Having a Polish wife, I have been fortunate enough to visit Poland on many occasions. I have spent some wonderful times visiting picturesque places like Zakopane, Krynica, Miedzyzdroje. Zakopane is a resort town in southern Poland, at the base of the Tatras Mountains. It’s a popular departure point for winter sports and summertime mountain climbing and hiking. We had magnificent late summer break there a few years back. The beaches too along the Baltic Sea are magnificent, sadly the water makes The North Sea seem positively balmy.
One of my favourite trips was a week long break to Krackow. We chose to take the train from Sczechin rather than fly the 625kms. That way I managed to see more of the Polish countryside. Some of it was truly beautiful. Krackow itself is near the border of the Czech Republic.It is known for its well-preserved medieval core and Jewish quarter. We actually rented a beautiful apartment right in the heart of the Old Jewish Quarter, Kazimierz. The main square in the Krakcow town centre is called Rynek Glowny, it is full of magnificent bars and restaurants. If you are into people watching while sipping a cold beer or a glass of wine, interspersed with shopping, this is the place for you.
Twelve km south of the city is where you will find the world famous Wieliczka salt mine. The history of mine dates back to the Middle Ages, when it was proudly named the Magnum Sal – the Great Salt. In the 13th century it was known as the largest source of salt in Poland, and over the years it became crucial for the country’s economy. It has cathedrals, statues, restaurants all carved out of salt as well as a health spa and shops. A truly magical underground experience. The salt air is said to be very therapeutic, especially for those with lung conditions. Below is a picture of just one of the very many open areas inside this salt mine, a true wonder of the world.
You might be wondering by now if I had given up writing about politics and this has become a travel site.The answer to that is, of course, not I just wanted to promote all the nice tourists spots around Krackow. Because there is one other location many of the tourists visit. Just four km.from this beautiful welcoming modern European city of Krackow lies the site of one of the most horrific places in the history of humankind. The camp, that even today has a name that chills every decent human being, Auschwitz. We went there on an organised trip. Many times since that visit when trying to describe the experience I have struggled with adjectives to describe my experience. This is no Disneyland theme park outing. It is not something you can refer to as a great day out for the family or interesting. Perhaps words like informative and reminder to all mankind describes it best.
I truly cannot put into words the atmosphere or the feel of the area. From the moment I arrived at the gate with the words, Arbeit Macht Frei, a strange feeling of uneasiness came over me. We had a guide, a wonderful Czech lass with a wonderful accent and enchanting tone to her voice. She took us round the entire camp from the eerie station platform to guards quarters, the brothel, the punishment cells, the yard where they held summary executions. One of the most harrowing sites is a wall with glassed off panels that has the personal belongings of those gassed, shot, hung and murdered in so many other horrific ways. There are compartments showing shoes, spectacles, false teeth, even artificial limbs that were recycled for the profit of the Third Reich. What churned my stomach and heart the most was a chamber that held children’s clothes, toys and prams. It was at that point I didn’t know if I could continue with the ‘tour.’
Our guide explained in great detail the entire process from arrival to the gassing and cremation of the bodies. I have to apologise to you that I do not have the words to adequately describe the atrocities, and barbarism that was carried out in that god forsaken place. At the very end of the tour, our guide took us back to the train platform and stopped beside a cattle truck that was used to transport the unfortunate victims from all over Europe to the Nazi death camp. At this point she explained that she was leaving us, however the tour was not over. We had to walk the same steps that many years before the 1.0 million + people had taken as they walked to their certain death. The only difference being, we would return, they never did! Over one million of those slaughtered at Auswich were Jews. 232,000 children were gassed and cremated.
We then had to walk up this platform unaccompanied, a group of around 20 tourists. As we walked to the scene of mass murder, there was a total silence within the group. All you could hear was the crunching of feet on the loose pebbled train platform. After a few minutes we arrived at the location of the gas chambers and crematorium. It was the weirdest, eeriest most uncomfortable feeling I have ever experienced, and not one I want to repeat.
