12 June 2009
For the first time in 10 years, my friend Mark and I decided to take a road trip. We have travelled to many places together in the past but it has been some time since the two of us hit the good old road. I am in Holland on my annual leave and we both have time to explore new places for a week, so off we go.
The objective of our journey: to trace back some of the key locations which made a historical impact on Europe during the Holocaust of World War II
In order to be able to move as freely as possible, without having to worry about accommodation, we opted to rent a small camper. This turned out to be a great decision: with our own transport, bed, kitchen, fridge, bathroom and shower, gas, water and electricity, we could drive whenever we wanted, as long as we wanted, and simply park in any parking lot to make camp for the night. We picked up the camper early morning, loaded our bed linnen, clothes, cameras, maps and other gear and headed east towards the border.
Berlin, Germany
First stop of the journey: Berlin. Arriving in the early evening, we drove past abandoned Checkpoint Bravo on the former East-West Berlin border and by-chance found our first destination: the house of the Wannsee Konferenz. A quiet, empty and tree-filled parking lot across the building was the perfect spot to camp for the night. The beautifully restored but rather spooky building was already closed for the night, but with our close proximity, we could ensure to be the first visitors when the building opened again the next morning.
The Wannsee lake in Berlin
We decide to make camp on a quiet parking lot across near the lake
While the first anti-Jewish sentiments started surfacing in newly elected Hitler's NSDAP Germany as early as 1933, it was in this building that the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" was fully formalized. A conference initiated by Reinhard Heydrich on 20 January 1942 in this building established Heydrich's authority as executioner of the plan, which called for all Jews to be deported to German-occupied territories in East Europe, to use the fit men for labour and to ultimately annihilate the entire European Jewish population. Effectively, the death penalty for millions of Jews was signed here.
Today, the building is a holocaust memorial and houses a comprehensive and well-presented insight into the holocaust. Many original documents, including the full minutes of the conference, are on display here.
The villa where the Wannsee Conference took place, sealing the fate of the European Jews
Around noon, Mark and I headed for central Berlin to see some of the historical sights. The berlin wall is now mostly gone, but a brick line through the busy streets marks the location where the wall once stood like a permanent scar through the tarmac of the city. Hitler's Reichstag, badly damaged by Allied bombing, is now fully restored and renamed Bundestag. My brother Nils and I were in Berlin when the wall came down in 1989, and stood on the wall right in front of the Brandenburger Tor with thousands of other people, celebrating this historical event. Today, the wall is gone and people move freely underneath the arch from one side to the other. The first two buildings on the former East-Berlin side: the American embassy and a Starbucks café.
After a quick visit to famous Checkpoint Charlie, the Wall Museum, and the Gedächtniskirche on the Kurfürstendamm, we left Berlin and headed east, towards the dark clouds, into Poland.
Russian War Memorial and Cemetary, central Berlin
Hitler's Reichstag, badly damaged by Allied bombing, but now beautifully restored and renamed Bundestag, where the German parliament seats.
Once hidden right behind the Berlin wall, but now fully restored in its old glory: the Brandenburger Tor, allowing people to freely walk between what was once East and West Berlin, one of the most heavily guarded and deadly borders in the world, just 20 years ago.
One of the few remains of Communist Germany, the famous Ampelmännchen in the traffic lights.
Gedächtniskirche
Our camper under dark clouds at the German/Polish border
Wroclaw (Breslau), Poland
We arrived in Wroclaw late in the evening and could not find the only camping around the city, so we decided to head straight to the city center, park the camper across a government building along the river, and call it a day.
Mark relaxing near our camper on a parking lot along a busy street in central Wroclaw
The Poles were unfriendly and unhelpful, whenever we asked "Sprechen sie Deutsch?". Mark suggested we should ask them if they speak English, and from then on, a complete opposite side of the Polish hospitality opened up to us. We felt welcome where ever we went. Polish men are jovial and friendly, Polish girls are gorgeous.
In 'the west', Poland, for some reason, triggers images of gray, dark and depressing former communist cities. Nothing is further from the truth. Wroclaw is simply beautiful. The old city center boasts impressive churches, colorful architecture and a vibrant and friendly street life. Wroclaw was hit by a severe flood in the early nineties but the collective effort of the 600.000 population prevented serious damage to the city center and the impressive Cathedral island.
The main city square of Wroclaw
One of the main shopping streets in the center. Colorful and vibrant architecture.
