In Auschwitz recently as part of a school tour, I was struck by the importance of the decision Minister for Education Joe McHugh made in overruling the recommendation that history should no longer be a compulsory subject at Junior Cycle.
Imagine our young people growing up without the knowledge of what sheer horrors were perpetrated on Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, the disable and many others by the Nazi regime. The Holocaust deniers could have a whole generation of converts.
There are great things to be experienced on a trip to Krakow; it is not all grim. With 40 students and five teachers on our tour, there were times when it was like minding mice at a crossroads – but these lads had chosen this rather than going to Italy or Spain or skiing next spring. They and their parents understood the educational value to be gained from a visit to this part of Poland.
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Krakow is a beautiful city with magnificent old buildings and great architecture. Every street seems to have a bigger and more splendid church than the one before, while the square in the city centre is a place to sit in a lovely cafe, have a glass of wine, shoot the breeze and watch the world go by.
On the first day, we visited the Jewish quarter, or what is left of it. Up to 70,000 Jews lived in Krakow when the Germans rolled over it in 1939. By the end of the war, few remained and many of those who did moved to the new state of Israel after it gained nationhood in 1948.
We also took in the Jewish museum and met a Holocaust survivor. This woman, now well into her 8os, spoke to the students through an interpreter for some 20 minutes about what she experienced in the concentration camp. The interpreter asked for questions and I thought lads of 14 and 15 would not have any.
Little did I know. A half hour later, the poor woman had to be rescued as she was bombarded with great questions; those lads could not get enough information.
The following day we visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps. They are about 3km apart and Birkenau was where the largest percentage of the 1.1m people were killed.
You need to be psyched up before going to these places. They are grim, chilling industrial killing factories and even at a remove of more than 70 years, it is hard to comprehend how so many could be complicit in mass murder.
The gates at Auschwitz bear the infamous inscription, ‘Arbeit macht frei’ – work sets you free. Again, it is difficult to understand the insult and ghastly cynicism attached to such words for all those who passed through the gates.
It was hell on earth, in fact, there could be no hell quite like this. One building after another brings fresh horrors, the rows of suitcases, hair, glasses, shoes, clothes. Stripped of all property and dignity, with even gold fillings in teeth having been removed after death.
The Commandant of Auschwitz was Rudolf Hoess who lived a normal family life in a beautiful house beside the camp. It was on his watch that the most sadistic, hideous crimes took place. When our guide showed us the gallows where Hoess was brought back and hanged in 1947, I overheard one student say to another, “good enough for him”. Not the most charitable of sentiments but we were all thinking the same.
The other notorious thug in Auschwitz was Josef Mengele, known as the Angel of Death. As a doctor who should have cared for people, he betrayed his oath to inflict human horrors on his patients with various appalling tests. He cheated the noose and after the war was smuggled to South America, where he drowned in 1979.
Adolf Eichmann, who was the architect of the final solution, was kidnapped by Mossad, the Israeli national intelligence agency, in Argentina, brought to Israel and hanged there in 1962. Only a small percentage of his ilk were ever brought to book for their crimes. The majority offered the defence that they were merely following orders.
Can man be so brainwashed that evil trumps good? The answer, of course, is yes.
The memorial in Auschwitz says that those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. Well, it continues to happen, Rwanda and the break-up of the old Yugoslavia are just two examples, while what has happened on a lesser scale in the North is not much different.
The camp 3km away at Birkenau is an eerie place. This was where industrial levels of killing took place. The trains pulled in and many passengers did not last more than an hour before being killed in the gas chambers. By 1944, there were so many killings the bodies could not be disposed of and the decaying corpses piled up.
Those who were worked to the bone lived in huts with no heating, down to minus 20 degrees in winter, while in summers temperatures went above 30. There were three layers of benches with up to eight sleeping in each; you would not put cattle into those places.
As we entered the camp, we met a large crowd of Jewishpeople leaving, many wrapped in the Star of David flag. They started a chant which grew ever louder, presumably a lament for the dead. They won’t ever forget. The Jews visit in large numbers and I asked the guide how many Germans come to the camp. The answer was 80,000 last year. Maybe they go to the other sites, but I would have thought that it should be a compulsory part of the German education system that all students should visit.
