Post 7 - Final Seminar

Post 7 Final Seminar in Manchester 25/06/17

Well we've had the visit & a short time to reflect, and now it was time for the final seminar.  After the trip to Manchester last time we decided to set off earlier, so I left home at 9.30, got to Joe's just after 10.10 & Joe drove us to Manchester.  Typically the roads were clear this time & we got there early.

At least this time we had time for a bit of lunch & relax a bit before it all started.  We were in our same groups

The idea of today was 

1. Reflection and responses to Auschwitz
2. Resources : explaining the Holocaust
3. Good practice in Holocaust education

"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it" - George Santayana - 1863 - 1952 - The lessons of life V 1 1905

It is ok knowing about something, it's what you do with that knowledge that is important.

Session 1

The session started with looking a photos of the three places that we visited.  We were asked what we felt about them.  Joe & I said

Oświęcim - Extremely sad that a once so diverse a community has been lost forever.

Auschwitz 1 - Shows really well the development of the Holocaust

Auschwitz 11 - Birkenau - Factory of death.

Birkenau was built on marsh land, which is why it is now so grassy.

One thing the Rabbi said was that people often say "where was God when all this was happening"?  but he said he says "Where was man?"

Most of the survivors have had to live with horrific memories obviously, but some more than others.  One man tells the story of when he arrived with his family, he was put in the work group.  his younger brother wanted to go with him, but he made him stay with his mother as he thought he would be safer.  his brother & mother were then sent straight to the gas chamber.  he has felt guilty ever since for not keeping his brother with him.

One of the things people soon learnt in the camps was that to stand out from the crowd meant certain death.  If you stayed invisible & just got on with things, then you had a better chance of survival.

Many questions have no answers.

We had to think about 2 questions

1.  What is it we want our students to learn
2.  What is it we want our students to learn about the holocaust?

When planning lessons, these are questions we need to keep in our minds.

Session 2

Also when teaching the Holocaust and trying to follow your lesson plan, be prepared to be flexible.  You may not get to the end of the lesson as the students do tend to ask a lot of questions and these questions will need answering if at all possible.

We were given am Exploring the Holocaust - Teachers guide, which looks very useful and full of really good stuff we can use.  Also there is loads of downloadable material on the site.

Session 3

One of the things the Rabbi did at the memorial service was compare the Manchester bombing to the Holocaust.  This is something he should not have done.  It doesn't compare in any way.

Another question we looked at was

"Is it too much to ask of Auschwitz and the Holocaust, that it should teach us moral behaviour?

Nuremberg Laws of 1935, sort to protect German blood and German Honour, and was the official start to exclude Jews from German society.

There are many people who tried to help the Jews and others who were persecuted, but you don't tend to hear as much about them. ..... Why?

We looked at posters about things that could be used in lessons about the Holocaust.  Some were really good, some I probably wouldn't use.

The last part of the session provoked quite a bit of debate and was very hard hitting.  We were should a set of 7 photographs and were asked to put them in order of what we would be comfortable using.

1.   Showed some Jews being forced to scrub the pavements, while people looked on laughing.

2.   How Jews being marched away at gun point, this included children.

3.   Showed Auschwitz - Birkenau just after it had liberated, there was a pile of belongings strewed along the railway track

4.   Showed a Jew sat on the edge of a body pit about to be shot in the back of the head by a soldier

5.  Showed a pile of bodies being bulldozed into a pit after the camp had been liberated

6.  Showed a pile of bodies being burned in the wood.

7.   Showed a pile of naked bodies all women and some men walking over them shooting those that were not yet dead.  you could see the ones who weren't dead.  There was a young boy sat near the body of his mother.

Sorry about that, but we saw these.  I wouldn't be comfortable showing any of them to be honest. I'm sure I could find some of them on line to add here, but it's not really appropriate I don't think.  After a lot of discussion, it was said that actually we shouldn't be showing them as it's a safeguarding issue.  Another discussion was who took these photos and why?  There wasn't supposed to be any photos as the Nazis didn't want any evidence of their crimes.  But they were taken.  Some people may have been putting themselves at great risk taking the photos, others it may just have been a keepsake, which is just as sick.

