oswiecim/auschwitz

I read a short dialogue that puts into words what ran through my mind as I stepped over the ground that so many people are buried under.

The burning question: "In Auschwitz, where was God?".
The resonant response: "Where was man?"

Contrary to the image I held in my mind, Auschwitz wasn't covered in snow the day I went with five of my friends. I was glad of their company as we disembarked from the bus and entered the huge hall containing the ticket office. We were standing in a crowd of people, being assigned little stickers with the date scribbled on them, feeling strangely nervous at the disorganised chaos and drawing comparisons between our stickers and the tattoos of the original victims. The air shudders with nerves and the mind conjures stupid comparisons. When we watched the introductory documentary we became even more frazzled as we could all swear that we smelt gas!

The entrance to the Auschwitz camp still bears the iron letters "arbeit macht frei" ‑ work brings freedom. If death is considered freedom then this seems true enough. The many Poles, Romanians, Gypsies, Jews and others who were brought to this place were worked through Summer's fire and Winter's freeze, up to 18 hours a day, until they died of exhaustion, starvation, cold or disease. The 'lucky' ones were assigned jobs such as cleaning the toilet blocks or stripping the dead, gassed bodies of people for their gold teeth, hair, anything found on their body that could be used. These people lived a little longer, sometimes even six months.

As you begin your tour the facts assault your consciousness, but you won't remember any of them. The numbers are too huge and the atrocities too unimaginable for now, but soon you will see for yourself the horrors of this place that linger in your mind long after you leave. Everybody knows about the gas chambers, but to stand in the place where people were forced to strip naked before being herded into them brings new light to what happened here. In other parts of the museum/camp you see piles upon piles of glasses, women's make up products, children's toys, shoes and clothes that were taken from the people who came here. Huge hessian sacks containing human hair were discovered by the camp's liberators; the Nazis in their retreat hadn't had time to remove all the evidence. Walking along a huge corridor you start to feel sick as plaits, ponytails, masses and masses of hair rests disheveled on the other side of the glass. At the end of the corridor is a piece of cloth woven from this hair and your breath deserts you as you wonder: who weaved this cloth? Who wore it?

The next room holds a mountain of shoes. Then prosthetic limbs, so many of them that your mind boggles ‑ in my life I've met three people who had a prosthetic leg; here there is a room full of these plastic and metal limbs ‑ how many people died here! Then it's the dolls, little toys that were taken from children who would die and given to other children who would live.

The museum continues to the grey/black execution wall in a courtyard surrounded by basement windows. The windows look into the torture rooms, the starvation room, the dark room, the standing room, the suffocation room into which enough people were forced that they would slowly suffocate to death. The entrance to these basement rooms is through another long corridor lined with the mug shot style photographs of victims that were taken in the early days of the camp. Most people look vacant and shocked. Some look confused, others defiant, a few have a wry, sardonic smile on their face that seems to say "do your worst, my body is not my soul". Flowers adorn some of the photos and bring the faces to life; these were real people!

After hours of this your mind starts to shut down and you simply absorb the truth without question; perhaps this is how people performed these atrocities, their minds switching off at the extent of the horror.

In the early days, those arriving on the cattle trains thought that they were being taken to a new camp, like the ghettos they had left but in the open air and away from other people, where they could continue to live out their lives and have their freedom. On arrival, they were told that this is not a sanitarium but a concentration camp, that Jews were to die immediately and others would not live beyond three months. They were divided into groups of healthy and unhealthy; the healthy ones were sent to work as slaves while the unhealthy ones went straight to the gas.

It's certainly true that greater atrocities have occurred in this world. Genocide is not new to human history. Rwanda's 1994 genocide saw the deaths of 1 million Tutsis in only 100 days - one sixth of the number of Jews killed in the entire war. What makes Auschwitz and similar camps so much more horrifying is the methodical, relentlessly cold blooded nature of the 'final solution' that was put into action here.

