Written by Helen Illidge on behalf of Paddy Toner (pictured above)
This year on the 27 January, Holocaust Memorial Day marks 80 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz–Birkenau camp. It is estimated that 1.1m people were murdered there, over 90% of them were Jewish.
I am registered blind. I have retinitis pigmentosa, a hereditary and degenerative condition which I was born with. And now only have light perception as my sight. In March, I was given the opportunity to visit Poland on a Holocaust educational tour. It was the tenth delegation of North West regional members, and the 28th that Sefton Local Government Branch had organised.
I wasn’t sure what to expect during this tour, whether I would be able to participate fully, without sight, to feel the depth and range of the experience.
The three-day trip took us first to Krakow and a walking tour detailing the targeting, the special cruelty, the ghettoisation and ultimately the genocide inflicted on the Jewish population of the city.
Auschwitz Camp One
On the second day, the trip took us, 79 years after its liberation, to Auschwitz Camp One.
The sun was shining, and the sky was blue. Maybe this affected my perception of the area – but I was surprised. There were brick buildings, former Polish army barracks – solid structures with high ceilings. They were clinical, painted, windowed with electric lights, it was difficult to imagine it as a place of suffering. This was nothing like my mind’s eye envisioned. Where were the wooden huts?
Nearby, there was a building that was used as a munitions bunker before the war.
In autumn of 1941, the largest room of the bunker was adapted for use as an improvised gas chamber. Here, many thousands of Jews (as well as other groups like Soviet prisoners of war) were murdered within hours of their arrival at Auschwitz. They used gas produced by pellets of Zyklon B.
The chamber was repurposed as storage and then an air raid shelter after spring/summer 1942 when two more improvised gas-chambers were established in Auschwitz Camp Two – also known as Birkenau.
After the war, the museum partially reconstructed the chamber and crematorium. It was bone-chilling in there, I touched the walls and imagined the terror the prisoners would have felt.
In the afternoon, we held a short ceremony at the infamous ‘Death Wall’, purpose built from cork to prevent bullet ricochets from the executions carried out there. We each laid a rose in remembrance as well as a wreath from UNISON’s North West region. It was an important, sombre moment and an honour to be a part of.
A wreath laid by UNISON NW region at the memorial wall in Auschwitz
I was very proud to represent UNISON and its disabled members there. It was impossible to ignore that I would have been part of this experiment.
Following on from the ceremony we visited the Book of Names. The book contains the names and lifespan of 4.8m people murdered by the Nazis, with blank pages to symbolise another 1.2m whose names haven’t yet been recovered. The scale of the display was extremely moving.
Auschwitz two, Birkenau
On the third day of the trip, the weather was bleak, barren and overcast, as though trying to match our mood. Birkenau was a purpose-built factory of death, on a massive scale. With four gas chambers and attached crematoria, the railway track which first greets you saw hundreds of thousands of people, mainly Jewish people, from all over Europe brought here in cattle trucks. The average length of survival at Birkenau was three months.
A railway siding known as ‘The Place of Selection’, saw the decision to send arrivals left or right, indicated by a simple thumb up, or thumb down. It divided those about to die from those who would live, not reprieved from their death sentence but whose strength and health should be contributed to the war effort until they died from starvation, exhaustion or disease.
Around three-quarters of the Jewish people arriving on transports were immediately sent to be murdered in the gas chambers. As I walked alongside the tracks, I could hear the footsteps walking all around me. Multi-languages, silence, crying, shouting, simulating the sounds of the people walking to their ultimate destiny. I was walking in the steps of dead men, women and children. What would be going through their heads when they got off the train? Once again, I realised my life would have been immediately ended, there.
Within Birkenau were the wooden huts I had expected to see. Originally built to house around 50 horses, but instead more than 400 prisoners would be cramped into three-storey bunks. Auschwitz One had been ‘the template’ – whatever worked there was replicated at Birkenau on an industrial scale. You will never forget the sheer size of Birkenau.
While walking to our next memorial point, I was conscious of the immense landscape surrounded by forest. I was struck by a comment which Mirek, our guide, made: “The trees are witnesses.” Silver poplar, birch and oak, the silent witnesses were serene, tranquil and reflective, seemingly at odds with all that had occurred there. I now understood why my branch, Halton local government, had planted the birch tree which we gather at in remembrance each Holocaust Memorial Day.
Thought-provoking
The above is just the tip of the iceberg in what was an incredible and thought-provoking trip. It was filled with sombre, subdued moments, but it also provided the chance to get to know my fellow UNISON members and be reminded that there are more people who want to work for good than evil.
Thanks must go to all those who supported me to be able to attend, David, Ingrid from my branch Halton local government and Glen Williams from Sefton local government branch. And particular thanks to Helen Illidge, my personal assistant, who enabled me to experience the whole trip in every sense of the word. There would have been occasions when people must have wondered what I was doing running my hands all over the walls, displays and artefacts. Birkenau was beginning to add more accessible features such as touchable models and Braille information systems.
As a registered blind man, I may not be able to see with my eyes, but I can experience the world with my entire self. I heard, tasted, touched and felt (both physically and emotionally) my way through everything this trip had to offer. My eyes were opened to learning. I touched history, and history touched me.
Paddy Toner and Helen Illidge
A holocaust education tour is organised each year by UNISON’s North West region, delegates from the region will be visiting Auschwitz in the coming months to continue the region’s work.
