Auschwitz - Not Long Ago, Not Far Away

Yesterday being the Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz I thought I would get this posted.

Living in Kansas City, I have the good fortune to have some great world class museums, such as the Nelson-Atkins, and the National WW1 Museum, along with several smaller one. One of the great venues that hosts traveling exhibitions is Union Station. The one time rail station now features Science City, a planetarium, movie theaters (including an IMAX), a permanent model railroad exhibit, as well as other events throughout the year.  This time it was the exhibition Auschwitz: Not Long ago, Not Far Away.

Kansas City was one of two stops the exhibition made in the US in 2022, the other being in New York. It closed and went to Malmo Sweden, and will soon be open at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, CA. I finally got in at the beginning of March 2022, and I am glad I did. Having figured that to visit the actual site may not be in the cards I thought this would be a good substitute in case I was to not make it to Poland one day. It was a well done exhibition. In fact I took almost 3 hours to go through it, there being so much to digest.

As you come in you are given the audio tour player. There are over 60 stations so you can imagine how much there was to view. I have read a couple books, Auschwitz :A New History by Laurence Rees, and Night by Elie Wiesel., so I had a decent background on the place. The tour starts out showing people where Auschwitz/Oswiecim is exactly, and telling the story about Oswiecim, soon to be known as Auschwitz. Turning the corner, you come into a darkened room occupied by a single red shoe.

This immediately brought to my mind, the girl in the red coat in Schindler's List. I don't know what this conjured up in the minds of others, but it made me wonder who it belonged to, where they had come from, and what eventually happened to them, though I know the likely outcome. You then turn another corner, and there in front of you is a row of concrete fence poles.

These are actual fence poles from Auschwitz - Birkenau.

The exhibition then goes into the stories of Jews in Oswiecim, there was quite a large community of Jews there before the war. In fact, one of the larger businesses there was a Jewish owned distillery.

Office furniture from the distillery

Somewhere in this area, I can't remember if it was before or after, was a history of Jewish persecution in Europe. I thought that was a really good idea to educate people about that. Jews had been murdered throughout Europe all through history. Hatred of Jews was nothing new. Nor was the wearing of a badge to identify the wearer as Jewish. As early as 1215 by order of Pope Innocent III. I doubt it was widely enforced but it goes to show, that this type of stuff was going on long before the Nazi's came to power.

ECC 1:9 The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

Here are a few pictures of some of the artifacts on display

Blow up the pic to read the story of this dress

Prisoners uniforms

Lab coat and other items from the T4 euthanasia program

The "soup" for the prisoners was cooked in this thing.

Luggage from the people brought in to the camp

I am sure many people were unaware of the size and scope of Auschwitz. I would assume people dont realize there were three camps in that area, Auschwitz I (home of the Arbiet Macht Frei sign), Auschwitz II Birkenau (home of the brick gateway for the trains, and site of the gas chambers/crematoria), and Auschwitz III Monowitz (where the workers for the IG Farben plant were housed). The sheer scope of the operation is absolutely horrific

I started this after I had been to the exhibition back in March. I kind of sat on it for a while because I wasn't sure how to proceed from this point. While I am not Jewish and have no ties to the holocaust, I feel that it is a subject that must be approached with the proper respect. So, I have decided to just post the rest of the photos I have with some captions, and then a final paragraph.

A child's shoe with the sock tucked inside

Gas chamber door

A showerhead from crematoria 2

Family pictures from the Jewish prisoners

A variety of items taken from the prisoners

The three photos above tell the story of Zdenka Fantlova and Arno Levit

The mass of utensils top left, were melted together when the SS attempted to destroy the storage warehouses prior to the Russians overrunning the camp

As you are leaving, an admonition to live life for those who did not get the chance.

What is pictured is just a small fraction of what was in the exhibition, truly it was almost overwhelming the amount to take in and process. If this was my introduction to the subject it would have been too much. This is an amazing exhibition, and though it left the US after its Kansas City run, it will be returning March 24 to August 14 of this year. It will be at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, CA. If you are in the area or can make it, this is an exhibition that is not to be missed.

More information can be found here

The last item, located outdoors was an actual train car from the period.

Sadly no one was out there, and most probably missed it. This item has already been installed at the Reagan Library.