsaw, Krakow and Wroclaw. During his stay in Krakow, he visited the Auschwitz Birkenau museum.