She had unshaven legs and never smiled. She carried a cloth bag hanging down her back from both shoulders. She ate her packed lunch from it immediately (a standard one). She offered us some of her Lilt. Obviously a routine invest- ment as she didn't talk any further. (The ploy about eating the packed lunch immediately, which many people did, is that it is a justification for carrying an empty bag around). Immediately in front of us was a guy on his own with just a camera and a money belt. (Everyone had pretty big external money belts which they often let hang loose and open, similarly with their small rucksacks that they carried - setting an example). In front of him were two guys I thought were together but at the end of the day they went separate ways. In front of the girl was a couple. The guy had a very brightly coloured rucksack, the girl was quite frail. In front of them was an Amer- ican on his own, late 20s with a notebook and paper and glasses. In front of him a big fat sweating thug in shorts and tee-shirt that were too small, sunglasses and a material rucksack that hung open, initially containing a black novel, later containing 'Lets Go Europe'. He couldn't speak English (despite them being English lan- guage books, and it being an English language tour). Two places in front of us were the two girls that we'd met before alighting the bus and down the front was an old Jewish man and wife and an Italian grandad, grandmum and kid (with a gold chain and snarl). The tour guide, bus driver, and another guide who soon got off. Pretty quickly I pointed out that hairy legs was a crook and John pointed out the thug.
We went to Birkenau (Auschwitz II) and stood in the signal box listening to a recording of some guy explaining something. I think it was to do with the place still being as it was in 1945 when it was discov- ered and about 3 million people dying there, although the Russians now say it was only 1.5m. And we could look out over the whole camp, which was just like 'The Great Escape' type of thing. Lots of small brick 'huts', a rail line running through the middle and wire and lookout posts all around. Totally silent except for the humming of grasshoppers, which sound like the humming of the electric fence. However it had grass, whereas apparently it didn't during the war as the prisoners ate it. Anyway unfortunately I didn't hear much of the talk because I was too busy watching the rest of our party. The Budapest youth girl came and stood immediately behind the thug and stared into his rucksack. I was confused as I thought they were part of the same gang. Either they were both working the place separately or she wasn't really looking in it. I drank my can of coke that I'd bought on the way in. The temperature was about 30 degrees Celsius. We got taken around the site. We saw the men's sleeping quarters. He said a thousand or two people slept there which was virtually impossible to imagine as it was a pretty small hut. Each bed was about 3ft wide and was for 8 people. Through the middle were bricks through which heat went. He told us a nazi joke. About as sign blaming death on lice or something. Now and again, especially at this bit a few questions were asked. Girls in the gang would ask the other people to repeat what the guy had said claiming they didn't hear it. They weren't very good though at making these con- tacts. Initially they would try to befriend people similar in appearance to themselves. Then we saw the latrine. A hut with holes in the middle. We were told a large number of people had to use these only at 17:00 each afternoon and if they were too long they were severely punished. One person took a photograph. We walked further; to the station. We saw a picture of people getting off the train just where we were standing. There was a soldier splitting them into two groups. One group were sent to another queue straight for the gas chamber. We could see the end of the queue in the photo and we could see the gas chamber in real life. It was a very long queue. We looked at the relics of the chamber, the incinerator, the showers. We saw the monument, mainly steps, containing 3 million stones, one for each death. It was a lot of stones. Hardly anyone took any photos. Each time we stopped the Budapest youth girls, hairy legs, and the thug all seemed to be standing such that they were right behind someone who had a small rucksack on their back. Now and again they'd ask really stupid questions. Especially hairy legs who wasn't very good at this and didn't really seem to be in the gang. At the place where they burnt the bodies, which had been wrecked by the prisoners who worked for the nazis in the hope of living longer (the partisans) who then started a revolt, she asked 'where did they get the materials?' Eventually a genuine American tried to bail her out by asking where they got the dynamite. Still a stupid ques- tion. The guide said to ask at the museum. The American bent down to read a sign. Hairy legs knelt next to him. He stood up, she stood up. We went on to see the place where the women were kept. Similar to the men's but it had en suite bathrooms and the only painting on the walls that was allowed. There were also some disturbing drawings by prisoners that were done after 1945. People seemed to drift around corners, adjust themselves and come back. I similarly adjusted the contents of my money belt so it didn't show so much. It was around this area that I started checking out other people. I noticed the Scandinavians who seemed worried and I think were prob- ably OK but nervous and by the end thought that I was trying to steal from them because of the attention I'd given them. I started to worry about the guy who'd been sitting in front of us as I realised he hadn't taken any pictures. Well actually I saw him try to take one at the monument and the film rewound. John said he saw him accidentally brush the camera against a wall and it went off. He didn't seem to care. The American guy with the notebook started talking to the thug. I couldn't hear what they were saying. I was worried he was letting himself in for trouble. As it turned out they were speaking Polish and were together. At one point in Auschwitz I looked at his pad to see what he was writing. He was hardly writing anything. The only things he wrote were messages that he showed to the thug. Via the kitchen we went to the bus as it was time. On the way to the bus we stopped at a hut for a coke. John and I were second in the queue. John had been saying he was worried the thug was watching him, not surprising as I expect John had been giving him hard stares. I had said not to worry as if the Budapest girls were after the thug then he must be OK. Anyway in this queue loads of people pushed in. Nearly everyone. John had the money in his shirt pocket and I subsequently realised he also had his travellers cheques there. With holes in his jeans pockets and everything stolen he had nowhere else to put stuff. The thug leaned straight over me and stared into John's pocket, for a good couple of minutes while John tried to sort out the money for a coke (well actually he bought a beer but I didn't expect him to and he didn't like it as it was caramel flavour.) The thug was looking through his sun glasses and I think he was pretending to be hot and knackered and that's why his head was hanging. I looked straight at him, behind the lenses but I couldn't catch his eye as he was just looking at John's pocket. Everyone else seemed to get served. The Italian woman shouted a lot and kept changing her order. The guide got annoyed that we were nearly all late but I think this was an important time to suss out where people kept their money. The coach took us to Auchwitz.