The gas Chambers and crematorium were blown up in the last days before liberation. Now in their place are just memorial plaques telling you how many Jews, Gypsies, Freemasons, Communists were gassed and disposed of. What it does not tell you is that in the death camps throughout Eastern Europe over 1.5 million children were murdered.
It is impossible for me to relay to you the horrors and extent of the crimes of genocide and inhumanity carried out in these death factories. Nor can it be sensibly explained, the mindset that was so methodical and clinical in the way this holocaust was carried out. It was meticulously planned, executed and accounted for and monetised. They actually ran the camps as profit centres! The Nazis created an industry out of mass murder. The murdered were viewed not as humans but as products to be harvested for profit.
One can then understand why the Jewish people post WWII were so embittered that the world had not come to their aid. Also their determination to have their own homeland and to defend themselves in such a manner that never again would they be singled out and slaughtered like cattle. I can also understand that the free world, in particular, felt so ashamed that although they knew about the death camps they did nothing. It was decided that air crew and planes, were too valuable to the war effort to be risked in bombing the gas chambers of camps for Jews! I think even now the free world still carries the guilt of that inaction.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/world-history/holocaust-allied-forces-knew-before-concentration-camp-discovery-us-uk-soviets-secret-documents-a7688036.html
I would suggest every human alive on this planet should go to at least one of these camps to hear and see for themselves the atrocities carried out their by fellow human beings. Our own Rabbie Burns used words that best describe the holocaust and genocide carried out in those times.
He describes it better than I could ever hope to portray in an article.
I have great admiration for the people of Israel and all that they have achieved post 1945. Israel has so many good things to applaud. However, their actions against the Palestinians are just so wrong and in so many ways. Indeed, the UN Human Rights Commission affirms that Israel violates nearly all 149 articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which governs the treatment of civilians in war and under occupation, and is guilty of grievous war crimes. Israel escapes all sanctions and recriminations because of the patronage of the US and the cowardice of the rest of the world.I think our collective guilty conscience over the holocaust prevents most nations from doing what is right.
At least 139 people have been killed in Gaza and nine in Israel since this fighting began on Monday. Israel says dozens of militants are among the dead in Gaza, while Palestinian health officials say nearly half are women and children.The flare-up of violence over the last six days came after weeks of spiralling Israeli-Palestinian tension in East Jerusalem, which culminated in clashes at a holy site revered by both Muslims and Jews. Hamas began firing rockets after warning Israel to withdraw from the site, triggering retaliatory air strikes. This endless cycle of violence can only end if the world says to Israel, enough! The west, in particular, has to exert itself and inform the Israeli Government that their actions, occupation and brutality are no longer acceptable to the rest of the democratic world. The US has to stop ignoring the atrocities and war crimes of their middle east ally. Sanctions need applied to bring Israel to the negotiating table. We need to end this violence now. In 1933-1945 the west stood aside while unforgivable wrongs were committed against Jews. Let us not repeat the mistake in this conflict. We need to take a lead in this. The EU needs to tell both the US and Israel this continuing violence is unacceptable. The Palestinians are almost defenceless against one of the most developed military machines in the history of the world. We must not make the same mistake again by ignoring a great wrong. The Palestinians must not be abandoned to this daily slaughter because our fathers and grandfathers didn’t do what they should have done once they knew about the horrors of the concentration camps. The abused has become the abuser and it needs stopped!
This is the best piece of writing on this worrying situation that I’ve read. Should be read by all.
I too have been to Auschwitz. I cannot agree with you more. It is the most chilling place I have ever been to. There is a feeling of despair about the place. It’s surrounded by the most beautiful countryside which makes the contrast so horrific. I also agree that a visit to this place should be urged. It affected my husband and my self deeply. This is why I do not understand Israel doing the self same to the Palestinians. The world needs to waken up and do their utmost to resolve this. Meanwhile the Labour Party continues to tear itself apart over alleged anti Semitic tropes.
I found it very difficult to adequately describe the horrors of that place.