One of the many impressive churches on Cathedral Island
We wondered around the city, soaking up the impressions, until the afternoon, but we were on a tight schedule and buckeled up around 4 pm and hit the highway to head to our most eastern destination: Krakow
Krakow (Krakau), Poland
We reached Krakow in the early evening and found ourselves surrounded by countless police cars, heavily armed riot police officers, wailing sirens and security forces. Unknown to us, the Polish Prime Minister was to arrive in Krakow that night for an important conference and no efforts were spared to guarantee his safety. We quickly found a great camping and thoroughly enjoyed the pleasure of fixed facilities such as a proper toilet and a warm shower for the first time in 3 days.
The first real camping we found on our journey. Freshly showered, we are getting ready to enjoy a quiet evening
Krakow is something else. A true jewel case. I had been told that Krakow is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, and can now fully verify that. The main city market boasts a wealth of colorful history, again with impressive churches, beautiful parks, ancient city walls and a vibrant street life. We walked until the blisters on my feet started developing their own blisters.
The main cathedral on the city square. We climbed the tower to the very top for a spectacular view of the city.
An old, medieval arena along the city wall
Escaping a rain shower, Mark and I relax in an Irish Pub deep within the cellars of the old buildings
A beautiful church close to the Jewish Quarter
The heavily guarded Wawel castle, where Prime Minister Donald Tusk was having a conference. Numerous riot police forces held away an anarchist protest just to the left of me.
On the other side of the river, just behind the Jewish quarter, in a desolate, industrial area, is Oskar Schindler's factory. Schindler, made famous by the Hollywood movie 'Schindler's list' and a Nazi party member himself, employed Jewish prisoners as slave labourers to make a fortune in his factory producing warfare equipment. When the full scale of the holocaust became clear to him, he spent his entire fortune on bribes to save as many Jews as he could, ultimately saving over 1000 Jews from certain death. He died a poor man and remains the only Nazi to be buried in Jerusalem, honoured by the Jews. The factory has been renovated but besides a small visitor center, does not provide further insight into its historical importance.
Oskar Schindler's factory
We ended our day with the only proper dinner of the entire trip in a superb restaurant on the main square, and took a taxi back to our mobile home to prepare for a mentally challenging trip tomorrow.
Auschwitz I, Oswiecim, Poland
Mark and I woke up early. I guess we were both equally nervous about what we were going to experience today. There were many concentration and death camps throughout Europe during the war, but Auschwitz was by far the biggest, the most deadly. Auschwitz has become the personification of the very worst that mankind is capable of. Mark and I were eager to see the place we had learned so much about, but also reluctant to experience the negative energy radiated by a place with such complete lack of respect for human life and the destruction 1.6 million innocent men, women and children in the time span of just 3 years.
Arbeit Macht Frei, the cynical message on the main gate to Auschwitz I
Auschwitz I is still fully intact. This camp was not strictly a death camp, but rather a labour camp (of which most labourers died of exhaustion, torture or execution) and the administrative center of the much larger Auschwitz II Birkenau camp. Passing through the notorious "Arbeit Macht Frei" gate is almost a surreal experience. Behind this gate lie the barracks of the prisoners. All of these have now been converted to expositions of the various facets of the holocaust.
Entering the camp. On the left, the camp kitchen. Remarkable how this camp had such a large kitchen, given that the prisoners were barely given any food to eat and many starved to death.
The execution wall on a small square between the hospital barracks and the prison (a prison within a prison), where thousands of people were executed.
Part of the perimeter fence
Auschwitz II Birkenau, Oswiecim, Poland
Upon reaching the main gate of Auschwitz Birkenau, we crossed the railroad track. These tracks carried hundreds of trains, carrying over 1.6 million human beings in cattle wagons, without food, water, heating or sanitary facilities, for as much as three days non stop. For most people, this last mile of railroad track was the end of the long train journey, and the end of their life.
Auschwitz II, Birkenau, the Gate of Death
An immediate selection upon disembarking the train sent most people down a path past the barracks, into the forest, straight into the gas chambers of one of the five crematoria. This is the biggest death factory the world has ever seen. The camp is enormous and in 2 hours, Mark and I only managed to walk the circumference of half the camp. Many barracks and all gas chambers and crematoria have been destroyed by the fleeing Nazis, but most barracks are still intact, along with the electrically charged, barbed-wired perimeter fences. Information signs with graphic photographs show us the atrocities that took place in every part of the camp. With every step we take, we are aware that we are stepping on the ashes of countless innocent people. As if to add to the symbolism, it starts to rain.
