Places to visit Krakow, Poland

World War destination 01:

Krakow, Poland.

I never thought in 2011 that I would be writing a review for my website, www.operationcodename.com But in 2011, I was invited to visit Krakow in Poland that October. The plan was to visit Schlindler's factory and the following day visit Auschwitz¹ and Birkenau.

Before going to Poland I was able to watch a documentary by the BBC, Hitlers final Solution, and also the Schlindler's List, which was a good idea. This helped a great deal, as I was able to take in more information from the tour guide at the concentration camps.

So in October, six of us flew from Belfast to Krakow, Poland. And in just over three hours we were at the apartment just off the Krakow square. Krakow is an Old square with shops at each of the four sides. Some of the buildings are dated over 200 years old.

In Janurary 1945 the Russian Red army advancing towards Krakow, the German officer in charge, met with the Russian leader, and agreed rather than destroy the town with cannon shells, and mortars, they decided to pitch their battle in a nearby field so the the town would stay intact.

Arriving midday on Thursday, we were able to get the lay of the land, book our tour for Auschwitz and Birkenau for the next day. We then set off to visit Schlindler's Factory, watching the movie was very informative, yet going to the actual place cuts out the glamour of the Hollywood film, and paints the issue into black and white. 

Schlindler's Factory is very informative, there are plenty of artifacts to see. One part of the Musuem as you enter, is like a cinema, as you take your seat, the reel of film will start, and the story of Oskar Schlindler begins. How he saved many Jewish people from ending up in the horrors of a concentration camps. During the film are the testimonies of those saved, a memorial to the man Oskar Schlindler.

 

Friday morning a minibus arrived to collect us around 9am, just over an hour or so later we arrived at Auschwitz. The entrance of this place the words "ARBEIT MACHT FREI" Which translates "work sets you free". 

 

 
The tour guide has a very sombre tone in his voice, introducing himself, and giving a history of the building of Auschwitz, which once belonged to the Polish
Cavalry .

In each Barrack building, a different aspect of the history of this notorious death camp. When entering each building is a framed photograph of a Jewish prisoner, their age, gender, the day they arrived, their death, or the day they were murdered.³

The very last building is a very sobering reflection of man's inhumanity towards man. A room which has glass panels,
at each panel starts with a section of suitcases, many with their names and addresses.³ The next section has shoes and prosthetic limbs. The next section are hair brushes and shaving brushes.
The last section is people's hair, and as you noticed each section depicts a more personal aspect, that these are the belongings to people.
The depths of how a man could bring another man, treat him as subhuman, and support a cause of euthanasia.

After that tour, a short distance, we arrived at Birkenau, an old red brick building with a tower with windows. A railway track running underneath, with an old cattle carriage that was used to transport the unsuspecting prisoners.

In this camp are two remaining buildings, the rest have been demolished, the only remains where the bricked chimney stacks once stood. Looking at the number of these chimmey stacks, you realize that mass murder took place on colossal in size.



¹ The Polish

Cavalry During the German invasion of Poland in 1939, cavalry formed 10% of the Polish Army. Cavalry units were organised in 11 cavalry brigades, each composed of 3 to 4 cavalry regiments with organic artillery, armoured unit and infantry battalion.

 .
² Canada 1 and Canada 2. Many of the Jewish people were told that they were being relocated to a land full of fertile ground for farming, and prosperity. Little did they realize the horror of Kanada 1 and Kanada 2. 

The Kanada warehouses, also known as Effektenlager or simply Kanada, were storage facilities in the Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland during the Holocaust. The buildings were used to store the stolen belongings of prisoners, mostly Jews who had been murdered in the gas chambers on arrival.  The property of prisoners registered in the camp and used as slave labour was kept on deposit.

The warehouses became known as "Kanada" (or "Canada") because the prisoners saw them as the land of plenty. Although the name began as prisoner slang, it was apparently adopted by some of the camp administration ^] Prisoners who worked there were known as the Aufräumungskommando ("clearing-up commando") or Kanada Kommando.  It was viewed as one of the best jobs in Auschwitz, because prisoners could "organize", in camp slang, and procure goods for themselves and other inmates^]

³ The Wannasee Conference.

Participants at the Wannsee Conference

Representing the SS at the Wannsee Conference were:

• SS General Reinhard Heydrich, the chief of the Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt-RSHA) and one of Reichsführer-SS (SS chief) Heinrich Himmler's top deputies
• SS Major General Heinrich Müller, chief of RSHA Department IV (Gestapo)
• SS Lieutenant Colonel Adolf Eichmann, chief of the RSHA Department IV B 4 (Jewish Affairs)
• SS Colonel Eberhard Schöngarth, commander of the RSHA field office for the Government General in Krakow, Poland
• SS Major Rudolf Lange, commander of RSHA Einsatzkommando 2, deployed in Latvia in the autumn of 1941
• SS Major General Otto Hofmann, the chief of SS Race and Settlement Main Office.

Representing the agencies of the State were:

• State Secretary Roland Freisler (Ministry of Justice)
• Ministerial Director Wilhelm Kritzinger (Reich Cabinet)
• State Secretary Alfred Meyer (Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories-German-occupied USSR)
• Ministerial Director Georg Leibrandt (Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories)
• Undersecretary of State Martin Luther (Foreign Office)
• State Secretary Wilhelm Stuckart (Ministry of the Interior)
• State Secretary Erich Naumann (Office of Plenipotentiary for the Four-Year Plan)
• State Secretary Josef Bühler (Office of the Government of the Governor General-German-occupied Poland)
• Ministerial Director Gerhard Klopfer (Nazi Party Chancellery)

Not present at the meeting were representatives of the German Armed Forces (Wehrmacht) and the Reich Railroads (Reichsbahn) in the German Ministry of Transportation. The SS and police had already negotiated agreements with the German Army High Command on the murder of civilians, including Soviet Jews, in the spring of 1941, prior to the invasion of the Soviet Union. In late September 1941, Hitler had authorized the Reich Railroads to transport German, Austrian, and Czech Jews to locations in German-occupied Poland and the German-occupied Soviet Union, where German authorities would kill the overwhelming majority of them.

Goals of the Conference

The "Final Solution" was the code name for the systematic, deliberate, physical annihilation of the European Jews. At some still undetermined time in 1941, Adolf Hitler authorized this European-wide scheme for mass murder. Heydrich convened the Wannsee Conference

• to inform and secure support from government ministries and other interested agencies relevant to the implementation of the “Final Solution”
• to disclose to the participants that Hitler himself had tasked Heydrich and the RSHA with coordinating the operation

The men at the table did not deliberate whether such a plan should be undertaken, but instead discussed the implementation of a policy decision that had already been made at the highest level of the Nazi regime.