Today was one of the hardest and most overwhelming days of the trip. We left Krakow while it was still dark and Auschwitz greeted us with the first light of day, between cold and silence.
Located in Oświęcim, Auschwitz, about 70 kilometres from Krakow, was the largest Nazi killing centre. Near 1.3 million people were sent there and more than 1.1 million died. As you enter, you will be impressed by the sign with the slogan “Arbeit macht frei”.” (“Work liberates”), with which the SS greeted deportees from the opening of the camp, the 20 May 1940, until its release on 27 January 1945 by the Soviet Red Army. Just yesterday was the anniversary of the 81 years since that liberation.
Accompanied by a guide, we toured different buildings in the camp. One of the moments that had the greatest impact on us was the visit to the Block 11, a prison within the camp itself. There we have seen the cell in which he died. St. Maximilian Kolbe, and abroad, the firing squad wall, a place that commands respect and silence.
We then moved on to the extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, located about 3 kilometres away. Being in the TRAIN TRACK, where the prisoner convoys arrived, has been particularly harsh. Most of the people who went down there were taken directly to the GAS CHAMBERS. The ruins of these buildings, which the SS tried to destroy before fleeing, remain as a testimony to history.
Among these stones he also died saint Edith Stein. Born into a Jewish family, she went through a period of atheism and was a brilliant student of philosophy, becoming the first woman to submit a doctoral thesis in this discipline in Germany. She collaborated with the philosopher Edmund Husserl, The founder of phenomenology after a long intellectual and spiritual journey, she converted to Catholicism in 1921. She was canonised in 1988 by Saint John Paul II and named patron saint of Europe in 1989.
Today we have focused entirely on the visit to Auschwitz I and Auschwitz-Birkenau. It has been a very intense experience, difficult to explain in words, but necessary. A day to remember, to keep silent and not to forget.