It all comes down to re-humanising people.  These people were all someone, with a name and a family.  In Auschwitz, wherever possible on the photos there is a name.  In the Imperial War museum, the same photos have had their names removed.  Why?  That is de-humanising them.  I find that disgusting.

Conclusion

And that is it.  What an experience this has been.  We now need to evaluate what we do now, develop our teaching and learning of the Holocaust, and look at the impact on students.  Also we need to to work out how we will measure the impact on students 

"Dear discoverer of these writings!  I have a request of you: this is the real reason I write, that my doomed life may attain some meaning, that my hellish days and hopeless tomorrows may find a purpose int the future.  I am transmitting only a part of what happened in the Birkenau - Auschwitz Hell.  You will realise what reality looked like ... From all this you will have a picture of how our people perished. - Zalman Gradowski killed on 7/10/1944 for taking part in an attempted uprising, he wrote this and buried it before the uprising.

Home  

Fortunately the journey home was a lot less traumatic then last time and I was back for 7.30 pm.

Would I recommend you doing this?  Yes I would, as long as you're prepared for some hard hitting facts & some very hard hitting images.  The Holocaust Educational Trust are amazing and have guided us through this with really well.

Thank you

Carol

Post 6 -Memorial Service and home.

Post 6

The final act of the day was a memorial service around what I felt was a very strange memorial

However it wasn't the memorial that was important, but the words said by the Rabbi and the readings by people from our party.  At the end of which we all lit a candle and left it on the memorial.  

Above is mine and Joe's candles.  We then began a very long walk back to the coach.



On the walk back we were very lucky to this bird fly into the field at the side of us.  It's a white stork (had to check when I got home what it was!)  Amazing to see!

The sun was beginning to set on the way back to the airport, but still got some photos of Poland

The flight back was delayed, because they said there were storms in Manchester.  But when we finally got back, there hadn't been any!!!

We arrived back at Joe's at 2.05 am.  Now that was a long day, and very physically and emotionally draining.  Do I regret it?  No way.  Despite the physical pain (of which there were loads towards the end), it is experience I wouldn't have missed for the world.

So there is just the follow up seminar to go now, which I am really looking forward to.

Post 5 - Auschwitz II - Birkenau

Post 5

This camp is massive, it's hard to comprehend just how big this is. 

As you go through the main gate (seen in the film Schindler's List), you start to realise just what a massive site this is.  So many people were prisoners here and were murdered here.  The railway line going through the middle of it was used to bring the prisoners in.  As they got off the train they were sorted into 2 groups.  Those who were fit to work - mainly men and young boys and some women without children, and the rest were sent straight to their deaths.  The old, infirm and women with children lasted no more than 30 minutes after they arrived.  They were not told what was happening.  They were taken to one of 5 crematoria.  They were told they were to have showers so that they didn't spread any disease to anyone else in the camp.  As they undressed they were given a number of the peg were their clothes were & told to remember it.  They were then gassed & cremated.

The barracks here were long & crammed with bunks, each layer of bunk held, I think they said between 5 and 8 people, they couldn't move during the night because they were so crammed in.

This is the toilets.  They were allowed to go twice a day, but had to go when told in groups of 200.  They were given a set amount of time & were told when to sit down & when to get up

.

The vast majority of this camp is in ruins & these are the ruins that you can see.  There are so many of them, it's mind blowing.

This is one of the carriages they used to use for transporting the prisoners.  It has obviously been restored, Prisons could be travelling for days in these, all crammed in, with one bucket of water & one bucket to use as a toilet.  Many people died before they were let out.

The crematoria were destroyed to try to hide the evidence of what had happened & the photos above are all that remain of them.  The prisoners were taken into the chamber in the top photo and told to undress.  They then went into the underground chamber in photo 2 to "take a shower", and were gassed.  The other part was where the bodies were cremated.  Crematoria 2 & 3 were the largest and could burn around 1500 bodies every day each.  So with the other ones they could kill 5000 people a day.  Sometimes, there were more.  Crematoria V was situated in the woods & when there were too many bodies they made a pyre near by and burned the bodies there.

