HELL

There should have been dark dreary gray clouds with rain threatening but it was a beautiful sunny day.  Exactly what I didn’t want.  It made it seem that more surreal.

We stood on the platform where the cattle car transports dumped out their human cargo.  The angel of death, Dr. Mengele, was there to greet you and decided with a quick glance if you lived a little longer or were immediately sent to death.  The last time you saw your family.  

After visiting the site of the greatest mass murder in the history of the world how do you describe the mountain of shoes, eyeglasses, suitcases, children’s clothing, human hair ?   Maybe you could talk about the barracks conditions where inmates were crammed 8-10 in a space that was meant for 4 while rats visited at night and lice tortured them.  The communal toilets that accommodated 20 people at a time where you were given 3 minutes to do what you needed to do in front of everyone ?

Block 11 was especially evil.  The torture building.  If you were told to report there for some tiny infraction it was a really good chance that you would never come out alive.  There were rooms where people were purposely starved to death, suffocated or just put in front of the firing squad wall.  Very organized and brutally efficient.  The Nazis had it all down to a slick running killing machine.

On their best days they ran 10,000 thru the gas chambers and ovens.  They ran out of places to dump the ashes so it was used as fertilizer.

This sadistic play ground had a brothel.  In a moment of softness Himmler thought the deserving Sondercommando (Jews who manned the gas chambers and crematorium) should have a little entertainment before they too were put to death.  What a guy.

Our guide spoke with great respect for the million plus people who died there in its 4 years of operation and I’m not posting pictures because you’ve all seen them.  Or if you haven’t you should.

I went on this trip to bear witness.  

When I get home I want to hug my children and grandchildren so tight that nothing could ever hurt them.

The Factory on Lipowa Street

 He didn’t start out as a hero or even a very good guy; an early member of the Nazi party, wife cheating party animal, unsuccessful businessman and spy for the Abwehr.  Early in September 1939 when the Nazis occupied Poland he went to Krakow looking for a business to buy from some unfortunate Jew who was being forced by the new conquerors to sell their business.  At a significant discount.  Jewish forced labor was significantly less expensive than paying Polish workers so he was an opportunist looking for a deal.  

He knew nothing about the manufacture of enamelware, or anything else for that matter, but a chance to cash in on the misfortune of others was too lucrative to pass up so he went in the pots and pans business.

By wining and dining and bribes with valuable Black Market goods Nazi officials to give him whatever permits he needed and all the cheap Jewish labor he could use, money started rolling in and before too long he was a very rich man.   Still a scoundrel, and still consorting with the extreme sadist Commandant of the camp that supplied him his workers.  The Commandant used the camp inmates for target practice and killed over 500 of them for sport off the balcony of his office overlooking the courtyard.  

A work permit as an essential worker in his factory was a ticket to live a little longer; highly sought after among those doomed to be shipped off to Auschwitz.  Somehow he was able to acquire 350 workers.  The majority of them had no practical metal working experience but he gave them a chance.

The 68,000 Jews of Krakow were all destined to be exterminated.  It took awhile but as things got worse in the Ghetto and camp our guy started to really noticed the horrific treatment that his SS drinking buddies were inflicting on the doomed.  He witnessed things that are unspeakable.  It changed him.

As the 68,000 were nearly exterminated he came up with an idea to save some.  He convinced the Nazis that he was going to convert the pots and pans factory into a munitions plant.  He would need 1,200 workers.  He had his secretary type a list of names of very lucky people to be spared as the last transports rolled out of town.

They were able to wait out the rest of the war until the Soviets liberated them in January 1945.

Our hero was Oskar Schindler of course.  You have probably seen the Spielberg movie.  As his survivors were freed he was the one now fleeing as a war criminal.  He was broke from spending all his riches helping the 1,200 live.  He lived a life of failed businesses after the war and ended up being supported by a Jewish relief organization.  He died in 1974 and was honored by being buried in Mt. Zion cemetery in Jerusalem; an honor give to few non Jews. He was also presented with the “Righteous Among Nations” award from Yad Vashem. 

