March of the Living 1999 Diary

April 13, 4:20 PM

Um. . . I've been saying for hours that I'm probably going to spend the entire trip to wherever we're going writing in my diary, but now that we're here I'm not quite sure how to begin. We were at Auschwitz-Birkenau today and did the actual MotL. I guess I'll go in chronological order of what happened and give the feelings I felt at the time and what I feel now, thinking back. At times, I may interrupt myself, and I hope you'll bear with me. I'm thinking all sorts of things, so this may be a little disjointed.

After I last wrote, we arrived about 45 minutes later. We met our tour guide for Auschwitz, Auschwiz I, that is. There were three parts to Auschwitz: Auschwitz, Birkenau, and a "small" part (10,000 people) that worked for a company that produced Cyclon B gas. Then we started in.

I guess I wasn't quite sure what to expect. It was overcast, but otherwise nice out. The birds were singing. We saw the rows of double barbed wire and the "Arbet Mact Frei" sign over the entrance gate. It seemed a little unreal, distant. It was as if, "maybe it wasn't so bad. They might have been wrong."

We walked down the streets of Auschwitz, between the barracks. As we stood outside of them and looked at a picture of the "Auschwitz Orchestra", I found myself thinking, "how many people died on this exact spot?" I would repeat the phrase many times over the course of the day.

I noticed before we entered that the complex was referred to as "Auschwitz Museum". It made me feel a little funny, as if this was all a joke and a form of denial.

Anyway, we then began the tour of the "museum." They had taken actual barracks of Auschwitz and used them as a museum. I didn't take many pictures in Auschwitz, during the tour, so I'll describe what I saw.

We first went to Barracks 4. I don't really remember what went in which barracks, but I think that one was just basic information that we mainly knew already. It included things like when people came, and how many people were in the camps, and so on. I began to feel at that point that fear that I had yesterday, that I wouldn't feel anything. (I would be proven wrong very soon.)

In a little aside, as we came back from the tour of Auschwitz I, I caught sight of a sign for people entering. It started, "the place you are about to enter is a site of extreme terror. . .". It struck me as a little funny, as if the people entering wouldn't know what they were about to look at.

The next barracks we went to showed the different stages in the camp. The first room or two was about "registration" and arrival to the camps. Again, I was not really shocked. There may have been a few more rooms then, I can't quite remember.

Another aside (wow, it seems as if I'm avoiding the point I want to make, but I just keep thinking of things). As we were driving to the camp, I caught sight of railway tracks by the side of the road. It was all messed over, with grass growing between and over the wooden tracks. It felt strange, looking at them.

Anyway. . . we went upstairs then and turned left into a room. There I received my first shock. As I entered, and looked to my left, I felt a lump form in the pit of my stomach. I knew what it was: hair. An entire wall, as long as any classroom I've ever been in (maybe longer) and about. . . I don't know how many meters deep, was hair. Piles and piles of it. It was all gray. Most of it was matted. I wished that it was all just a big mistake, that I wasn't really seeing what I was seeing. Then I saw a strange of braided hair. Just that, a braid. The lump got bigger. Our tour guide said that the hair was all gray because it was shaved after people were gassed, and the gas changed the color. She also said that the long braids were used as fabric stiffener.

We went through the rest of the building, and I don't remember much of it. I remember thinking that this was the first shock, but there would be more. I was right.

I just went up to share my feelings with the rest of the bus. I said that I was thinking about the 5 million non-Jews who died in the camps. Even though we rarely hear about them, they are still 5 million people, and they deserve to be remembered.

After that building, we went to another one where the possessions (some of them, at least) of the inmates of the camp were displayed. They were found when the camp was liberated. There was the first room, where there was. . . something. I don't remember. The next room shocked me again, though. It was full of prosthetics, crutches, and other things like that. It smelt like burning plastic in that room.

We saw a room of pots and dishes, a room of clothes, a room of suitcases. On the side of the room with suitcases was shoes. A huge pile of them, filling up an entire showcase. I couldn't stand it, and went to the window to look outside. Not so much to look outside, really, but to not look inside, to give myself a moment to collect myself. I did that a lot today. As I walked into the next room, I felt the stone in my stomach harden. Shoes. Shoes were on either side of us, and deep, and about 2 classroom-lengths down. I walked down, only to find one window, and that I had to walk back next to the shoes again. I had trouble breathing.

We went to another barracks museum that showed us daily life in the camp. It showed how thin the inmates were, like skeletons. I can't remember much from that barracks. No wait, I do I think it was in that on (it might have been another) where we saw what the rooms were like in the different years. In one year, the people only slept on a bed of straw. When the 3-level bunk-beds were made, there were 2 or 3 people sleeping on a bed barely fit for one.

We saw barracks 11, the prison barracks. It had been almost completely preserved. We saw the cells. There was a gallows set up at the end. [Note: I was later told that this was not, in fact, a gallows, but a form of torture. All I can say is that it seemed like gallows to me.] There was also terrible types of cells downstairs, cells for starvation or darkness. There were also "standing cells" where 4 people had to spend a night in a small area: 90 by 90 cm. I couldn't imagine anything like that.

We went outside between barracks 11 and 10, "death row". That's where criminals used to be shot or hung. We lit Yizkor candles at the far end and sang HaTikvah. As we left, I saw Ari and gave him a hug. He hadn't been in the prison barracks yet.

Next, we went into one of the original gas chambers (most were in Birkenau, Auschwitz II). Someone had scratched some writing on the wall in Hebrew. Again I found myself wondering how many people had died where I stood. We also saw the crematoria.

It was raining as we started the tour. It seemed appropriate, right somehow.

We ate lunch, if you can call it lunch, on the bus. Rolls, crackers and cream cheese, kit kat bars. That's about the sum of what we got. At least we're learning. Many of us brought food from breakfast.

After lunch we went on the March. I walked next to Ari. Even though it was supposed to be a silent march, most people spoke. I tried to keep in the spirit, though. Overall, though, the actual "marching" part of the March was disappointing. I didn't feel pride, or joy, or anything like that. Actually, I felt a little tired, and my feet were hurting. I was still overwhelmed from Auschwitz I.

Montreal left the rest of the Marchers at the end to perform our own ending ceremony. The survivor travelling with us who was in Auschwitz for 7 months spoke to us about her experiences. We went into one of the barracks of Birkenau, which as opposed to Auschwitz I's stone barracks were made of wood. I sat next to Ari again. I needed someone's hand to hold, and his was there.

Then we went farther into the camp. We walked along the railroad tracks that right in the middle of the camp. That's where the Hungarian Jews were taken and where the selections took place.

The people next to me on the bus are having a discussion / debate on religion vs. science. I would join in, but I don't think that these kind of discussions are ever resolved well. Besides, I want to finish this.

We talked a little as we walked, and stopped by the destroyed crematorium at the far end.

As we walked back and placed our memorial plaques, it started to rain very hard. Our last look of Auschwitz was in heavy rain. Everyone ran back to the buses, afraid of getting wet. It seemed to me that that was completely against the point of the day.

Well, I got into that conversation.

I'll write later,
Julie