Photo. Outside a gas chamber. © Travel Explorations.
In 15 February 1942 the first transport of Jews from Bytom (Beuthen) in German-annexed Upper Silesia arrives in Auschwitz I. The SS camp authorities killed all those on the transport immediately upon arrival with Zyklon B gas. On 3rd September 1941 the first gassings of prisoners occur in Auschwitz I. The SS tests Zyklon B gas by killing 600 Soviet prisoners of war and 250 other ill or weak prisoners. The testing took place in a makeshift gas chamber in the cellar of Block 11 in Auschwitz I.
Paradox 1: The dictator Adolf Hitler's Christianity
As mentioned it`s important to understand the history to improve the future. I have always tried to understand why and how the Nazis could be able to do conduct such horrifying crimes. After I had explored Auschwitz, Birkenau and other historic sites around Krakow from 19 – 22 June 2009, I don`t think I come any closer to these questions. There are so many confusing things that I am not able to sort out.
The Jews had a strong faith. They believed in God and were the so called chosen people, but strong praying didn`t help them much. Just some few survived from the concentration camps, but not without injuries for life. Was God blind and death, or didn`t he exist at all? Where was their God to help them from the evil? If there is a God, does it means that God love evil people?
Little is known about how the Germans slaughters felt about threatening people in such way. Did they do it in the name of God and felt comfortable about it? What`s the idea behind it? How could they justify it? The centre of the national socialist ideology is the term race. The Nazi theory says that the Aryan race is a "master race" superior to other races. Nazism is considered as a kind of fascism.
Mixing religion with politics has caused conflicts many times during history. Hitler's religious beliefs and fanaticism is not an exception. Hitler blamed the Jews for everything, especially for killing Jesus. He believed in God. Hitler wrote in his book, Mein Kampf (“My struggle”: ". . . I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord's work." He made essentially the same claim in a speech before the Reichstag in 1938.
Private diaries of Goebbels and Himmler unearthed from the secret Soviet archives show that Adolf Hitler personally ordered the mass extermination of the Jews during a meeting of Nazi German regional governors in the chancellery. As Goebbels wrote "With regards to the Jewish question, the Fuhrer decided to make a clean sweep ...".
The big paradox is that the Nazis and Jews have their belief from the same origin. The relationship between Nazism and Christianity can only be described as complex and controversial. Hitler and other Nazi leaders clearly made use of Christian symbolism in their propaganda, but it still remains a matter of controversy whether Hitler believed himself a Christian.
Some people say Adolf Hitler was an atheist. He was raised in a Catholic family. They blame atheism for Hitler's philosophy and actions, but historical records show that Hitler believed in God and was convinced he was carrying out God's will.
Hitler encouraged German soldiers by decorated them with Christian symbols on their uniforms, for example Nazi Germany's soldiers wore belt buckles inscribed "Gott mit uns" ("God is with us"). Like many dictators both in the past and present, Hitler used the mantle of religion to justify and further his selfish, hateful, and destructive philosophy.
Why do the Germans still go to Auschwitz? Hitler`s did never set his foot in a concentration camp, but Germans do it today. One guide told me on a tour to Schindler`s factory in Krakow that a great number of German tourists visit Krakow and historical sites from the Second World War. They usually speak very loud, but on these tours they are quite and seemed to be totally aphetic. My guide wondered: do they really care at all?
On my tour in the death camp there was totally silence, no loud speaking and no laughing. It was a strange atmosphere. Many visitors got very strong emotional touched. I heard about visitors not have personal links to Auschwitz-Birkenau, who cried and hugged each other after they have seen the death camps.
Paradox 2: The Nazi monster and family man
Rudolf Höss was the Commandant of Auschwitz. He lived with his wife and four children in a house just yards from the crematorium in Auschwitz main camp, where some of the earliest killing experiments were conducted using the poisonous insecticide Zyklon B. During his working days, Höss was in charge of killing more than a million people, but once he came home he lived the life of a solid, middle-class German husband and father. I wonder how he could life a live like that. After the allied soldiers liberated the prisoners in the camp, Höss become sent to trial and later executed.
Paradox 3: Krakow is a masterpiece of a city
Krakow is really beautiful, totally intact from the Second World War, with a medieval town featuring labyrinths of narrow streets, a splendid architecture and giant square. People are very nice there too, always in the mood to provide their best service.
Just outside the Old Town lies the former Jewish quarter Kazimierz. It`s memorials and synagogues reflect the tragedy of the recent past. From here I took my guiding tours around in the city and outside the city. It`s a big paradox that a beautiful city as Krakow has been a scene for such horrifying crimes. Krakow was not bombed by the Nazis because the city was established as their headquarter in Poland.