The story goes that birds no longer sing or fly over Birkenau. I’m not sure if that is a myth, but as the day darkened, a cock pheasant could be heard in the nearby woods.
As we left Birkenau, it was by then almost completely dark. I think we were all glad to be getting out of that place and the bus journey of over an hour back to Krakow was a quiet one as the enormity of what we had experienced set in. Man’s inhumanity to man. All laid bare.
I also wondered why these sites were chosen for this barbarity. The guides explained that a lot of Jews lived in Poland and there was a great rail network nearby. Nazi efficiency at its most grotesque.
There was also a visit to Oskar Schindler’s enamel factory, or what is left of it. Which is not much, but a museum now stands on the site. Our two guides shared a difference of opinion about Schindler, the German industrialist credited with saving the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust. One thought he was a good man who saved Jews from death. The other was more sceptical, arguing that Schindler robbed the factory and that he was an opportunist who made more money from his workers by keeping them alive.
Whatever the motive, he saved many people from the gas chambers.
The last day included a visit to the famous Wieliczka salt mines, a great experience. Salt made Poland prosperous back through the years when it was used for medicine and as a preservative. Some people were even paid in salt, which explains the roots of the word salary. The church carved out of the salt underground with incredible salt chandeliers is a magnificent sight and Mass is held there on Sundays.
After Krakow, I have more respect for the Polish people and what they have had to endure. Only gaining freedom in 1919, they enjoyed just 20 years of peace before Hitler invaded. Then Russia invaded from the east in a cynical plot with Germany to carve up the country.
When the Germans were defeated in 1945, the Russians took over with an oppressive regime which lasted until 1989. Poland appears at last to be a country on the move. The standard of living is good and prices and rents are low.
The people are hard working even if they don’t seem to smile much. We can live with that.
The bottom line is that Krakow and all the sites close by are worth visiting - there are many lessons to be learnt.
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Home » Analysis & Comment » Colm O'Rourke: 'Some history lessons are far too important ever to be forgotten'
Colm O'Rourke: 'Some history lessons are far too important ever to be forgotten'
In Auschwitz recently as part of a school tour, I was struck by the importance of the decision Minister for Education Joe McHugh made in overruling the recommendation that history should no longer be a compulsory subject at Junior Cycle.
Imagine our young people growing up without the knowledge of what sheer horrors were perpetrated on Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, the disable and many others by the Nazi regime. The Holocaust deniers could have a whole generation of converts.
There are great things to be experienced on a trip to Krakow; it is not all grim. With 40 students and five teachers on our tour, there were times when it was like minding mice at a crossroads – but these lads had chosen this rather than going to Italy or Spain or skiing next spring. They and their parents understood the educational value to be gained from a visit to this part of Poland.
Please log in or register with Independent.ie for free access to this article.
Log In
New to Independent.ie? Create an account
Krakow is a beautiful city with magnificent old buildings and great architecture. Every street seems to have a bigger and more splendid church than the one before, while the square in the city centre is a place to sit in a lovely cafe, have a glass of wine, shoot the breeze and watch the world go by.
On the first day, we visited the Jewish quarter, or what is left of it. Up to 70,000 Jews lived in Krakow when the Germans rolled over it in 1939. By the end of the war, few remained and many of those who did moved to the new state of Israel after it gained nationhood in 1948.
We also took in the Jewish museum and met a Holocaust survivor. This woman, now well into her 8os, spoke to the students through an interpreter for some 20 minutes about what she experienced in the concentration camp. The interpreter asked for questions and I thought lads of 14 and 15 would not have any.
Little did I know. A half hour later, the poor woman had to be rescued as she was bombarded with great questions; those lads could not get enough information.
The following day we visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps. They are about 3km apart and Birkenau was where the largest percentage of the 1.1m people were killed.
You need to be psyched up before going to these places. They are grim, chilling industrial killing factories and even at a remove of more than 70 years, it is hard to comprehend how so many could be complicit in mass murder.
The gates at Auschwitz bear the infamous inscription, ‘Arbeit macht frei’ – work sets you free. Again, it is difficult to understand the insult and ghastly cynicism attached to such words for all those who passed through the gates.
