AUSCHWITZ, Poland – A searing and enduring symbol of the Holocaust, the
former Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp is crumbling.
The gates of Auschwitz-Birkenau [Sheldon Kirshner photo]
Under the impact of the ravages of time, the infamous camp, now a museum that drew 1.3 million visitors last year, is falling apart. Many of its wooden barracks have already succumbed to the elements, leaving only red brick chimneys poking into the sky.
But as Auschwitz-Birkenau moulders away, museum officials have launched a major battle to preserve its vast and eerie complex of barracks, guard towers, gas chambers, crematoria, barbed wire fences and archives.
“Saving Auschwitz-Birkenau means saving the memory of millions who suffered and were bestially murdered,” Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, said recently.
Rafal Pioro, the museum’s deputy director and former head of its preservation department, said that the sprawling camp, set on 190 hectares and listed as a World Heritage site by the United Nations, was not intended to last. “The buildings were meant to be temporary.”
A one hour’s drive from Krakow, in southwestern Poland, Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest of six death camps built by the Nazis in this country to exterminate the Jews of Europe. The other camps were Treblinka, Chelmno, Sobibor, Majdanek and Belzec.
Germany opened Auschwitz 1, as it was originally called, on June 15, 1940, nine months after invading Poland and touching off World War II.
Formerly comprising Polish army barracks constructed during World War I, and close to the town of Oswiecim, the camp was initially used to intern Polish resistance fighters and intellectuals, common criminals, homosexuals, Soviet prisoners of war and Jews. The first Jews arrived from Tarnow, Poland.
Although Auschwitz 1 basically functioned as a prison and administrative centre, Zyklon-B, the pesticide used to gas inmates, was first tested here in 1941.
Auschwitz 2, or Birkenau, was erected to ease congestion at Auschwitz 1, which would become the camp’s administrative centre. Construction began in the autumn of 1941, several months before the Wannsee conference, where the decision was made to murder European Jewry on a systematic basis.
Birkenau, adjacent to the village of Brzezinka and three kilometres from Auschwitz 1, was nothing less than a killing ground. By the summer of 1943, four crematoria, including the Little Red House and the Little White House, were up and running.
Auschwitz 3, which consisted of more than 30 sub-camps in the immediate vicinity, consisted of foundries, factories and mines. It commenced operations in May 1942, serving as a slave labour camp for I. G. Farben, the German company.
According to historians, 1.1 million people were murdered, or died of starvation and disease, in the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex. Ninety per cent of the victims were Jews.
With the Red Army advancing toward the camp in January 1945, the Nazis blew up the gas chambers to conceal Germany’s crimes and evacuated the remaining inmates, forcing them on a death march.
For a while after the war, Auschwitz-Birkenau was a Soviet PoW camp, but in 1947, the Polish government converted Auschwitz 1 and Auschwitz 2 into the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in honour of the victims of Nazism.
Auschwitz 3 was not incorporated into the museum. Some of its workshops, factories and mines still function.
Since then, the museum has been struggling to preserve the camp, which has been battered by natural erosion, water damage and the inexorable pressure of visitors.
Recognizing that Auschwitz-Birkenau was deteriorating, the museum established a conservation department seven years ago, financed, in part, by the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation.
The work of preserving the camp is carried out under the strict supervision of conservation specialists and archeologists. Due to the possible presence of human remains, Poland’s chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, exercises rabbinical supervision.
“We’ve tried to slow down the process of degradation,” Pioro said in describing the museum’s overarching objective.
The museum has no intention of rebuilding existing facilities, he explained. “We’re trying to keep them in the same condition as they were found when the camp was liberated. We want to maintain its authenticity.”
In Auschwitz 1, the 57 buildings still standing are generally in good condition, but the crematorium needs to be shored up. Over at Auschwitz 2, which contains more than 90 buildings and 300 ruins, work is proceeding on protecting wooden barracks and the remnants of gas chambers and crematoria 2 and 3.
Nonetheless, 70 per cent of the buildings are in such poor condition that they are closed to the public, Pioro said.
Prior to evacuating the camp, the Nazis managed to destroy the bulk of top secret documents related to prisoner lists, punishment orders, medical experiments and Zyklon-B consignments. Yet a considerable number of documents escaped destruction and are now being digitized. A digital map of the camp has been completed, providing data about the condition of the marshy terrain.
The Polish government has assumed prime responsibility for maintaining the camp, but earlier this year, it launched an international fundraising campaign, resulting in a decision by the European Union to channel nearly $6 million (US) into its coffers.
Pioro estimates that about $64 million will be needed for preservation projects.
He has no doubt that Auschwitz-Birkenau must be saved from decay.
“For me, as a father, it is hard to believe that children were murdered here. The Holocaust was possible because there was no one who said ‘No.’ My task is to teach young people the consequences of racial hatred. This is our goal and our challenge.”
