Auschwitz

O portao de entrada de Auschwitz
Auschwitz entrance gate

foto daqui

Hoje fui visitar Auschwitz e fiz um faxinao nos meus canais lacrimais. Assim que passei pelo portao que diz algo como: "O Trabalho Liberta o Homem" ja despenquei a chorar.

Nunca homem nenhum foi libertado gracas ao trabalho exercido por ele nos "campos de trabalho"nazistas.

Ja visitei muitos museus sobre o Holocausto, inclusive em Israel, Londres e Nova York, mas nada se compara a agonia e ao desespero de pisar no lugar onde aproximadamente 1.5 MILHOES de pessoas foram assassinadas.

Today I visited Auschwitz and found out how clean my tear ducts are. I already started crying before I went through the gate that says something like: "Work Frees Man".



No man has ever been released thanks to his work in Nazi  "labor camps".


I have visited many Holocaust museums, including the ones in Israel, London and New York, but nothing compares to the agony and despair of stepping through the gates where approximately 1.5 million people were murdered.

O vagao

Foto Dreamstime

Claro que as historias sao nossas velhas conhecidas, mas a coisa e muito diferente quando voce desce do onibus e comeca a ouvir:


Aqui chegavam os trens. Nesses trens, as pessoas viajavam trancadas entre 7 e 10 dias, sem nenhuma parada. Elas comiam e bebiam o que tivessem com elas, mas assim que acabasse "o suprimento" era fome e sede. E banheiro? Os trens nao tinham espaco nem para as pessoas se sentarem, elas vinham em pe, umas grudadas nas outras. Xixi e coco faziam ali mesmo.

Os Judeus chegavam aos campos de concentracao, digo de trabalho, com a promessa de que estavam indo para um lugar onde teriam trabalho, e a oportunidade de reconstruirem as suas vidas. cada um podia levar consigo uma mala de no maximo 25 kgs. Essas malas, deviam ter os seus nomes claramente marcados, para o caso de extraviarem.

Os nazistas planejaram tudo com maestria. Mentiram que os judeus estavam indo para uma vida melhor - e depois deles terem gradativamente perdido seus direitos de cidadao ( primeiro foi a segregacao, quando os judeus foram proibidos de frequentar cinemas, pracas, piscinas publicas, e tiveram que usar a estrela de davi identificando sua religiao. Depois eles foram mandados para os guetos,e  finalmente para os "campos de trabalho"). A essa altura, a moral deles ja estava abalada, e eles queriam desesperadamente acreditar que o pior ja havia passado, e que dali para a frente, as coisas melhorariam.

Mas voltando a Auschwitz e ao inferno vivido pelas pessoas que foram levadas para la.

Of course the stories are already familiar to us, but it's very different when you get off the bus and start listening to the guide:
The trains arrived here. In these trains, people traveled for 7 to 10 days, locked, with no stops. They ate and drank what they brought with them, but as soon as their "supply" finished, all they knew was hunger and thirst. What about bathrooms? Trains had no bathroom and not even space for people to sit, they all travelled standing up, one next to the other. Pee and poo were all over them.


The Jews came to the concentration camps thinking they were moving somewhere where they would be able to restart their lives. They all travelled with the promise they were going to a place where they would work, and have the opportunity to rebuild their lives. Each person could carry a bag of a maximum of 25 kgs. These bags, should have their names clearly marked in case they got lost.
All these details helped deceive the people who were desperate for a new beginning.

The Nazis masterfully planned it all . Lying they were going to a better life, the travellers were docile and calm, full of expectations. 
They have gradually lost their rights as citizens ( first came the segregation, when Jews were forbidden to attend theaters, parks, public pools, and had to wear the Star of David identifying their religion. Then they were sent to the ghettos, and finally to the "labor camps"). At this point, their morale was already shaken, and they wanted desperately to believe that the worst was over, and that from then on, things would improve.
It was easy to control them.
But back to Auschwitz and the hell lived by people who were transported there.

 

A triagem

foto daqui

Depois dessa viagem enlouquecedora, eles passavam pela "triagem". Um medico ficava na estacao de trem, e com o sinal de "joia" ia separando as pessoas que eram aptas a trabalhar  das que ja iam direto para as camaras de gas.

Criancas com menos de 14 anos, idosos, pessoas com deficiencia fisica ou visivelmente frageis eram separadas das outras. Se uma mulher trouxesse um bebe no colo ou estivesse de maos dadas com alguma crianca, ela era mandada para o grupo que ia ser exterminado.

