Jan 13 - Krakow

Today was overcast, foggy, and a little dreary - just right to pay our respects at Auschwitz and Birkenau. I have posted the pictures to ( http://picasaweb.google.com/mgelbwaks ), but here are my observations :

• Auschwitz is much smaller than I envisioned. It was also much more orderly and far less horrific than I expected. It was easy to see that the place was haunted but; whether it was because the cleanliness and order that was present or the lack of physical deterioration, it was just too sterile. The tour guide was great though. She was relentless with her scorn and contempt for the allies: bottom line position "The allies knew from '42 and did nothing. we asked them to bomb the rail junction and instead they destroyed light industry 10 miles away, and then they sent us the surveillance photos. They knew and did nothing. My country died here, and they did nothing." Unfortunately, all I could offer, under my breath of course, was my common and frequent lame excuse - "I can not apologize enough for my country, then or now."

One intersting side note: while I was sitting in the parking lot waiting to leave, I noticed birds - there were actually no birds inside the camp, only outside.

• Birkenau was far more expansive than I expected, particularly after Auschwitz. Birkenau was constructed as a solution camp. Auschwitz as a concentration camp. The germans figured out the process running Auschwitz in the early years and discovered that inorder to achieve their ultimate goals, they needed different facilities, and so constructed Birkenau for that purpose. Auschwitz held maybe 30,000, but could only process 1000 a day. Birkenau held in excess of 100,000 and could process 10,000 a day. The devastation was incredible and unexcusable - do note, without the rail junction, Birkenau would not have happened - and it would have taken a year to rebuild the junction (maybe).
  

There were birds at Birkenau, but there were also rats and insects. There were no people. All the people were left at the rail junction.