You have taken a risk in writing this plea. . I hope that your good faith is not abused..
I was a child of the ’70’s and books and documentaries about the holocaust were regularly shown.
‘Never again, they said and we said it too, ‘never again’ …. and there was no proviso clause, no small print that said, ‘except when Israel fancies having a go’.
Genocide before our eyes
In a stip of land beside the sea
Genocide before our eyes
No twisted words relieve
PALISTINE we see you, we shall not look away.
Israel was established in 1948 with the blessing of the newly created United Nations. On the very day of its birth it was invaded by its Arab neighbours who refused to accept its right to exist. Ever since then it has repeatedly had to defend itself against both full scale military invasions and terrorist atrocities.
Israel simply wants what any independent nation wants: to be recognised by its neighbours and to live within secure borders. It cooperates with the increasing number of Arab states which afford it that recognition.
Some years ago, having previously occupied Gaza because of repeated attacks from there, Israel withdrew and forced many thousands of Jewish settlers to leave and move back to Israel. Gaza was immediately taken over by Hamas who ousted the relatively moderate PLO. Hamas is a terrorist organisation with the avowed aim of destroying Israel. It has turned Gaza into a terrorist camp deliberately siting its weapons and training facilities in populated areas, refugee camps and even schools. This, coupled with the fact Israel has had to spend vast sums on early warning systems and air raid shelters is why there is always a disproportionality in casualties when Hamas decides to resume hostilities and Israel understandably responds. Indeed, I believe Hamas secretly welcomes Palestinian deaths because unthinking westerners start wringing their hands at “evil Israel”.
Peace will return as soon as Hamas stops firing missiles into Israel. The permanent solution is simple. All of Israel’s neighbours need to recognise its right to exist and to pledge they will not allow terrorist groups to operate within their jurisdiction. When that happens Israel will no longer be threatened and will be willing to open negotiations on returning some land is has had to occupy since 1967 in order to ensure security.
Yeah we hear this poor little Israel is the victim everytime they commit another war crime. The abused has become the abuser.
‘The permanent solution is simple.’
I see grown men with automatic assault rifles pointing them at unarmed little boys – aged no more than 3 or 4.
I see news agency buildings blown up and reporters killed in action.
I see the words ‘permanent solution’ and again the words from my childhood, from my parents, from my grandparents who fought in WW2. NEVER AGAIN. Not even when you want to give it a go.
And I see newspaper owners, with large financial interests in the Arms Industry and strong connections to the ‘zionist’ movement – that shuts down all criticism. And please note, I said ‘zionist’ not Jewish the 2 are not the same.
Genocide before our eyes
In a stip of land beside the sea
Genocide before our eyes
No twisted words relieve
PALISTINE we see you, we shall not look away
Read an interesting article in the Guardian during the week. The thesis of the author was that very religious Jews had become more powerful over the decades in Israel and that Israel truly belongs to the Jews. The more extreme believe they should demolish the great mosque and rebuild the historic Jewish temple in its place. Interestingly the author says the Haganah assassinated a proponent of a similar plan in 1938.
Hi Roddy
Totally off topic I’m sorry but your youtube prism show (Glasgow in Rebellion) dropped audio at 22 minutes and I don’t think the problem’s at my end had anyone else reported this issue ?
Yes but at 57 mins teying to get to thw bottom of it just now
The Arabs have a right to defend themselves and their land from occupiers. The “this is our promised land” nonsense the Israelis spout does not make it theirs and it wasn’t for any other country or organisation to gift it to them. Nor is this barbaric behaviour anything new. They have thousands of years worth of history in doing the exact same thing. And yes, the atrocities meted out to them during the world wars should not have happened but they didn’t come from nowhere. Not excusing it as it should not happen to anyone but what led to the extreme actions is never properly presented. Just as the genocide being acted upon Yemen cannot go unnoticed and unchallenged. The US is not the only party responsible for not only encouraging but actively supporting the attempted genocide in these countries, so too are each and every country that does nothing to stop it and the various religious leaders who turn a blind eye to it instead of seeking to end it. Israel list the right to play victim when they treated others the exact same way they were treated.