Walking the path to the crematoria, we pass countless destroyed barracks. This was a latrine
The immense field of destroyed barracks
Those who were (un)fortunate enough not to be gassed to death immediately, but assigned to labour, had to be 'checked in' to the camp. These people were stripped naked outside, their clothes checked for valuables, and decontaminated in steam machines, the prisoners were shaved bald, showered and issued the camp uniform. It was in this room that prisoners received their uniform. Today, it is used to display thousands of happy snapshots of the countless prisoners before their deportation, found in their luggage. This photo only shows one wall of the many.
The steam machines in which clothing was decontaminated before it was sent to the sorting sheds, and finally sent to Germany for re-use.
Just before the camp was liberated by the Red Army, the Nazis tried to destroy as much evidence as they could. They blew up all 5 crematoria using dynamite. These are the remains of Krematorium III, standing at the entrance of the underground gas chamber. In the back, the destroyed remains of the incinerator.
Inside one of the surviving barracks.
The end of the track, and for almost all people here, the end of their life. In the far distance, the main gate. to give you an idea of the scale: the camp is more than twice as wide as it is deep.
Towards the late afternoon, we had seen enough and had reached the end of our capacity to absorb what Auschwitz has to tell. We climbed aboard the camper and drove off in silence, heading south-west, crossing the border an hour later and driving deep into the Czech Republic before we finally become a little chatty again in the evening. At sunset around 10 pm, we decided to make camp just west of Brno.
Praha (Prague), Czech Republic
Having left Brno in the early morning, we reached Prague around noon. The weather had been deteriorating for the past two days and it's cold, rainy and dark. We were not allowed to park the camper in the city and had to drive several kilometers up the hill. Nonetheless we worked up the energy to make the long climb down and explore the city. Prague, where Reinhard Heydrich, the initiator of the Wannsee Conference and chief executor of the Holocaust lost his life after an attack by the Czech underground in 1942. The driver was dead but it was too late: the machine was already in motion and would not stop until the Red Army and Allied forces managed to do so, a full three years and 5 million deaths later.
Like Krakow, Prague has been largely spared from destruction during the war, and thankfully so. The city is gorgeous.
Prague
Prague
Prague
Prague
We spent a few hours exploring the city but we both started to reach the end of our rope. We have driven 2250 kilometers and have processed countless impressions in just a few days, so it's time we climb the hill back to the camper and find a place to camp. We spent the rest of the evening relaxing, reading Anne Frank's diary and some of the literature we bought in Auschwitz, and turning in early.
Nürnberg, Germany
We got up early, crossed the border back into Germany and headed to Nürnberg. If the Wannsee in Berlin is where the Final Solution to the Jewish Question started, Nürnberg is where it ended. A large number of the most prominent Nazis were tried, convicted and executed here for their war crimes by an Allied tribunal during the Nürnberg Prozesse, more commonly known as the Nuremberg Trial in 1945-1946. It would seem logical that we therefore end our journey here. Unfortunately, the building in which the tribunal took place is under renovation and we could not go there. Instead, we decided to visit the old city center and city wall. We never realized how large the historical center of Nürnberg is, and spent a few hours exploring it.
Nürnberg
Nürnberg
Nürnberg
By 2 pm, we had seen enough. We had fulfilled our objective and were mentally out of fuel. Since the weather was not cooperating and it was still early, we decided to head towards Frankfurt am Main, so we wouldn't have to drive so far to get home tomorrow. But by the time we reached Frankfurt around 5 pm, it was still raining, so we decided to keep going to Köln. But by the time we reached Köln at 7 pm, it was still raining so we decided to continue to eastern Netherlands. But by the time we reached Arnhem at 8:30 pm, it was still raining so we decided to just keep going, and by 10 pm, after having driven a total of 3250 kilometers since we left Amsterdam a week ago, we parked the camper in the courtyard in front of Mark's apartment in Amsterdam. It was a bit of a strange idea that we left Prague that same morning and had visited Nürnberg in the meantime. Mark switched off the engine and we sat there for a moment in silence, reluctant to leave this vehicle that had been our home during this impressive journey. We then realized we still had some Czech beers and German sausages in the fridge, and spent the rest of the evening until late at night in our camper, in front of Mark's apartment, recollecting the countless impressions of the past week. For both of us, it has been a very educational, confronting yet also enlightening journey.
Parked in front of Mark's apartment in Amsterdam, reluctant to leave our mobile home
Arne @ 23:58 | Comments(3)
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