A lot has been said about Auschwitz and Birkenau. Evil things happened there and it is an evil place. But after visiting those places, I was bewildered. I so wanted to hate it, but I found no hate there. I found calm and peace. It is a memorial to remember those who suffered and perished. A testament to what can happen if you let hatred go unchecked. It is not evil. It is just a place…
Camera: Nikon D7000
Lens: Nikon 28mm f/2.8 AIS (manual focus)
Auschwitz Concentration Camp
Work Sets Free!
Guard Tower
Warning Sign
Fence
Fence
Fence
Barbwire
Shooting Wall
Prison
Hall of Photos
Striped prison clothes
Clothes on sink in cell
Cell
Gas Chamber
Fingernail scratches on gas chamber wall
Hole in the ceiling of the gas chamber used to drop in gas canister
Gas canister
Used gas canisters
Ovens
Luggage
Luggage
Shoes
Glasses
Prosthetics
Hair
Birkenau Concentration Camp
Gates of Hell
Bunks and fireplace
Bunks and fireplace
Living quarters
Toilets
Bunks
Cattle car at unloading platform
Chimneys
Fence and guard tower
Electrified fence
Barbwire
Flower behind barbwire
End of the Line
Crematorium
Crematorium
Remembering
We had bright blue skies for our visit as well – although rain and grey clouds would have made the visit feel more “right”.
You are spot on when you say that the site is peaceful, we were so surprised at how (dare I say) beautiful it was. Although the displays with the children’s shoes gutted me – looking at your pictures they still do.
Great post with wonderful photos. Auschwitz is a place everyone needs to visit to attempt to understand the evil that happened there!
Very powerful photos ~ it is a time in history that needs to be remembered.
Some really chilling images here; especially of the possessions and the fingernail scratches on the walls. I am glad though you actually found some peace in visiting and were able to look upon these places as memorials; you’ve really encouraged me to visit one day.
Deeply moving photos.
This brings to life the works of Victor Frankyl that I am studying. Sick minds to be able to construct and carry through actors of inhumanity of man on man, lest we forget.
I would love to say that the place is peaceful, but sorry – I think it’s not, really. It’s just silent, but infused with unspeakable tragedy of millions. Before I had my daughter, I could read tons of books on WWII and concetration camps. After my child was born, I can’t even look at the photos of the camp today. Each and every person who died there, had a story. Every prisoner, every guard, every parent, every child. When you think the place is peaceful, ponder on this: how would you feel if it was you or your beloved who were held there? Just try to imagine. I assure you – you will feel tremendous helplessness and your heart breaking.
And the photos are really great. All the best!
I am sorry but what peace can one find in such a place as Auschwitz??????
Don”t understand how you found peace. The pain is palpable.
All he is saying is he was surprised at how quiet, it is there now, how almost peaceful in contrast with how it was not quiet and peaceful during operation…read between the lines.
I have been to Auschwitz myself and when i first read the post i thought the same about being peaceful.. but when i started thinking about it , the place is not peaceful. it is the silence and solitude that strikes you.. i was in poland for two weeks and i visited Auschwitz twice, although i had seen everything one my first time. But i ” enjoyed” it so much that i had to come back. However during the visit, mainly in Birkenau , because it doesnt have as much buildings, it is more raw, i felt horrible.
Seeing the hair and the childrens clothes, and seein people crying next to the crematorium and fuzilation wall, made me cry.. i was sobbing for half of my first visit because the evil and the pain is so palpable there.. I was crying mostly because each building in Auschwitz has on the walls lists and lists with the name of the victims, and the lists were so big i could not believe it. i want to revisit on day and advise everyone to go there if they have the chance. Enter the Arbeit Macht Frei gates will make you rethink a lot of things
taking those photos and still staying “….calm and peace” or daring to say that “It is just a place…” – makes me think if the photographer / the writer is ignorant by his presumption of just totally lifeless with his feelings.
Calm…and peaceful….????
Are you kidding me?
If we could think that the entrance of Hell is peacefull ! Because this is, what it is.
The many doors to Hell….!!!
There were millions of people robed of their right to live there….Including little children.
If we choose to ignore it, it might as well happen agin!
Never again, for anybody else!!!!
My grandfather and three brothers survived. The pictures are as chilling as the stories I’ve been told over the years. At some point would like to go but knowing how much of my family did not make it out of here makes my heart ache. I think by looking at the pictures in mind I keep hearing what if those walls could talk what would they tell us as a people? May none of forget and never think this could happen again.
