We entered Auschwitz on a Tuesday, walking uphill from the bus stop since the trains no longer run. Now it is not ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ that guards the gates, but ‘Museum Entrance’ – discreet black signs on brick buildings where we buy tickets, mail postcards, eat Snickers while we wait for our designated guide. A film is the initiation to the camp, children rolling up sleeves to show the black-and-white numbers. Orange stickers designate tourists: “English? English? This way please.” Our guide appears, small and kind and official; she hopes we enjoy our tour. Signs warn us: respect the memory of those who died with silence. A hallway door, a huddled chilly courtyard – “Arbeit Macht Frei.”

Through the gate, we trip on cobblestones, cameras flashing, children in bright jackets running and looking and playing. It could be a town – brick buildings, respectably numbered, with trees at the front. Signs on the doors tell us who lives within: “Camp Life.” “The Block of Death.” “Preservation works, do not enter.” The guide takes us into Camp Life, rows of photographs, numbers, drawings smuggled out to show the world. The spoils of war, spoiled from Canada warehouses – stores of prosperity burned by the Nazi retreat. These survive:

Piles of human hair, lunar landscapes gray behind glass. Cast-off leather shoes, brown-black with age; but a braided sandal still shows blue and red. Heaps of suitcases, labeled for their return. A pit of toothbrushes, clothes brushes, hair brushes, carefully packed for this new place of work. A broken doll, forgotten in the gas rooms.

Out in the sunlight, down to the basement, the punishment cells, the Block of Death. A hallway too narrow for two abreast. Cells too narrow for one, where four stifled and died. At the end of the hall, the Sacred Heart, fingernail-etched on the wall. In another cell a plaque, a candle, flowers: Father Kolbe died here.

Up in the sunlight, hastily counting to make sure none are lost. Hurriedly over the cobbles we go to the gas chamber, Polish ammunition bunker, eerie stone underground with holes to drop the gas through. We go to the ovens, out in the sunlight, back in the gloom – someone has left flowers at the oven mouth. They look like great brick beehives, sitting there. A little girl trips on the rails where the carts ran. We go out into the sun.

The tour is over; if you have time we go to Birkenau. Do you have questions? The group melts away, trains to catch, places to see in town. Five remain: two women, two men, a guide. We go to Birkenau.

Watch from the watchtower, see what we have built up since the war. Look at the camp: there is grass on the terrain. It was trampled by hundreds of thousands of feet. It was plucked up and washed in the ditches to be eaten.

Down the tower, through the wire to those barracks that are more than foundations. The mud smells evil. The ditch smells evil. The water in the ditch is black with mud.

The wooden barracks, torn down, rebuilt, preserved. Six hundred men in a space that kept forty-two horses. Wooden bunks, pigeon-holed: the bottom was worst, with typhus and dysentery above. Water troughs, a heating duct, never fueled. Forty-two horses. Six hundred men.

Back in the sun. The wind blusters, the clouds are cold. Question while you can; ask, and she will answer. Cross the ditch, cross the black water, cross the fences that aren’t electric, not any more. The bus is outside; it will take you to Krakow. So nice to meet you, goodbye.

The bus with the comfortable seats – an hour’s ride. The train that jolts and slams you into the bars. We walk uphill to Divine Mercy, the pilgrim’s house. We rest. We pray.

The End

(c) 2002
By Annie McAndrew
All Rights Reserved
Biography