[TV] BBC2 9M Sir Simon Schama - The Road to Auschwitz

[Theatre of Trees]

I highly recommend this to anybody wanting to understand how the Nazi camp system worked, from the early days of the political camps through their gradual evolution into work then extermination camps. It was all about death, you were either systematically eradicated on arrival, or worked until you dropped. What has always got me is that the cruelty of guards was one thing but equally culpable were those sitting in their offices planning it through the entire process - the railway timetable is a good example of this.

 

[The Mole]

It was an excellent programme- as has been mentioned the horrendous hate for the Jews that was whipped up before the death camps was very insightful.
also unimaginable to know you are being marched to your death just because of you were born into a Jewish family.
it makes me wonder, what would I do if I were part of the general population - join in, turn a blind eye or have the bravery to stand up against it? It is an uncomfortable thought.

 

[Auckland seagull]

I am visiting Auschwitz in three weeks. It is not something I am looking forward to, but something I feel I want to do. I'm not Jewish, but I have always been affected by books and films - like 'Schindler's List' and 'The Diary of Anne Frank' - recording the events. I expect it to be a profoundly moving experience.

 

[Arthur]

I am visiting Auschwitz in three weeks. It is not something I am looking forward to, but something I feel I want to do. I'm not Jewish, but I have always been affected by books and films - like 'Schindler's List' and 'The Diary of Anne Frank' - recording the events. I expect it to be a profoundly moving experience.

I went 5 years ago and questioned if I actually wanted to do it. I had reservations about what it would be like and I didn't like the idea of someone profiting out of such an awful event. Also quite frankly the idea of dark tourism doesn't really excite me. Thankfully I came to my sense and realised that was an idiotic way of looking at. So glad I did. It was harrowing but incredibly insightful. Whilst you'll never be able to get your head round what really happened it gave me a completely different perception of what it must have been like that you simply couldn't appreciate from books, films or my GCSE history 25 years earlier.

The exhibit which @Harry Wilson's tackle briefly mentioned of victims belonging (suitcases, shoes, glasses etc etc) is something that will stay with me until the day I die.

Take your time at Auschwitz as there is a lot to take in. Birkenau there isn't a great deal to see as a lot of it was destroyed what is left if mainly the house blocks. There are some touching memorials and obviously the infamous entrance with the train tracks.

And as someone else has mentioned on this thread the fact about no birds is completely true. Which makes the place even more eerie.

Oh and if you are doing it as a day trip from Krakow and want to do Schindler's Factory.......book well before. We tried three days running and got incredibly lucky the last day thanks to no shows.

 

[Zeberdi]

I went 5 years ago and questioned if I actually wanted to do it. I had reservations about what it would be like and I didn't like the idea of someone profiting out of such an awful event.

I’m glad you went and glad you reflected on what it is about and changed your initial presumptions..

The town is called ‘Auschwitz ‘ - the camps are called Auschwitz-Birkenau, a complex consisting of 40 camps at the time. The museum and exhibits at Auschwitz-Birkenau are not for voyeurism, tourism or for profits but are intended as a Holocaust museum and memoriam - for both conservation and education. The Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation certainly doesn’t run for profit and in fact is dependent on grants from the EU and Polish Government.

Birkenau there isn't a great deal to see as a lot of it was destroyed what is left if mainly the house blocks.

Visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau is really isn’t about ‘sightseeing’ so I would urge people not to leave out the Auschwitz-Birkenau II camp because of that, simply because there ‘less to see’ - it’s about making a pilgrimage to the site itself ie the location of where the exterminations took place. Birkenau had a greater effect on me personally than Camp 1 because that’s where my Grandad was imprisoned and tortured.

Visually Birkenau has less to offer but out of all the Auschwitz camps in the complex, Birkenau was the most significant.

“The majority—probably about 90%—of the victims of Auschwitz Concentration Camp died in Birkenau. This means approximately a million people. The majority, more than nine out of every ten, were Jews”

And as someone else has mentioned on this thread the fact about no birds is completely true. Which makes the place even more eerie.

