Outside the Buildings at the Auschwitz
The last exhibit was difficult to handle. We were shown the huge number of belongings which were left behind by the prisoners prior to their execution by gas chamber. Due to the sheer number of these belongings, people who perished here would just be reduced to a number. Sure the Nazi Germans probably kept records of who was here but by looking at a mountain of frames or a mountain of shoes left behind, the people who used to own those shoes pale in comparison to the incredible number of people who were murdered here. Think of it this way, if a person was murdered, people can easily remember the person’s name. However, if millions were murdered, the mind would struggle to handle such a situation.
Hall of Portraits at the Auschwitz
In the next hall at the Auschwitz Museum, we were presented with yet another heart rending exhibit. This time, there were portraits of a fraction of the prisoners who were housed here. A lot of the names appeared to be Jewish. One thing the portraits had in common was that the persons all looked terrible. They looked sickly and unclean. The pictures were all in black and white and there were details on the prisoner such as the date of birth and the date of death. A lot of them had the same date of death indicating they probably died together in the gas chamber. One set of portraits had a set of twins, although they were born on the same day, the didn’t die on the same day. It was another very emotional walk through the hall. It is different when you can put a face behind what happened here.
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