At the end of the tour, after seeing evidence of unimaginable evil, I reflected on the question of where was God and where was man. I stood gazing at the barbed wire etched against the sky, surrounding the lurking gas chambers of Birkenau, and beyond it I watched the sunset colour the clouds in bright shades of orange and pink. I took it as a metaphor, found the answer to the question.

It might sound abhorrent, but to do evil is easy. To herd weak, scared, travel weary, confused people into gas chambers and flick a switch is simply a matter of being weak yourself. But to risk your life and your family to save these people takes great strength and boundless courage. The glow of the sunset is reflected in the entrance hall of Auschwitz, which is lined with the stories and photographs of ordinary people who found the strength to risk everything they loved for the sake of a stranger.

These people represent the best and brightest that humans are capable of, and their deeds came at such great cost that their worth is so much more than any act of cruelty.

Staring at these people's faces you realise why you can still appreciate the beauty of a sunset over such cursed ground. You realise that humankind goes to greater lengths to fight evil than to create it, and therein lies our salvation, therin lies God, therein lies man.

pierogis in poland

Three cities is not a country, but in spite of not existing all throughout the war, Poland has kept enough of her sense of self that even after only three cities, her personality is evident.

Ravaged by the Germans and Soviets, like all countries in this part of the world, Poland was occupied for many years and still has some cities with names in both Polish and German. Even Auschwitz is the German name for Oswiecim.

Polish people are closed, not exactly a surprise in Europe, but they do seem to have a sense of pride, determination, and are willing to greet the murder of their language by foreign tongues with a wry smile.

Polish food is great in winter time, Most of the weather we've had has been sunny but it's still cold, so the "pierogis" ‑ dumplings ‑ are always welcome. They also do some great soups here; sorrell soup with egg, borscht hot or cold with egg, sour soup with sausage, soup with dumplings... It's ok, I've done lots of walking too.

Still travelling with Taro, I've been to Warsaw, Wroclaw (pronounced 'vrotswahv' as if that makes any kind of sense) and Krakow. All three cities had a strong personality which is interesting, given that the cities in the Baltics all have basically the same vibe. Warsaw is large and open with a few treats. Wilanow is a nearby park with a large yellow palace and a poster museum ‑ Polish graphic design is extremely good. In the city centre, the Church of the Holy Cross holds Chopin's heart in one of the altar naves. The museum of Madame Curie is on a little street that swings around from the main square and there is a castle on the hill surrounded by colourful, unique buildings jostling each other for attention.

Wroclaw is an arty city, with little gnomes hidden throughout the streets. Tourists and locals can be seen hunting them. Each one has its own personality, name and occupation and it's not at all unusual to find yourself surprised by a little man skiing, napping, climbing a tree or even sleeping outside a hotel. There's a large indoor flower market, a beautiful old cathedral on an island, lots of bridges and buildings painted in all colours.

Krakow is a central hub useful for getting to the nearby salt mines and to Auschwitz, but it's also a nice city in its own right. It boasts the largest medieval town square in all of Europe, a leaning tower, a strange giant hollow head statue, plenty of museums and the world's coolest, funkiest, cosiest second hand bookstore. Founded by a king who slew a dragon, Krakow has an air of self assurance. The castle is built right on top of the alleged dragon's lair and the dragon statue outside it breathes real fire. There is a lively Jewish quarter where all the funky artistic types hang out (this is the case in most European cities because the ghettos are cheap and so are artists). Krakow is attractive and interesting but it's still just another city.

Overshadowed as it is by the dark history of anti semitism (some Polish people murdered jews after they were released from Auschwitz, though it must be noted that others helped to save them) Poland has a grey mood to it. Having a notorious death camp as its main tourist attraction probably doesn't help. In Poland, one gets the impression that the scars left by such a dark history will not be slow to fade. It feels like an injustice to a country that's already suffered so much, but these shades of past horrors are what make the country most memorable, and most valuable. Here, humankind's greatest crimes seem so recent, so close, that when you leave the country you feel as though you are throwing off a cloak of ice. It's a fascinating, unnerving place.