It was hell on earth, in fact, there could be no hell quite like this. One building after another brings fresh horrors, the rows of suitcases, hair, glasses, shoes, clothes. Stripped of all property and dignity, with even gold fillings in teeth having been removed after death.
The Commandant of Auschwitz was Rudolf Hoess who lived a normal family life in a beautiful house beside the camp. It was on his watch that the most sadistic, hideous crimes took place. When our guide showed us the gallows where Hoess was brought back and hanged in 1947, I overheard one student say to another, “good enough for him”. Not the most charitable of sentiments but we were all thinking the same.
The other notorious thug in Auschwitz was Josef Mengele, known as the Angel of Death. As a doctor who should have cared for people, he betrayed his oath to inflict human horrors on his patients with various appalling tests. He cheated the noose and after the war was smuggled to South America, where he drowned in 1979.
Adolf Eichmann, who was the architect of the final solution, was kidnapped by Mossad, the Israeli national intelligence agency, in Argentina, brought to Israel and hanged there in 1962. Only a small percentage of his ilk were ever brought to book for their crimes. The majority offered the defence that they were merely following orders.
Can man be so brainwashed that evil trumps good? The answer, of course, is yes.
The memorial in Auschwitz says that those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. Well, it continues to happen, Rwanda and the break-up of the old Yugoslavia are just two examples, while what has happened on a lesser scale in the North is not much different.
The camp 3km away at Birkenau is an eerie place. This was where industrial levels of killing took place. The trains pulled in and many passengers did not last more than an hour before being killed in the gas chambers. By 1944, there were so many killings the bodies could not be disposed of and the decaying corpses piled up.
Those who were worked to the bone lived in huts with no heating, down to minus 20 degrees in winter, while in summers temperatures went above 30. There were three layers of benches with up to eight sleeping in each; you would not put cattle into those places.
As we entered the camp, we met a large crowd of Jewishpeople leaving, many wrapped in the Star of David flag. They started a chant which grew ever louder, presumably a lament for the dead. They won’t ever forget. The Jews visit in large numbers and I asked the guide how many Germans come to the camp. The answer was 80,000 last year. Maybe they go to the other sites, but I would have thought that it should be a compulsory part of the German education system that all students should visit.
The story goes that birds no longer sing or fly over Birkenau. I’m not sure if that is a myth, but as the day darkened, a cock pheasant could be heard in the nearby woods.
As we left Birkenau, it was by then almost completely dark. I think we were all glad to be getting out of that place and the bus journey of over an hour back to Krakow was a quiet one as the enormity of what we had experienced set in. Man’s inhumanity to man. All laid bare.
I also wondered why these sites were chosen for this barbarity. The guides explained that a lot of Jews lived in Poland and there was a great rail network nearby. Nazi efficiency at its most grotesque.
There was also a visit to Oskar Schindler’s enamel factory, or what is left of it. Which is not much, but a museum now stands on the site. Our two guides shared a difference of opinion about Schindler, the German industrialist credited with saving the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust. One thought he was a good man who saved Jews from death. The other was more sceptical, arguing that Schindler robbed the factory and that he was an opportunist who made more money from his workers by keeping them alive.
Whatever the motive, he saved many people from the gas chambers.
The last day included a visit to the famous Wieliczka salt mines, a great experience. Salt made Poland prosperous back through the years when it was used for medicine and as a preservative. Some people were even paid in salt, which explains the roots of the word salary. The church carved out of the salt underground with incredible salt chandeliers is a magnificent sight and Mass is held there on Sundays.
After Krakow, I have more respect for the Polish people and what they have had to endure. Only gaining freedom in 1919, they enjoyed just 20 years of peace before Hitler invaded. Then Russia invaded from the east in a cynical plot with Germany to carve up the country.
When the Germans were defeated in 1945, the Russians took over with an oppressive regime which lasted until 1989. Poland appears at last to be a country on the move. The standard of living is good and prices and rents are low.
The people are hard working even if they don’t seem to smile much. We can live with that.
The bottom line is that Krakow and all the sites close by are worth visiting - there are many lessons to be learnt.
Source: Read Full Article