We then walked quite a way to near where crematoria V had been and the woods where the bodies were burned.  Near there was the field & the remains of the clothing stores where all the possessions were taken & sorted by women prisoners.  Opposite the fields there was a building called the Birkenau Sauna.  This is where the prisoners who were going to be used for slave labour were sent, and disinfected.  Here they were shaved, tattooed and all their belongings removed.  Right at the end of the tour of this building there is a display of photos of life before the war, I think taken from peoples belongings, so everyone would have been killed.  But while people were looking at these I noticed a window, behind which was a cart.



This "ash cart" was found in a nearby pond, the Nazis had tried to hide it.  It was used to carry the ashes from the crematoria and dump them in nearby ponds, rivers and even fields where it was as fertilizer.  Again I couldn't take a photo.  (https://www.steengalleries.com/ashes-cart-sauna-building-birkenau)

By now pain & exhaustion were beginning to take hold, but there was one last thing and that was the memorial service.

Post 4 - Auschwitz 1

Auschwitz 1 

First thing to say at this point, was I really hadn't realised the size of the place, and what was worse, this wasn't as big as the next place we visited!.

First impressions when we arrived were maybe a little strange.  I couldn't get my head around was the f that there was a hotel across the road.  Personally I couldn't stay there, it just wouldn't seem right.  I now know that there is no way you can see everything in a day, but I would much rather travel from somewhere else than stay there.

Anyway moving on.

It was very busy.  This is actually now a museum .  At first I thought the feelings I was going to experience were maybe going to be drowned out by the noise, but I needn't have worried.  

These are the first images after you get through security.  Doesn't look too bad, but then the guide started explaining things and you start to get a sense of "oh no"!

This is the gate where the prisoners were marched through on arrival.  It translates to "Work sets you free"  Only it didn't for most of the prisoners.  This watch tower kept an eye on the prisoners, it obviously is one of many.

This is a photo taken outside the kitchen area.  It is an orchestra of prisoners who had to play here for everyone.  If they were in the orchestra they had a better chance of survival.  It was one of the "good" jobs to have.

This is one of the blocks were the prisoners were housed.  Before becoming a concentration camp it was an army barracks, so there are many of these blocks crammed full of prisoners.  Most of these now house exhibitions about the holocaust and although interesting, also in most cases very harrowing. 




This room is the one that affected me the most, don't get me wrong, there are others that have an equally bad affect, but this one really got to me.  I didn't take this photo as for obvious reasons, photography wasn't allowed in this room.  It is downloaded from the "Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau" page (http://auschwitz.org/en/gallery/exhibits/general-exhibition,2.html) The room is huge & you can see just how much hair is there.  There is apparently a lot more of this in a warehouse elsewhere. This display is the whole length more or less of the building above.   It is full of human hair.  The Nazi's cut the hair off their victims, much of it was sent to Germany to be made into socks & tights etc.  At the time of liberation, this is what was left at the camp.  It affected me more than the displays of peoples possessions, because hair is actually part of the victims, not something they've bought or were given, it is a part of the person.  All that hair belonged to people who had been murdered.  That is why I found it so hard.

  This map shows where the prisoners came from.  Oslo down to Greece.

This is just a very small part of the display of shoes that once belonged to the victims.




This is from the children's room, dedicated to the memory of the children who were victims of the camp.  On the wall are the photos of the children who were murdered (who also had their hair cut off), and underneath are a selection of the children's clothes. Again I didn't take this photo, I just couldn't do it.  It's from the same sight as above.  (http://auschwitz.org/en/gallery/exhibits/general-exhibition,2.html) 

At this point we need to remember that many children, especially twins were subject to medical experiments at Auschwitz.  Twins were one of the main interests, but they weren't the only ones, adults, mainly women and dwarfs too were experimented on.

Just a couple more photos of the site.

