Approaching Auschwitz | Educational trip

Auschwitz is characterised by images: gates, fences, barracks, ruins, railway tracks. Our explorations begin far away from these images in the surrounding idyllic villages, surrounded by lush meadows, wet forests, small ponds where you can meet pheasants and storks and even lapwings. This area lies in the marshy triangle between the Vistula and Soła rivers. In accordance with the General Plan East, the lands of the Auschwitz area of interest, consisting of research facilities for plants and animals – and camps – were ordered here. Anyone travelling from Oświęcim to Krakow will pass a fragmentary concrete fence not far from Oświęcim that was never-ending a short time ago. The gaps in the fence provide a view of an industrial estate. On the opposite side of the road, the small village of Monowice is tucked away in green meadows. With old plans, photos and quotes, we look at the disappeared Monowitz concentration camp. Despite its significance for the German expansion of Auschwitz, Auschwitz III-Monowitz is not part of the memorial.

We slowly approach the ‚main camp‘ and ‚Birkenau‘, accompanied by quotes and stories from those murdered and survivors. Our invisible companion is Stanisław Hantz. He was a ‚political‘ prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp for almost five years, both in the ‚main camp‘ and in ‚Birkenau‘. As a carpenter, he travelled a lot in the camps, saw and heard a lot and thought about Auschwitz all his life. He accompanied us to Oświęcim for over twenty years. He knew about ‚good and bad SS‘, about friendship and betrayal among the prisoners, about hunger and stolen fat eyes, about despair and hope, and even about jokes and laughter in ‚Auschwitz‘. And he told us all this and more during his lifetime. And now, after his death, we continue to tell it. All these days and again and again.

The educational tour aims to create knowledge and empathy and help us to say ’no‘ courageously in the face of human rights violations. Because to quote Fritz Bauer: „You can make paragraphs, you can write articles, you can make the best basic laws. What you need are the right people who live these things.“