Yes, that someone was me but it’s a known fact that is both strange yet true so it wasn’t an original observation on my part. The ponds and woods in around the town of Auschwitz are full of birds but the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps themselves are devoid of birdsong. Personally, I found that not so much ‘eerie’ rather it compounded the timeless horror of the whole place itself.

https://www.auschwitz.org/en/history/auschwitz-ii/

 

[Arthur]

I’m glad you went and glad you reflected on what it is about and changed your initial presumptions..

The town is called ‘Auschwitz ‘ - the camps are called Auschwitz-Birkenau, a complex consisting of 40 camps at the time. The museum and exhibits at Auschwitz-Birkenau are not for voyeurism, tourism or for profits but are intended as a Holocaust museum and memoriam - for both conservation and education. The Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation certainly doesn’t run for profit and in fact is dependent on grants from the EU and Polish Government.

Visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau is really isn’t about ‘sightseeing’ so I would urge people not to leave out the Auschwitz-Birkenau II camp because of that, simply because there ‘less to see’ - it’s about making a pilgrimage to the site itself ie the location of where the exterminations took place. Birkenau had a greater effect on me personally than Camp 1 because that’s where my Grandad was imprisoned and tortured.

Visually Birkenau has less to offer but out of all the Auschwitz camps in the complex, Birkenau was the most significant.

“The majority—probably about 90%—of the victims of Auschwitz Concentration Camp died in Birkenau. This means approximately a million people. The majority, more than nine out of every ten, were Jews”


Yes, that someone was me but it’s a known fact that is both strange yet true so it wasn’t an original observation on my part. The ponds and woods in around the town of Auschwitz are full of birds but the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps themselves are devoid of birdsong. Personally, I found that not so much ‘eerie’ rather it compounded the timeless horror of the whole place itself.

https://www.auschwitz.org/en/history/auschwitz-ii/

I wasn't for a second suggesting people shouldn't bother with Birkenau far from it. Just pointing out you don't need as long there as once you've seen one house block you pretty much seen all of them. Seeing the iconic entrance with the train tracks is chilling. I agree with you that it had greater effect on me because you could see the scale of what went on and the terrible conditions those not exterminated were kept.

I disagree about it being tourist attraction now. You can't walk 10 yards up the street leading to square in Krakow without someone trying to tell you a trip there so people are profiting out of it. Given our coach was full on a cold day in February I expect that is the case every day all year round so I'm sure some people are doing very well out of it.

It is massively important that it remains and I would implore if you can go then you do go.

 

[Zeberdi]

I disagree about it being tourist attraction now. You can't walk 10 yards up the street leading to square in Krakow without someone trying to tell you a trip there so people are profiting out of it. Given our coach was full on a cold day in February I expect that is the case every day all year round so I'm sure some people are doing very well out of it.

Again, Auschwitz-Birkenau is not run for profits as a “tourist attraction” and it shouldn’t be approached as such. People visit the Camps for different reasons of course but for the majority, it is because it is because they understand the Global historical and cultural significance of the Holocaust and it helps them understand the magnitude of what happened. For Jewish people as I said, it is especially a place of remembrance and prayer and the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation manage the site with the respect and reverence that warrants.

Entrance to the site is free of charge.

I went 5 years ago and questioned if I actually wanted to do it. I had reservations about what it would be like and I didn't like the idea of someone profiting out of such an awful event

Of course it ‘attracts’ over a million visitors a year - it always has and of course it’s highly publicised in Krakov since tour groups and coach companies run excursions from the City - it’s not really very easy to get to otherwise for overseas visitors but that is NO reason to not go or suggest that Auschwitz-Birkenau is “doing very well out of it”.

As for people ‘toting’ on the streets of Krakov, you get people like that in every city in the world …

 

[Barryseagulls]

For any night owls - the programme is repeated tonight on BBC2 at 20 past midnight. A difficult watch.

