Plaszow

Well, the tale of my trip to Africa is done, so I thought I would pick up where I left off telling about my trip to Poland. I had spoken about the mound named Kopiec Kosciuski that I climbed. There are three mounds around Krakow, Poland, and I climbed two. The second one was south of the Old Town. Before arriving at this mound, you pass through a  section of the town called the Kazimierz. This was where Krakow's 60,000 Jews lived before the Second World War. It was here that the "Isaac Synagogue" was built and opened in 1644. This synagogue served the Jews of Krakow for almost three hundred years. There is a documentary film on display showing images of life in the Jewish community just before the war, and what happened after the Nazis invaded in September, 1939.

The synagogue was desecrated, and an official was shot for refusing to burn the scrolls of the Torah. The building was used for storage during the war, and by an artist's group after, until the Jewish community regained possession in 1989. It is possible to go on a tour, and see many displays about its history. It was very strange to be told to keep my hat on during the tour (yarmulkas are available for those without a hat), as a sign of respect. During my visits to cathedrals in Poland, it was instinctual to remove my hat as a sign of respect in the house of God.
Besides the film about life in the area before the war, there is footage of the removal of everyone to the ghetto in March, 1941. Anyone familiar with the book or film Schindler's List will know the history of what followed. Krakow's Jews were confined to a small area, 656 x 437 yards. They were forced to build the wall that surrounded the ghetto, and the Jewish Council worked with the Nazi authority to provide workers to complete it. Thousands of Jews from the surrounding countryside were crammed in, as well. 4-5 people per room was the norm, meaning that privacy was non-existent and sanitary conditions became appalling. Jews were required to carry identification papers, and these were checked often by the police. Anyone caught without them was punished or deported to a death camp like Auschwitz. During the official roundups and deportations of 1942, Jews scrambled to get papers that identified them as "essential workers," immune to deportation.
Some Jews found work in the factory of Oskar Schindler, which still stands. There was nothing in it when I passed by, but it was undergoing some kind of renovation. Maybe it is a tourist attraction by now.

Schindler eventually saved over 1,000 Jews by giving them work here and when he moved to Brunnlitz near the end of the war. He even went to Auschwitz to save 300 of "his" women who had been mistakenly sent there.

Eventually, the ghetto was liquidated. and the Jews were removed to the labour camp at Plaszow. This camp was at first policed by Ukrainian guards, but when it became a concentration camp in 1944, it was controlled directly by the SS.
In March of 1942, as a prelude to the mass deportation, 50 Jews were arrested and sent to Auschwitz, where they were immediately gassed. This action was directed at the intellectuals among the Jews. Deportations began in earnest in May and continued into June. The Jews were the subject of brutal treatment as they were rounded up. A man with one leg was tortured by the SS, as was a man who had been blinded in World War I. He had fought for Germany.
6,000 Jews were deported to the death camp at Belzec, where 300 were murdered on the spot. In a second deportation in October, 7,000 were sent there, and 600 were killed immediately. Eventually, they all went to the gas.
In the final deportations in March, 1943, 2,000 Jews were sent to Plaszow, while 2,300 were sent to Auschwitz. Small children and the elderly were killed indiscriminately in the streets, and Gestapo agents disposed of those still in hospital.
Some Jews in Krakow did resist, and there was a group that fought the Germans any way they could. In December, 1942, Nazi officers gathered in a coffee shop were attacked by Jewish partisans, and several were killed at the cost of two lives. The Jewish resistance helped people to escape and engaged the Germans in several gun battles in an effort to slow the deportations.
In April, 1943, some Jewish women who had been rounded up to be sent to Auschwitz attacked their male guards. Two escaped, but the rest were killed.
Some Poles dared to help the Jews, and five were arrested and condemned to death in June, 1944. One of them was hung in the public square as a warning.
Eventually, Plaszow itself was liquidated, and in September, 1944, 2,000 Jews were deported to Auschwitz and immediately gassed. The last prisoners were evacuated in January, 1945, just before the Soviet army liberated the camp. These prisoners were marched off to other camps, but the march itself was an effective way to kill off those who were unable to resist the cold and starvation and endless marching.
The site of Plaszow is still there, inside an old stone quarry.

There is a memorial dedicated to the victims, and a green space where the camp buildings used to be.

The quarry where the mockup of the camp constructed for the film is surrounded by a fence,

and I had to go all the way around it before finding a hole big enough to squeeze through. There is a short walk downhill before you are on the main road to the "camp."

This road, built to stand in for the real one, more than anything else brings home the evil that was the Holocaust. It was made from the tombstones that used to mark the graves of Krakow's Jewish dead. Some of the stones are still in one piece, but others were broken up to fit into place.

The barbed wire, the fences, the deserted buildings, the memorial; all are as nothing compared to the sight of this road. The contempt and inhumanity behind this gesture affected me, and still affects me, very deeply. It is hard to put into words, but I think it is important for everyone to think about what happened, and pray that it never happens again.