Stutthof

Happy Hanukkah!  And happy Winter Solstice!  This is always a sad day for me because I think of the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.  I was fortunate enough to do a play called The Women of Lockerbie about this even and I now cannot reach December 21st without being a little sad.

Anyway, yes, it is December 21st here in Poland and I did not post a blog last night.  I felt horrible as I was going to sleep last night about not doing it, but I was so tired and I knew if I could do it in the morning it would still be the 20th for everyone back home.  So then the morning came...and went.  I'm going to separate the two days, so another post will come in about eight hours.

Yesterday was the first of our sad outings.  We went to the Stutthof death camp.  Most people know little to nothing about Stutthof.  I'm curious about this--have you heard of it?  I feel like Auschwitz is the only one ever talked about.  Anyway, here is some info about Stutthof and my experience of it.

Stutthof (STOO-toff)

small history lesson:

So Germany attacked Poland on September 1, 1939 and opened Stutthof "Concentration Camp" on September 2nd.  They knew their plan and were anxious to put it into action.  At the Wannsee conference only a few months before, about 15 of Hitlers generals gathered to solve the "Jewish Question."  They had concentration camps and ghettos in Germany, but they felt the Jews were still taking up too much land.  They needed to start direct annihilation.  They did not want this to happen on their own land, so they needed Poland to be the place. This is something many people don't realize: There were no death camps in Germany.  Many people died in the concentration camps and they were not meant to be easy to live through, but the only places that had gas chambers and were meant solely for extermination were the camps in Poland.

most would do anything rather than go to the hospital.  the hole in the center of the table it for the blood from the surgeries and injections the doctors would experiment with.

my experience:

We loaded into the bus at 8am and were off to our first camp.  It was an interesting air of anticipation on the bus.  Everyone has been waiting for this for the past few months and now it was happening.  It felt wrong to say we were excited, but we all knew where we were going to change us and that is exciting.

Our tour guide Kate told us a lot about Gdansk as we travelled and about how the land is quite below sea level making it a difficult but good place to farm.  She told us how amber is all around, but has a complicated history in the city.  In the medieval times if anyone found amber they had to give it to the royalty who burned it to create incense.  Later it was a law that a fistful of amber could buy you a slave.  During communism the amber found was crushed and destroyed.  Now it is a popular thing for jewelry and little boxes and carvings.  It is quite pretty.  She later told us about the storks that live in this area and how one in four storks in the world are from Gdansk.  They build incredible nests that weigh around 1 1/2 tons and are considered a symbol of hope.  After the Germans evacuated the area they burned all the dikes and the area flooded for years.  When the water left it was then left covered with rats and the storks were the first things to return and eat all the rats allowing people to come back.  Most homes in this area have a sculpture stork on their roof or in their yards because of this.

As we were getting closer to the camp, I noticed we were following along a railway line.  It looked smaller, though, than the tracks used today and I soon learned those were the tracks that brought the people to Stutthof.  We were following the exact same route.  

Soon we were pulling into the camp.  Kate pointed out the commandant's home, which is extremely well preserved.  It is a lovely, large home at the top of the hill.  Able to look down and into what was going on.  We drove in a bit more and came to a gate.  It was that most people would get off their train and enter.  They were treated to a "Welcome Comedy" where they were hit with batons and bitten by dogs.  They then entered the "Death Gates."  One prisoner asked, "when can we leave?" and an officer replied,  "do you see that chimney?  That is your only way out."  Their clothes and shoes were removed and they were given the infamous striped outfits and wooden clogs.  We entered into the room where this happened and there is a collection of some of the shoes found.  Look at the picture below...these are just some of the shoes, if you look on the back wall you can see a mountain of them.  There were many of these.  

Walking through the gates was indescribable.  The camp is perfectly preserved and you see the barracks around you, the SS officers large brick home towering behind you and in plain sight the gas chamber and crematorium.  All of these are original except for the crematorium structure.  Walking through the barracks you can feel the people in there.  Up to 200 people were kept in one tiny room, three to a bunk that I could barely fit on.  Before the bunk beds were introduced, they would sleep on the floor and have to rotate every hour so one side didn't freeze.  You couldn't leave to use the restroom without permission.  Imagine as a woman not being able to get up to use the restroom at certain times in the year.  At one point I found myself leaning up against a wall and it occurred to me the history that I was becoming a part of by being there.  

Barracks post with engravings

furnaces

inside the gas chamber

We walked through the barracks and then began walking to the gas chamber.  The gas chamber and crematorium were right next to each other.  It's still hard for me to process that I saw the room where close to 85,000 people were murdered.  There is a hole at the top of the roof where the gas was pumped in and all around it is still black.  It is an experience that I couldn't put together there and honestly I am still have trouble comprehending.  I sometimes want to cry when I think about it and other times I just feel completely text book.  It's just so huge.  

We then went into the crematorium where they had the original furnaces where they would burn the bodies.  There are flags from the countries of people who died there and it is very reverent.  It is kept almost like a cemetery.  

Near that is the memorial given in honor of everyone who was a victim.  This is something I still don't know how I feel about.  One side of the memorial has a glass strip horizontally across it where you can look in and see all the ashes that were found upon liberation.  There are chunks of bones all throughout.  It was hard to see and hard for me to deal with.  I don't feel like the little that's left of these people should be on display for the world to see.  The camp then became for me more of a monument to the evil of the Nazi's and less of a place to grieve for those that were lost and remember them so that it will never happen again.  I think this is okay, but I prefer the message of the second because we are never better because we feel hate.

It was a very powerful first day and there is so much more to talk about involving Stutthof, but I must go to bed.  I'm looking forward to writing about what we did today.  It was extremely tough, but very rewarding.    If you want more info or have questions or if I seemed to have left something out tell me!!

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