 

[Arthur]

Of course it ‘attracts’ over a million visitors a year - it always has and of course it’s highly publicised in Krakov since tour groups and coach companies run excursions from the City - it’s not really very easy to get to otherwise for overseas visitors but that is NO reason to not go or suggest that Auschwitz-Birkenau is “doing very well out of it”.

But the tour operators are and that was the point I was making. I've just been on Tripadvisor and there are 116 tours available to book.

Krakow: Tours and Tickets - Tripadvisor

www.tripadvisor.co.uk

If you do a similar search from Katowice the top two results are also day trips to the camps. So someone somewhere is making a decent buck out of it. But good luck to them because if it makes it more accessible for people to visit then that is all that matters surely?

 

[Barryseagulls]

I don’t want to start a new thread as this is only going to appeal to a limited number of people on NSC but the Jewish festival of Passover starts tomorrow & for anyone that has heard the name but doesn’t really know what it is about, this tweet that I saw yesterday & copied below explains it really well.


There’s a Jewish holiday coming up in two days, It’s called Passover.

And for those who aren’t familiar, I want to share what this time of year really means to Jews — and especially to me — and to all religious and Orthodox Jews around the world who observe it.

See, from the outside, a lot of people think Jewish holidays are just about food, family, wine, gatherings — like a big dinner party.

But Passover is different.

Passover is hard work. Passover is a lot of preparation. Passover is soul-searching.

For weeks before it even begins, our entire lives shift. We (by we, I of course mean our wives…) clean our homes like absolute crazy people. And not for spring cleaning. Not for guests. Not because company is coming over — but for something called chametz.

Chametz is any food made from grain — wheat, barley, oats, spelt, or rye — that has come into contact with water and risen. Bread. Pasta. Cake. Cookies. Even tiny crumbs.

And on Passover, Chametz is completely forbidden.

We scrub down our kitchens. We check every pocket of every coat. We vacuum cars. We clean toys. We search by candlelight the night before Passover to make sure not a single crumb is left in our homes.

Why?

Because chametz represents more than just bread. It represents ego. Arrogance. Laziness. The things that puff us up and hold us back.

And when Passover comes in, we want a fresh start. A clean sheet. A home, and a heart, without chametz.

And then comes the heart of Passover: The Seder.

Seder means “order.”

It’s not a meal you rush through. It’s not about eating and moving on.

It’s a night where we sit, usually for hours, surrounded by family, by friends, and most importantly, by our children.

Because the entire purpose of the Seder is to tell our story to our little children.

The story of the Jewish people. The story of Egypt. Of slavery. Of exile. Of pain. Of miracles. Of redemption.

We read from a book called the Haggadah — which literally means “the telling.”

We dip vegetables in salt water to remember our tears.
We eat bitter herbs to remember the bitterness of slavery.
We eat matzah — flat, dry bread — to remember how quickly we had to run to freedom, with no time to wait for the dough to rise.
We drink four cups of wine to celebrate the four expressions of freedom promised to us by G-d.

And we sing.

We sing songs our ancestors sang. Songs they whispered in hiding. Songs they cried in exile. Songs of hope. Songs of faith. Songs that say — we are still here.

That’s what Passover is.

It’s not just a Jewish holiday.
It’s our origin story. It’s our identity. It’s everything we’ve survived — and everything we still hope for.

And at the center of it all is this powerful line we repeat every year at the Seder:

“In every generation, a person is obligated to see themselves as if they personally left Egypt.”

It’s not just history. It’s personal.

We all have our Egypt. We all have our struggles. We all have things we’re trying to break free from.

And Passover reminds us — freedom is possible. Miracles happen. And our story is still being written.

And every year — in every Jewish home where there is a Seder — no matter where that home is in the world…

It always ends the same way.

After hours of storytelling, of singing, of laughing, of crying, of remembering who we are and where we come from… comes this moment.

Everyone rises. Everyone’s voice comes together — loud, raw, emotional, sometimes through tears — and we scream at the top of our lungs:

“L’shana Haba’a B’Yerushalayim!”
“Next year in Jerusalem!”
“Next year in Jerusalem!”
“Next year in Jerusalem, Amen!”