I talked too loudly on the coach as I hadn't totally worked out that the guy in front of us was dodgy. John was upset when I told him that he was right about the thug being after him. I said I couldn't take his stuff as my money belt was already too big and we were putting all our eggs in one basket. I later worried that the guy might have heard this. We were taken to Auschwitsz the 'Panstwowe Muzeum - Oswiecim Brezinka' - The State Museum in Oswiecim-Brzezinka (established by the Government of the Polish People's Republic in 1947 on the site of the largest Nazi extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.) We saw a documentary film in English taken during the liber- ation of the camp by the Red Army. The film mainly showed us pictures of people being freed, carried or walking to ambulances. It told us all their names. It showed people on the beds we'd seen. After this we were introduced to another guide. I think she was the wife of the first guide. We went through the gates with another nazi joke on 'work gives freedom' and to the first red brick building. The place was much more 'modern' than Birkenau. I saw hairy legs pretending to follow where we were on the map in the leaflet we'd been given. Her finger was drifting around and nowhere near where we actually were. The outside of the buildings were the same as in 1945 but the insides had been turned into a museum. We were shown in many. We saw a cabinet full of human hair, some material made out of it. Another cabinet containing shoes, another with hair and shaving brushes, another of glasses. Yet again I should have been very disturbed by this, I think John was, especially as I was not expecting it. The others, though were not listening to the guide, and I was watching them to see who was not listening. Hairy legs was often at the side looking into cabinets. Whenever the guide said ' and over there is' and turned round, very few people followed her gaze. This was the point where the Scandinavian who looked very like a Budapest youth girl started getting scared of me. We saw a model of the gas chamber. People queuing outside, people being gassed, bodies piled up. People being incinerated. By now the thug was on John all the time. At one point John stopped at a cabinet and I noticed that the thug, the Budapest girls and possibly a couple of others we'd worked out to be crooks were all around him. If they'd pick-pocketed him no-one would have seen a thing. I pushed through them and talked to him. We saw a hallway full of portrait photos of dead people. We saw rooms to the side with straw 'mattresses' on the floor. Thug just walked straight down the middle of the hall. By this time the Budapest girls' empty bag was full (and thugs book had changed). I know they bought a bottle, but there were other things in the bag too. They pulled out a camera. It was in a case so they looked at it for a while and carried it. Later they'd taken it out of it's case. They pressed a button and the film rewound. I saw her take one picture later. Not of the place but of us, the whole group. We got taken down to some dark cells. John was ahead and on his way back said it wasn't worth seeing, really saying don't go down there it's too dark, but the guy with the bright rucksack had had the attention of the Bucharest girls for a while now and if he went down there alone with them they'd have got into it as they were walking very close behind him (ie up against his rucksack). I walked very close behind them. They kept stopping to look at insignificant things. I waited behind them to queue to see the insig- nificant things instead of going past (there was no-one behind us.) They gave up and walked straight through. We saw a reconstruction, I believe, of the wall at which they shot people. At what turned out to be the last place of interest, a cell where people were made to stand, all the crooks gathered to take photos. No-one else knew this was the last place, and it was one of the least photogenic places. Not the place to take your first photo. I hung around for a while. They took a few photos, some with flash some without. Then I left. I guarded the toilet while John put his stuff in his shoe. I tried myself but the passport was too big. John and the old Italian guy stood at the toilet door waiting for the other to leave. It was very unnatural but neither would give in and leave. This was the only time I was suspicious of him, although his grandson was a bit dodgy. When we got out the guy who'd sat in front of us was sitting on a bench next to two tourists. They got up, and at exactly the same time he got up. |