The camp commandant, R. Höß, Hoess, testified at the Nuremberg Trials that up to 3 million people had died at Auschwitz. The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum has revised this figure to 1.1 million. About 90 percent of them were Jews from almost every country in Europe. Most victims were killed in Auschwitz II's gas chambers using Zyklon B; other deaths were caused by systematic starvation, forced labour, lack of disease control, individual executions, and purported "medical experiments".
Paradox 4: Sexual abuse of Jews
While Nazi racial ideology prohibited relations between Jews and "Aryans," there were some instances of rape. Jews, men and women, were considered as “life unworthy of living” so the Nazis didn`t see it as a crime.
Sexual abuse in the camps took many forms. Barbaric medical experiments conducted by Nazi doctors robbed men and women of their sexual organs. At Auschwitz, women spared from the gas chambers upon arrival were forced to parade their nakedness in the showers before leering SS guards, who delighted in poking their breasts.
Within the camps, rumours occur that attractive young women were forced into brothels. Irma Grese, the sadistic SS supervisor at Auschwitz-Birkenau, was rumoured to have had homosexual relations with prisoners whom she then sent to the gas chambers.
Also Jewish men exploited the vulnerability of Jewish women. Women’s silence about the abuse is influenced primarily by cultural norms; the need to protect oneself from painful memories, and a desire to restore one’s sense of control over one’s person.
As a comment to David Irving`s claims, I would rather say that Auschwitz was like a Disneyland for Nazis. There they could satisfy their darkest pleasures. For them the camp was like a playground where they could demonstrate their power and dominance, experiment and document their horrifying activities for the Final Solution.
Paradox 5: Arbeit mach frei (work liberate you)
Displayed on the sign above the gate to Auschwitz I read the text "Arbeit mach frei" (work liberate you). By counting all who died in this camp I can not imagine a bigger paradox than this.
After I returned to my hometown Moss in Norway, a 13-year old schoolgirl told a story from her school. For few years ago one class of children visited Auschwitz. A boy in this class recognized his grandfather`s name on a suitcase.
As the American philosopher George Santayana wrote: "The one who does not remember history is bound to live through it again." This text appeared on the entrance in one of the houses. For these few who survived in the camps were to make the experience an out-of-body experience. It`s shocking to hear they tell about what`s happened in the camps. Despite for several reports to England and USA about the death camp Auschwitz and other camps in the beginning of Holocaust, they didn`t do nothing. How horrifying must a crime be for taken action against it? The collection of shoes in Auschwitz from the children will always remind me how far it can go if we don`t s prevent people from doing horrifying things.
Stein Morten Lund, 30 June 2009
Additional information
Brutal facts:
The Holocaust was the Nazis' assault on the Jews between 1933 and 1945. It culminated in what the Nazis called the 'Final Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe', in which six million Jews were murdered. Also other people than the Jews were killed. It is estimated that as many as 15 million civilians were killed by the racist regime, including millions of Slavs and 'asiatics', 200,000 Gypsies and members of various other groups. Thousands of people, including Germans of African descent, were forcibly sterilized (Source: BBC`s website).
Children in Auschwitz Concentration Camp:
A Conference on the Youngest Victims Friday, 20 April 2001. The Museum Education Center organized a conference on "Children in Auschwitz Concentration Camp." Participants included 30 Polish and history teachers from Malopolska and Silesia provinces. These teachers have all completed the Department's post-graduate course.
The conference program featured lectures in the Birkenau children's block on "The Youngest Prisoners in Auschwitz Concentration Camp" and "Dr. Mengele's Crimes." The teachers also took part in a workshop on "The Fate of Children in Auschwitz Concentration Camp on the Basis of Documents and Accounts by Former Prisoners."
Official site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and State Museum.
Schindler`s list - movie about Auschwitz:
"Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire". Oskar Schindler uses Jews to start a factory in Poland during the war. He witnesses the horrors endured by the Jews, and starts to save them. Spielberg's dramatic masterpiece, winner of 7 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director. Starring Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley and Ralph Fiennes. The scenes are recorded in some of the same sites where the Nazis committed their horrifying crimes.
The television miniseries War and Remembrance also shot the Holocaust scenes in Auschwitz. Mengele's Children: The Twins of Auschwitz.
Article on BBC`s website: Laurence Rees in BBC looks inside the mind of the man who built and ran the camp.
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