Mas elas iam sem espernear, iam numa boa?

A historia contada era bem diferente da realidade. Os nazistas explicavam que todo mundo ali ia tomar um banho, e depois iam comer e descansar. Por favor, vamos caminhando, vamos indo...

E os pobres prisioneiros obedeciam. Alem de nao ter forcas para brigar, eles estavam desesperados por um banho, por um prato de comida e por um lugar onde eles pudessem se enconstar para descansar. Era facil convence-los a colaborar.

Dali pra frente, ninguem sabia o que acontecia com os outros. Os que iam para as camaras de gas eram despidos, depois tinham todos os pelos do corpo raspados, so entao eles eram assassinados, os corpos eram vistoriados e dentes de ouro e qualquer outra coisa de valor encontrada no corpo era separada,  logo em seguida os corpos eram cremados. Caminhoes e maquinas ficavam parados em frente aos "lavatorios" coms eus motores ligados, para que ninguem ouvisse os gritos vindos das camaras de gas, quando as portas eram trancadas e as pessoas comecavam a perceber que havia alguma coisa errada. Quando o gas era solto dentro do predio o barulho acabava.

Following this maddening journey, they passed through the "screening" process. A doctor at the station, after a quick glance would give the OK and not OK signal, separating people who he thought were able to work from those that would go straight to the gas chambers.



Children under 14 years old, elderly, physically disabled or frail people were clearly separated from the others. If a woman was holding a baby or  a child, she was sent to the group that would be exterminated.

But you may ask: no one complained? Did they just follow orders?


The story they were told was very different from reality. The Nazis explained that everyone was going to take a bath, be fed and then taken to rest, so when they were told where to go, they just went.

From then on, no one knew what happened to the others. Those who went to the gas chambers were stripped naked, then had all their body's hair shaved off ( always thinking they were just going to be cleaned, then taken care of) , but instead, they were murdered. Their bodies were then surveyed for gold teeth and anything else of value that could be found. The "valuables"were separated and soon after, the bodies were cremated.
No one suspected what was going to happen, until it was too late.

camara de gas

gas chamber

photo/ foto daqui

O trabalho de tirar os corpos dos judeus das camaras de gas, "limpa-los" e leva-los para os fornos eram feitos por prisioneiros, que de tres em tres meses eram assassinados e repostos por recem chegados. esses prisioneiros nao tinhamcontato com outros presos, para nao contarem as barbaridades que aconteciam na sua zona de trabalho.

Essas pessoas que nao passavam na "triagem" nunca foram registradas nos campos de concentracao, entao e dificil saber o numero exato de judeus exterminados em Auschwitz. Acredita-se que foram entre 1.1 e 1.5 milhoes.

Os que estavam destinados ao trabalho escravo eram mandados para o registro. No inicio fotos eram tiradas para ajudar na identificacao, depois os nazistas passaram a tatuar um numero de identificacao nos  bracos dos prisioneiros, ja que as fotos da chegada eram irreconheciveis pouco tempo depois, dado aos maus tratos sofridos no campo de concentracao.

Os prisioneiros tambem eram logo separados de seus pertences e uniformes os presos eram obrigados a usar uniformes listrados.

The work to remove the bodies of Jews from the gas chambers, "clean" them and bring them to the ovens were made by other prisoners. Every three months these people were also killed and replaced by newcomers. This was done to avoid these men to have contact with other inmates,  to keep the atrocities

unknown to others.
Those people who did not pass the "screening" were never registered in the concentration camps books, so it is hard to know the exact number of Jews exterminated at Auschwitz. Historians estimate it between 1.1 and 1.5 million.


Those who were destined for slave labor were sent to the registry room, in the earlydays,  pictures were taken to help the identification, but this process was very expensive and inefficient - after a couple of weeks the people were completely different from the day of their arrival. The Nazis changed their method to an identification number tattooed on the prisioners arms.
After registration, they were separated from their belongings and forced to wear striped uniforms.

prisioneiros

prisioners

photo/foto daqui

Hoje ha tambem um museu em Auschwitz. Nele, podemos ver quantidades enormes de cabelo humano que era vendido para a fabricacao de tecidos e enchimento de colchoes e travesseiros. Ha em exposicao um rolo de tecido fabricado com cabelo humano.

