I set out for Auschwitz on Tuesday morning with a relatively heavy heart. I was anxious. What do I expect of this place? Will I be moved? Will I cry?
There were huge crowds already present at the entrance: groups of students, a trickle of individual tourists. Squeezing past them, I entered the blocks one by one. The first few explained the history of hte camp with pictures, some documents. You meet the eyes of anxious Jews frozen on a canvas. This did not move me though, in part I suppose because we've seen such images before. What added to the disconnect was the large groups shuffling in and out of the rooms of each block. There were too many of them being lectured by tour guides. I was glad to be rid of them in some rooms.
Then the goosebumps formed on my skin. When Fei told me about the human hair in one of the rooms, I was expecting a rectangular glass display of some strands. I found myself facing an entire wall filled with plaited dark hair weighing at least a thousand kilogrammes. The had been collected by the Nazis to make nets. Those on display had not made it to German territory for production. Another room had a model of a gas chamber and an incinerator. In Daša Drndić's Trieste, she describes how people would have struggled to fight for survival -- she etched into the mind's eye images of broken skulls, a stampede, people screaming. I tried to find that in the model. I know I never will.
In Birkenau, images from the Holocaust-related films came to life. The train lines terminating in front of the gas chambers, the barracks. I walked into one. As I stood there, I knew there would be no words to fittingly described how I felt. The gas chambers here are in ruins, as they were destroyed by the retreating Nazis. But skeletons remain as far as the eye can see. On my way out, I saw a man visibly distressed by what he had seen.
~
My bus for Krakow was supposed to have arrived. There was yet no sign of it. I started pacing up and down, looking this way and that, not wandering too far from the bus stop. Sitting on the grass and pavement around me were those students who had been broken into smaller groups earlier. They were chatting and having sandwiches and drinks.
At some point a man comes up to me.
'How are you?' he asked.
'Sorry?' I look at him, puzzled. He repeats his question.
'I'm good,' I finally say.
'Where are you from?'
'Singapore.'
'Oh! Beautiful city!'
'It's alright.'
He smiles.
'Where are you from?' It was my turn to ask.
'This group is from Israel.' He said before quickly turning away to respond to instructions via his earpiece.
'I figured as much,' I said. Their hooded jackets in Israel's national colours left little to the imagination.
Across the small road I saw another security personnel, speaking into his device. The man who spoke to me added distance between us as he started herding the students to the safety of their waiting buses.
Note: This entry was first written on 5th Oct '12
There were huge crowds already present at the entrance: groups of students, a trickle of individual tourists. Squeezing past them, I entered the blocks one by one. The first few explained the history of hte camp with pictures, some documents. You meet the eyes of anxious Jews frozen on a canvas. This did not move me though, in part I suppose because we've seen such images before. What added to the disconnect was the large groups shuffling in and out of the rooms of each block. There were too many of them being lectured by tour guides. I was glad to be rid of them in some rooms.
Then the goosebumps formed on my skin. When Fei told me about the human hair in one of the rooms, I was expecting a rectangular glass display of some strands. I found myself facing an entire wall filled with plaited dark hair weighing at least a thousand kilogrammes. The had been collected by the Nazis to make nets. Those on display had not made it to German territory for production. Another room had a model of a gas chamber and an incinerator. In Daša Drndić's Trieste, she describes how people would have struggled to fight for survival -- she etched into the mind's eye images of broken skulls, a stampede, people screaming. I tried to find that in the model. I know I never will.
In Birkenau, images from the Holocaust-related films came to life. The train lines terminating in front of the gas chambers, the barracks. I walked into one. As I stood there, I knew there would be no words to fittingly described how I felt. The gas chambers here are in ruins, as they were destroyed by the retreating Nazis. But skeletons remain as far as the eye can see. On my way out, I saw a man visibly distressed by what he had seen.
~
My bus for Krakow was supposed to have arrived. There was yet no sign of it. I started pacing up and down, looking this way and that, not wandering too far from the bus stop. Sitting on the grass and pavement around me were those students who had been broken into smaller groups earlier. They were chatting and having sandwiches and drinks.
At some point a man comes up to me.
'How are you?' he asked.
'Sorry?' I look at him, puzzled. He repeats his question.
'I'm good,' I finally say.
'Where are you from?'
'Singapore.'
'Oh! Beautiful city!'
'It's alright.'
He smiles.
'Where are you from?' It was my turn to ask.
'This group is from Israel.' He said before quickly turning away to respond to instructions via his earpiece.
'I figured as much,' I said. Their hooded jackets in Israel's national colours left little to the imagination.
Across the small road I saw another security personnel, speaking into his device. The man who spoke to me added distance between us as he started herding the students to the safety of their waiting buses.
Note: This entry was first written on 5th Oct '12
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