“They didn’t come from nowhere” . Would you like to explain where they came from and what the reasons were that the other groups that were picked out for elimination (gays, trade unionists, disabled, gypsies,etc)?
I think your article is brilliant, I have enjoyed the excursions that you have done, but the one to the camps is just shocking that humans can do this to each other ,but I find the whole thing of the camps and making it a tourist attraction is crass I think it these sights should not be commercialised they should be like Holy sights and revered as such .
“…the history of Western Civilization helps us locate the origins of fascism within colonialism itself”. (Robin D.G. Kelley)
As Aime Cesaire said: “…between colonization and civilization there is an infinite distance; that out of all the colonial expeditions that have been undertaken, out of all the colonial statutes that have been drawn up, out of all the memoranda that have been dispatched by all the ministries, there could not come a single human value.”
Britain’s imperial-colonial history and tendency to partition territories seeking to decolonise has clearly left a terrible legacy globally, incl. Israel/Palestine, India/Pakistan, Cyprus, Ireland etc. Scots need to be more aware about this ‘track record’ of colonialism which has ensnared us too, and its inherent lack of human values in which, for those given the task of administering colonial territories, “bourgeois swinishness is the rule”.
Wonderful piece, BB. I have not visited Auschwitz, but other places, in Germany, where human life was treated as disposable, in WW II. Personally, I believe that both the Israelis and the Palestinians need their own state, and each requires to be carved out of what is now Israel, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, with a corridor connecting the last two. This would necessitate the abolition of many of the illegal settlements on Palestinian territory.
The right of every Jew in the world to move to Israel cannot be sustained without the complete destruction of Palestine and the people who occupy it now. These people are as old as the Jews, and they lived in much of what is now Israel proper. The ancient Jews were not a passive people as the Holocaust would suggest; on the contrary, they were warlike conquerers of territory, albeit they did claim it as theirs, even then.
This is what happens when you have competing interests in one territory, and one side will not back off long enough to try and thrash out a solution. It is what happens when a country is divided against itself because, make no mistake, many liberal Israelis cannot abide what is happening to the Palestinians, and many in the Palestinian diaspora believe that a settlement needs to be reached, just as many Germans tried to hide and protect Jews during the 1940s, and before then.
Not only should this new conflict be a lesson to all of us because, once again, the partition of a country has led to untold deaths and expulsions and colonization, and tit-for-tat wars that have killed civilians in their droves. When Britain partitioned Palestine in 1948, and withdrew, many would not have foreseen the carnage to come, but I am certain that some would certainly have done so, as the partitioning of India must have been foreseen as a tinderbox, too, and the partitioning of Mesopotamia, in the Middle East, the partitioning of so many countries or the favouring of one group/tribe over another by the imperial powers, and, close to home, the partitioning of Ireland. Generations of conflict and death and injury appears to be the result in each and every case. Imperialism and colonization are twin evil legacies of empire-building. It behoves everyone who moves to someone’s else’s country to treat it, and the people there, with respect and not contempt, to try and assimilate as much as possible without losing one’s sense of self and culture completely.
The UN needs to get a backbone and take a stand against Israeli incursions and expulsions from Jerusalem, it needs to have an embargo placed on it from building new settlements and must be forced to abandon many others, already built on Palestinian territory. It cannot be allowed to leave the Palestinians with no agricultural land and no water to irrigate the desert areas. For those things to happen, the US and the British need to stop supporting every Israeli action, however illegal in international law, and start making the various resolutions enforceable, or the world will blame them – does, in fact, blame them now. As you say, BB, the actions of the Israelis are beyond reason and we have been so sick with guilt that we have allowed atrocities to take place with impunity. We need to get the two sides together and work out a resolution that will not give either side all they demand, but which might just work if they are willing to compromise.
What I cannot confirm, as I read it before ‘capturing the evidence for later’ became best practice… but I seem to remember that there is oil in the sea off Gaza, that is currently being stolen by Israel.