Today there is a museum at Auschwitz. There one can see huge amounts of human hair that was shaved off prisioners and sold for the manufacture of fabrics and stuffing for mattresses and pillows.
In exhibition there is a roll of fabric made from human hair.

cabelos
human hair
photo/foto daqui






Ha tambem salas com oculos, sapatos, roupas, e ate utensilios de cozinha e penicos, prova irrefutavel que essas pessoas acreditavam estar indo para a polonia para recomecar as suas vidas.

There are also rooms with glasses, shoes, clothes, and even kitchen utensils and bedpans, irrefutable proof that these people believed they were going to Poland to restart their lives.

oculos
glasses
photo/foto daqui

 utensilios de cozinha
kitchen utensils
photo/foto daqui





sapatos
shoes
photos/fotos daqui

Lagrimas escorriam pelo meu rosto enquanto eu andava por aqueles saloes. Tirei algumas poucas fotos, mas as que estao aqui, sao fotos extraidas da internet, ja que nao tive condicoes emocionais de tirar fotos de qualidade aceitavel.

Diz a psicologia que o instinto de sobrevivencia e tao incrivelmente forte que as pessoas se submetem a condicoes sub humanas, ams continuam lutando pela vida. Foram poucos os que tentaram o suicidio. A vida media de um prisioneiro em campo de concentracao e de 3 a 6 meses, depois disso a maioria morria de fome, doencas ou maus tratos. Alguns poucos prisioneiros viveram ate 5 anos em Auschwitz.

Esses eram em geral os prisioneiros que chegaram logo no comeco da instalacao do campo, quando os prisioneiros nao eram tantos e eles aprenderam o que fazer, o que evitar e como sobreviver. Os outros, que chegaram a um Auschwitz lotado, era praticamente impossivel a inteiracao com outras pessoas, ja que era muita gente, condicoes cada vez piores e muitas linguas misturadas.

Tears streamed down my face as I walked through those halls. I took a few photos, but the ones in this post were taken from the Internet, since I had no emotional conditions to take reasonable pictures.

Psychology says the instinct for survival is so incredibly strong that even people who are subjected to sub-human conditions, still fight for their lives. there were only a few who have attempted suicide. The average life of a prisoner in a concentration camp was from 3 to 6 months. After this period, most died of starvation, disease or mistreatment.

A few prisoners lived up to 5 years in Auschwitz. These were usually prisoners who arrived early in the installation of the camps, when the prisoners were not so many and they could learned what to do, who and what to avoid in order to survive. The others, who came to an already crowded Auschwitz, it was virtually impossible to interact with others. There were too many people, too many languages and appalling living conditions.

dormitorio

sleeping conditions

photo/foto daqui

Visitei os  alojamentos onde os prisioneiros dormiam, amontoados. Visitei as salas de "castigo". Tinha a sala da fome, onde os castigados eram privados de comida, a sala do confinamento onde 4 pessoas ficavam juntas, em pe, sem espaco para se mexer. Nao e nem preciso dizer que poucas pessoas sobreviviam a esses castigos.


Se um preso fugisse, os soldados nazistas entravam no pavilhao de onde ele tinha escapado e matavam entre 10 e 20 outros prisioneiros. Isso era chamado "responsabilidade coletiva".


Foram no minimo 802 os prisioneiros que tentaram escapar de Auschwitz, e 144 conseguiram sobreviver a tentativa. nao ha nenhum registro sobre o que aconteceu com 331 deles e os demais, quando capturados eram executados em publico, para servir de exemplo para os outros presos.

Eu passei em frente aos predios usados como hospitais, onde os pacientes que nao se recuperavam rapidamente eram assassinados e onde eram feitas experiencias geneticas. Gemeos eram mortos e seus orgaos internos comparados, tinta era injetada nos olhos de criancas para ver se eles mudavam de cor, barbaridades sem tamanho aconteceram em tais "hospitais'. Meu estomago embrulha so em pensar nas atrocidades cometidas ali.

I visited the barracks where the prisoners slept. I visited the rooms where they were "punished." They had the starvation room, where the prisioners were deprived of food for days. There was the room where four people were confined together, standing, with no space to move.No food or water were given to them either. Needless to say, few people survived these so called punishments.

If a prisoner escaped, Nazi soldiers entered the pavilion where he had escaped from and killed between 10 and 20 other prisoners. This was called "collective responsibility".


There were at least 802 prisoners who tried to escape from Auschwitz, and 144 suceeded and survived the attempt. There is no record of what happened to 331 others, and the ones who where captured were executed in public to set an example for other prisoners.

