From; Eyal Axelrod
Date; May 25, 2011 1;38;52 PM EDT
To; Anati Axelrod, Asaf Axelrod, Nitz Axelrod
Cc; others
Subject; Auschwitz and Birkenau

We are now on our way back to Krakow.
It was a very important visit today. Something to remember.

We started at Auschwitz. It's a relatively small concentration camp but there were more than 1.1 million people killed here. If you remove the electric fences and guard towers, one might think that it's a vacation place. Only when you start hearing about what was done in each building, you understand where you stand. As an Israeli, I knew about the horrors but it's different to be here. It's hard to see the remains (hair, cloths, shoes, luggage, brushes, glasses) and it's hard to look at a 1x1 meter cell and hear that 4 people had to stay standing there during the night and then go to work in the morning. Until they died. We finished with going into the only remained crematorium, where they gassed people and then burned their corpuses.

During the visit, you see many groups of young people learning about what was here. It's encouraging.

Then, we drove to Auschwitz II, which is called Birkenau. It's a 5 min. drive and it's mostly where all the Jews were brought to by train. But there were also trains coming directly to Auschwitz and other concentration camps in the area.

Birkenau is huge. It's 25 times the size of Auschwitz. It's not in as good shape as Auschwitz, and it was never a great place to be at. We saw the living barracks, which were just like we used to see them in the movies. These were originally designed as stables for horses, but were used for people to sleep on the wooden beds. Very cold in the winter and very hot in the summer. We also saw where people took group showers and toilets. These are similar buildings, not big, that were supposed to serve 2000 people every hour. There wasn't really a shower, just a shallow place with water, freezing in the winter and steaming hot in the summer. When you see the conditions in Birkenau, Auschwitz really looks good in comparison.

When we went back towards the gate I talked to Nitzan and explained to her how this is different for us than how all of her friends feel about visiting these places. Only we, Israelis and Jews can understand that this is more than just visiting another museum or castle. We know that there are people today saying that the holocaust never existed and others that wish that Hitler had finished the job. We talked about why Israel is important and that there are two things that we say in Israel;
1. Remember and never forget.
2. Never again.

At the end if the visit, we saw flowers that were brought by the I.D.F probably in the last 1-2 days.

We are now in Krakow, trying to see if we can find the Schindler's factory (remember the movie Schindler's List).

Eyal.
Sent from my Windows Phone

P.s.
Originally, I planned to send it to Anat and Asaf who are back home. But then I decided to tell all of you about my experience.
Photos will be on our web site a couple of days after we're back to the US (29/5).

(click on the yellow arrow to see the pictures...)