Holocaust Memorial Day: Piles of everyday items show sheer brutality of what happened at Auschwitz

Alongside is a mountain of chopped-off women’s hair, and a glass-fronted heap of leftover toothbrushes - all evidence of the huge numbers of victims in ‘the extermination process.’ The immense array of leftover suit cases is another powerful and poignant reminder of the unrelenting, conveyer-belt brutality, each case signifying its owner’s story of suffering. A mound of discarded crutches, metal leg supports, and other medical aids, add to your feeling of pain and outrage.

These everyday objects represent the individual human stories behind the stark figures. More than a million Jews were put to death at Auschwitz-Birkenau by the German SS and their willing, or frightened, underlings between 1941 and 1945. Add to that million the 70,000 Polish victims, 21,000 Roma, 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war, and 12,000 other POWs, and you understand the cruel reality of Hitler’s obsession with ‘The Final Solution.’

As the Third Reich’s inapproriately-titled Minister of Justice, Otto Thierack, decreed: “We must free the German nation of Poles, Russians, Jews and Gypsies.” Add to that list free-thinking writers and journalists with a critical faculty, like me, and the picture is clear. No quarter given, no scrutiny, no accountability was tolerated.

Around 80 per cent of those who arrived in the crammed railway cattle trucks were despatched straight to the gas chambers. The lame, the sick and the halt had no chance. The frail, the elderly, and those too young to work in the nearby quarries were selected. As they stripped off, they thought it was for a shower. Instead they succumbed to the fumes from the Zyclon B tablets, and death was not always instant.

Those ‘saved’ for free labour worked ten or eleven hour days. Food was minimal, clothing inadequate, heating non-existent, and inmates slept five deep in wooden shelves.

As a visitor, it knocks you sideways. But it’s important to see, to feel, to witness what happened. Our ‘Poppy Day’ beseeches us to remember our fallen on November 11th, ‘lest we forget.’ A visit to Auschwitz has the equally succinct message: ‘Never again.’ It provides a stark reminder of the human cost of an evil creed, implemented by an evil regime.

It was exactly 80 years ago on January 27th, 1945, that Russian troops liberated the genocide ‘factory’ at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Those troops may have been battle hardened, but they were shocked and sickened to witness the brutal reality first hand.

Only 7,500 emaciated camp inmates remained, after the other 60,000 ‘living dead’ had been force marched out of the camp in a vain bid to conceal the truth. Fortunately for the world, that mass genocide was not hidden, and today we honour the victims - and remember the lessons - through International Holocaust Day.

Eighty years represents three generations on from the liberation of Auschwitz. For each new generation, it’s getting further away and harder to learn the lessons. That’s why in Poland, it’s compulsory for all their schoolchildren to visit the death camp in order to pass on the lessons.

Poor Poland. A visit to Krakow and nearby Auschwitz makes you realise the Polish plight: a proud country caught between the Prussians and the colonising Hapsburgs, then the Germans and the Russians. World War Two saw Kraków’s 68,000 resident Jews reduced to 3,000 survivors. Nationally, the 4.5 million Jewish population was reduced to today’s 20 to 30,000. In Eastern Europe as a whole, more than 6 million Jews were slaughtered.

But in all this mayhem and carnage in Krakow, there remains a glimmer of hope in a city that is still an historic and architectural jewel. It is a must for the visitor to spend two hours or so at the Oskar Schindler Museum, based in the very factory where the German-born entrepreneur ‘saved’ an estimated 1,300 Jews.

The book on Schindler’s life story, Schindler’s Ark was turned into the multi award-winning film Schindler’s List by acclaimed movie director Steven Spielberg. He charts the way Schindler listed the Jews he would take from the camps to use as free labour in his factory, which made pots, pans and ammunition for the Nazi regime.

He bribed officials, and fed and housed his willing labour force who were saved from certain death. Over time, Schindler came to see his workforce as human beings, using his own cash to procure food supplies for them on the black market. Near the end of the war he even moved his factory into neighbouring Moravia to save his workforce yet again. All this is chronicled graphically in the museum - a story of redemption, and the ultimate triumph of good over evil. Little wonder that Schindler is honoured for being one of the Righteous Among The Nations, and was allowed to be buried on Mount Zion in Jerusalem.

In contrast to your visit to Auschwitz, the city of Krakov is a delight, and the good-hearted Polish residents make you most welcome. Some visitors go just for the experience of the Christmas market, and to savour the impressive Wawel Castle and Cathedral, both standing high above the majestic Vltava River that snakes round the former royal capital of Poland.

It’s quite legitimate not to undertake the two-hour journey out to Auschwitz and nearby Birkenau extermination camps.

I was warned that nothing prepares you for your visit . . . and they were right. But it was also right for me to go. It cements those words ‘Never again’ in your brain, and that’s an invaluable lesson.

For helpful information from the Polish Tourism Board - www.pot.gov.pl; www.polandtravel; and www.visitkrakow.com. Krakow flights from Leeds-Bradford (www.ryanair.com) and from Manchester (www.Jet2.com). Stay at Golden Tulip Hotel in central Krakow.