I passed in front of buildings used as "hospitals", where patients who could not recover quickly were killed and where they made genetic experiments. Twins were killed and their internal organs compared, ink was injected into the eyes of children to see if they changed color, many, many atrocities occurred in these "hospitals". I felt sick to my stomach just looking at the place.

patio de fuzilamento

death patio

Vi tambem o lugar onde pessoas eram fuziladas. O patio de fuzilamento ficava entre os predios 10 e 11, que tinham suas janelas lacradas para que os "moradores"dali nao vissem o que acontecia do lado de la das suas paredes.

Auschwitz e na verdade um complexo. Auschwitz 1 e um conglomerado de predios de tijolos, onde o exercito Polones se alojava. Quando os Alemaes invadiram a Polonia, escolheram fazer o campo de concentracao ali por que os predios poderiam ser usados para alojar os presos, havia uma boa malha ferroviaria que poderia transporta-los ate ali e o lugar fica entre dois rios, podendo assim ficar "escondido"do resto do mundo.

Auschwitz 1 logo ficou pequeno para o volume de presos trazidos para o local, entao 7 vilas foram "desocupadas"seus moradores expulsos de suas casas que foram demolidas e os tijolos usados para construir mais barracoes de alojamento. Esses predios formam o complexo feminino de Birkenau.

Quando os tijolos acabaram, os Alemaes construiram barracoes de madeira. Esses alojamentos nao tinham nenhum isolamento termico e os presos dormiam em beliches de tres andares. 7 a 10 pessoas por cama por andar. No andar de baixo, as pessoas eram atacadas por enormes e vorazes ratos, no andar de cima as pessoas ficavam encharcadas pela chuva, ja que o telhado era mal feito. O lugar "menos pior"para se dormir era o andar do meio. Ali ficavam os homens.


So visitei esses dois campos, mas ha tambem Auschwitz 3 e os sub campos de concentracao, espalhados pela regiao. Eu vi o suficiente pro resto dos meus dias.

Posso ficar dias aqui recontando os horrores que ouvi, as fotos e os objetos dos judeus que pereceram sob o comando nazista. Nada disso vai conseguir expressar a angustia e o sofrimento que ficou pra sempre gravado naquele lugar. Uma aura de tristeza e desolacao paira no ar.

Arvores cresceram em volta dos alojamentos, monumentos foram construidos em honra dos que foram brutalmente assassinados, flores sao depositadas todos os dias em varios lugares do campo, mas nada disso diminui o peso e a escuridao desse lugar.

Visitei sabendo o que eu ia encontrar. Soube desde muito antes que nao seria facil e que nao seria nada agradavel, mas eu acredito que e necessario relembrar as atrocidades do passado para evitar que elas voltem a acontecer no futuro...


I saw where people were shot by a firing squad. This patio was situated between buildings 10 and 11, which had its windows sealed so the "residents" could not see what was happening on the other side of their walls.





Auschwitz is not a concentration camp, it is a complex. Auschwitz 1 is a cluster of brick buildings, where the Polish army stayed before the Nazis took over. When the Germans invaded Poland, they chose to have the camp there for three reasons: the buildings could be used to house prisoners, the place had a good railway network that could take all prisioners there from different locations and the place is between two rivers and thus may be "hidden "the rest of the world.


Auschwitz was just too little for the volume of prisoners brought to the site, so seven villages were vacant,  its residents driven out of  their homes ( these houses were demolished and the bricks used to build more barracks for prisioners). 

When the bricks were over, the Germans built wooden barracs. These accommodations did not have any  insulation and prisoners slept in bunks. 7 to 10 persons per bed . On the first "floor", people were attacked by huge and voracious rats, on the top, people were soaked by rain, since the roof was badly done. The place where it was "almost possible" to sleep was the middle floor.


 I only visited these two camps, but there are also Auschwitz 3 and the sub concentration camps scattered throughout the region. I am not going there. I've seen enough for the rest of my days.


I can stay here for days, recounting the horrors I've heard, the pictures and objects I saw, but none of this will be able to express the anguish and suffering that was etched forever in that place. An aura of sadness and desolation is in the air.


Trees grew up around the barracks, monuments were built in honor of those who were brutally murdered, flowers are deposited every day in various parts of the camp, but none of this diminishes the weight and darkness of this place.


I went there knowing that I would find. I knew long before I arrived, that it would not be easy , but I believe it is necessary to recall the atrocities of the past to prevent them from happening again in the future ...

memorial

foto minha/my pic