I visited Auschwitz in October 2012. There was nothing peaceful about the place. Birkenau was quiet and mostly devoid of visitors, compared to Auschwitz l. The place felt absolutely haunted. I was there on a beautiful sunny day, but the horrors of the place were everywhere. It’s as if the trees themselves have absorbed the energy of the atrocities. I felt I was bearing witness to the massacre of European Jewry and visiting a cemetery which contained the ashes of a people slaughtered for no reason while the world stood by silently.
The photos were beautiful, but next time bring some historical perspective with you.
I am a daughter of two holocaust survivors, and both of them passed through aushwitz. They had everything planed to the t. when you passed the selection, that’s when your life knew what hell meant. they stripped you down naked, took all your belongings (jewelry, photos and religious items), and of course you were shaved ( head and anywhere they could find hair) they didn’t use a shaver but a rusty sizzor as large as they can be, and many men and women were hurt) until you were finally sent to one of those barracks as seen here, you were exhausted and hungry and thirsty, you didn’t get any food until the next morning, and what about use of the bathroom? yes! they had to hold themselves until there was a bathroom call, and my mother would always tell me, by the time most people arrived to the out house they already busted. good luck if you were caught, punishment! you can all imagine. my mother arrived to this hell hole with her sister-in-law, and two nieces. they stayed here for two weeks and they were sent with 500 women to ravenbruck! that was another aushwitz, leaving one hell hole to another, they were sent to millhausen where they treated much better, new order came in and they were sent to Bergen Belsen, they were liberated april 15 1945, but to the joy of liberation my aunt died on april 14, 1942., just one day before the liberation. the story doesn’t here, they still were dying, because when they saw food, they ate so much that their stomach busted as a balloon, until the liberators figured that out. I can write more and more because my mother told me everything that happened as if I was there, and I passed it down to my children as if they were there too! we should never forget what horrors were done in all the concentration camps to innocent people, many lost all their families and were sole survivors, many who survived always had nighmares that the Nazi’s were chasing them and would get up screaming and crying. and what about that look in their eyes. they tried to start a new life wherever they went, but the pain was still there! I knew many of the survivors couldn’t take this pain and committed suicide, so today there are holocaust deniers, wow! they should have lived in the shoes of a survivor and see what they went through and their children did too!
Rose I am heartened by the fact that your family discussed the horror of that time with you and that you have taken their stories to the generations that followed. Have read so many cases where survivors were told to put the past behind them and not discuss what they went through. Once read a book on the survivors’ experiences and when asked by the author why were they so willing to talk about it the answer was “because you asked and so very few do”
Thank you for sharing your family history. I appreciate knowing because I don’t want to even forget the evil that built the place and carried out the orders. I wish I could go there to pay respect to those that went through it. Truly humbling. Jeanne Yerke
I have visited Germany, but stayed with a German family. I did not get to visit a concentration camp, but have been to the Holocaust museum in Washington. I believe the peace that is spoken of is the peace that comes from quiet respect. It is not a joyful peace. It is the same in the museum. People are not talking, just trying to wrap their heads around what happened. They don’t speak put of respect.
Yes it’s wide open, quiet and deserted, nevertheless it’s super creepy… I visited a death camp in Poland this summer and there was a horrific, draining energy, which was sucking out my own life force as if no joy could be felt there at all… it was all the ghosts of the people who were killed, I think… Especially near the gallows I could feel it, even though I did not know the gallows has been there until I saw the sign afterwards. These places are the definition of “bad vibes”, I swear one has not known bad vibes until visiting a death camp. It really a tangible reminder of how bad it was, pure bad and that’s all. There are no excuses – bad is bad.
Very good photographs Jason – most appropriately the heavens cried on the day we visited so our visit to Birkenau was curtailed (some co-travellers did not even leave the bus) I understand what you mean by the calm and peace of the place – how dreadful would it be otherwise when the silent screams in your head are so loud?
I truly believe that Auschwitz is a calm and peaceful place especially if you compare it to how it used to be. I strongly suggest that everybody should go there. You would shed a few tears but it is truly worth it to see all of the history.
Jason truly some magnificent photos of Auschwitz-Birkenau … we visited on a dreary wet day, befitting the somberness of the place but this hindered our photo opportunities. Anyway interested in reading some magnificent books on the Holocaust I strongly recommend “Born Survivors” by Wendy Holden, another on a little known aspect of that dreadful time “Stella” by Peter Wyman and “If this is a Woman” by Sarah Helm a history of the womens’ camp at Ravensbruck