One aspect of my visit to Auschwitz I found profoundly affecting were the bus loads of Israeli secondary school children who were visiting the complex. They waved huge Israeli flags as if to say we are still here we triumphed in the end, as they walked along the road from the coach park to the entrance. I was very moved by the sight of these youngsters many of whom were perhaps descendants of those murdered in abominations like Auschwitz-Birkenau but I also did hope that amongst them there were at least some who might come to see the sick parallel of the actions their government takes in their treatment of the Palestinians and the horrors imposed on their ancestors by the Nazis. Evil is evil no matter the source.
In my many years in Scotland, I’ve never heard a disparaging word against the Jews; Irish Catholics, Asians, most definitely, Jewish people, never. I’m only saying this before some salaried, keyboard “defender” in the Israeli Embassy attempts to, disingenuously, make a connection between Scottish independence supporters and antisemitism. There is no connection to be made, and well you know it!
The British Empire has a history of partitioning countries with division and enmity being the result. The internet will tell you that the UN created Israel in 1948 but it was the Balfour Declaration of 1917 which began the process and that was a British creation. The legacy has been years of unresolved conflict.
Is this any different to India/Pakistan or Ireland/NI? The British elite have much to answer for with so many lives lost unnecessarily, but there’s no doubt they will have profited from the partitioning exercises each time.
It’s time the UK was partitioned in order that the ‘Brits’ can have a taste of their own medicine.
Yes, the external colonies have their liberation, now its time for the internal colonies, where British colonialism first began. If only Scotland’s elected national party elite understood what independence is and why its needed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcmvyW4gtA4
I have never been to a concentration camp, but i will one day pay homage to the victims of the Nazi Death Camps.
I know the feeling of being at a camp though, i used to work in the oil Industry, one of our locations was in Celle north of Hanover, the first time I went there in the early eighties i was in a taxi from Hanover airport to Celle, about halfway on the journey, i felt shivers running up my spine and i felt very uneasy. About 30 seconds later a road sign said Bergen Belsen.
Hidden in a wood just off the autobahn was the infamous concentration camp. I enquired at work to satisfy myself that it was the infamous concentration camp and was told it was and to this day birds do not sing in its vicinity.
I think every school child should go on two compulsory visits, the graveyards of the Western Front around Ypres and one of the Concentration camps.
Very good article , agree 100%.
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A bit of topic. I.m a Scot living in NZ, I was for at least 25 years a Real Estate agent. I remember one vendor who had his house on the market for many years, each time he got an offer he would refuse & then take his house of the market. He would after a few weeks put his house bck on the market at a higher price,
The real estate agents saw him as a waste of time.
I knew the half acre section & house was getting to much for the owners & rather than pressure them into selling went about to find out what the problem was.
He was Polish & came to NZ after WW11, his wife was Kiwi. She told me she desperately wanted to move to a smaller low maintenance property, but she couldn’t get her polish husband to accept any offers.
They had been on the market at least 5 years & each time an offer ot new valuation came in he would up the price out of the going market.
It was obvious in their elderly years the property was becoming harder for them to maintain, but he was reluctant to leave.
I took the time to speak with this elderly gentleman, I found out being Polish throughout the war his parents had lost their home. Being homeless again was a great fear for him. What if he sold his house & couldn’t by another?
I told him I wouldn’t sell his home until I first found him a home he wanted to buy. I set out to find a low maintenance/brick home with a small section in a sunny location. I found one for him & he received the next offer that came in. I upped the first offer to meet the true market price & this lovely couple had the retirement home of their dreams, plus a healthy bank account to enjoy their retirement.
The real Estate agents who are in it for the money only, don’t have the good memories I have.
To have helped a Polish survivor of the War in his elderly years is more than money could buy.
I’m sure with the passing years this couple have now passed over. I, in my now elderly years when passing that property still remember them.
We are who we are in this life. As an elderly person who had a successful career in real Estate, I put people before sales every time. If I hadn’t ,I would have made more money. LOL