This is the largest book in the world.  It is called "The book of names".  In it are the names of everyone who they know was murdered, there were many people murdered of whom there are no records.  The sheer size of it, makes you realise the enormity of what happened.  You also have to remember not everyone was murdered in the gas chambers, some were shot, hanged, worked to death, starved to death, beaten to death.  But which ever way they died they were still murdered.

The bottom photo is the yard where they used to do the roll-call.

This plaque explains about the roll-calls, and about the fact that if the SS weren't happy they would make the prisoners stand there for hours whatever the weather.  Across from here were gallows where the SS would carry out public hangings ti intimidate the prisoners.

 

If any prisoners went beyond this sign, they were shot.

Rudolf Hoess was the commandant at Auschwitz.  His house is situated on the site, although we could only see it through the trees.  He lived there during the war with his family.  They even had a swimming pool.  So while all the murder & persecution was happening, Hoess continued to have a normal family life, as if nothing was happening.  That is something else I find hard to process.  While he was overseeing the murder of so many people, he could go home at night & be a normal dad & husband.  What sort of person does that make him?  The photo above is where he was finally hanged after the war.

This is one of the Gas Chambers.  Going inside this was awful.  Again I obviously didn't take photos.  You have to go through in silence, it gives you chance to take it all in.  There is a room where they had to undress.  Then the actual chamber itself, which housed so many prisoners.  That had an awful feel to it.  But then you walk through to where the large ovens are.  To me it looked like they were still set up waiting for the next batch.  Again I found that very hard & at this point wanted to cry.

Now it was time to leave Auschwitz 1 and move onto Auschwitz 2 - Birkenau.  There was so much we didn't have time to see.  So many exhibitions we didn't get a chance to look at.  Would I go back to see the rest?  At the moment no.  I still feel too emotionally drained.  However when I finally get through this, I honestly can't say if I will change my mind, but right now, there is no way.

Post 3 - Oświęcim

Oświęcim

The plane left on time at 8.15 & arrived at Krakow at 11.15 local time.  Beautiful clear skies most of the way.

The airport hasn't been open in it's present format for long, it's a really nice airport now.

So we got on the coaches which were to take us everywhere & began our journey to the first stop Oświęcim.  On the way it was explained to us about the three different Auschwitz sites.  We were going to be visiting 2 of them after our first stop.  



We saw Auschwitz 3 - Monowitz from the bus, it's the 2 large chimneys in the photo.  This was one of the first and largest of the sub-camps of Auschwitz.  This particular camp did hold mainly Jews.  It had and still has factories which were very important to the Nazis war effort.  It was built in 1941 by the inmates.  Apparently the ruins of the factories are still there behind a concrete fence, but there are no tours to this as there is not much left.   Behind the fence there are some factories that were built by the Germans, that are still in use today.  

We crossed over the river Vistula and was told an awful story about it.  Local children used to play in the river in Summer - as children do.  Then one day after playing in the river the children realised they were covered in a black goo like substance.  They ran home to their parents to find out what had happened.  It turned out that the Nazis had started dumping the ashes of the people they had killed into the River & that's what the children were covered in. 

That was quite a start.  We arrived in the lovely town of Oświęcim.  It was explained to us that this was to give us a sense of  what it would have been like before the war & how the war had such an impact on the town.  Before the war it had a large Jewish population which made up about 58% of the population.  They were an important part of the town, Synagogues and churches stood side by side and everyone worked together.

At the centre of the town was the Great Synagogue, which was supposed to be amazing inside and even visited by the Kaiser between the wars.  This was burned down by the Nazis when they took over the town and forced the Polish residents to move out so the building of Auschwitz could commence.  The Jews of the town were sent to the concentration camps.

The photo above is where the Great Synagogue used to stand, the street is still called Jews Street.  It did feel strangely eerie stood there, thinking about what used to be there and what happened.

A few Jews did return to the town after the war, but now, where there were once over 8000 Jews living,  there are no Jews living there at all.  One man - Szymon Kluger did return and was looked after by the locals, because he was so traumatised he didn't speak much after his return, but he died in 2000.

A few photos of the town

We then went to Auschwitz 1.