There are over 6,000 Schindler Jewish descendants today.

We visited his factory this afternoon.  It houses a museum and was very inspirational.  Sometimes good wins over evil.

We have visited so many important WW2 locations this week.   We stood below the balcony that the psycho Commandant shot people for sport.  At Hitler’s Wolf’s Lair in Prussia we saw the ruins of his command post in Poland and site of the failed Valkyrie assassination attempt of July 20, 1944.  The Warsaw Ghetto (watch the movie the Pianist).  Many monuments and war museums.  The site of the Solidarity movement by Leif Walenska in the 80’s that finally freed the Polish people from Soviet oppression.  Gestapo headquarters and the Polish Post office where Polish Boy Scouts tried to hold off the Nazis in the invasion.   Plaques everywhere commemorating a site where people were murdered by the Nazis.  So much war overload in this resilient country.  The punching bag of Europe.

I have a new understanding of what the Poles went through and are amazed at how determined they are to be free.

Our last stop this afternoon was the town square where the selections for transport to Auschwitz were made. Families waited there to see if it was their day to die.  There are many empty chairs in the large square signifying the people who were murdered.  Very simple but very effective.

The group of WW2 history nerds I am fortunate to be traveling with come from all over the USA.  Our historian, Chris Anderson, consulted with Spielberg when The Band of Brothers was put together.  Extremely knowledgeable about the war and Poland.

Not quite sure what to expect tomorrow.  My fellow travelers and I want to make this journey but will probably be glad when it’s over.

Hell Bound Train

So my son asked me why off all the cool places there are to go why would I want to go to Poland? We're not even Polish Mom ??  

Specifically to visit Auschwitz.

That sounds a little nuts even to a history nerd like me.  But for some reason beyond my control I yearn to go there.  It nags at me.  I think about it a lot.  I have read countless books about it for many years.  It's a pilgrimage that I need to get out of the way to get some peace; if that's even possible by going there.  

Stephen Ambrose, one of my favorite history writers and tour creator, took me from D-Day to the Rhine and through the Origins of the Third Reich in the past few years.  Fascinating trips. Life changing trips. Now his company is offering a Beginning and Ending of WW2 tour that of course will visit the epitome of Hell on Earth in a little Polish town called Oswiecim (Polish for Auschwitz) and end in Berlin.  It's a lengthy tour and visits war museum after war museum and monuments to the brave resistance fighters, the Schindler factory and Stalag 3 (site of the Great Escape).  Pretty sure there is no boating involved on this trip so I am going solo as it's not really Dave's thing.   The cool thing for me on these history journeys is that all the other people on the tour are there because they want to be (except for the occasional spouse who went along to keep peace).

The historians on my past tours have been very skilled at bringing history to life.   They describe  events that happened right where you are standing and they make it personal by telling 80+ year old stories of real people.  Unbelievable stories; but true.

I have tried to imagine thousands of times what it felt like to be in one of the cattle cars on the way to Hell.  Not knowing, or maybe knowing, what would happen when the doors were flung open and selections were made.  Would Dr. Mengele point me to the right or left?  To die by starvation, slave labor and disease slowly or die instantly in the gas chambers ?  

Visiting the concentration camp, Dachau, in Munich, was a somber experience.  Thousands died there; mainly of disease, starvation or beatings.  Though it wasn't an extermination camp.  It was to detain political prisoners and if they died in the meantime, oh well.

Auschwitz was created specifically to kill people.  A very efficient killing factory.  Usually those chosen for the gas chambers died within an hour of arriving at the camp. Hitler's Final Solution went after  Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, Jehovas, people who spoke out against the Fuehrer and others deemed undesirable and not worthy of life.  

While working at a department store in high school I made a friend there that was Jewish.  His name was Sandy.  Quite the novelty for a coal miner's daughter from white bread West Virginia.  His family had lost many relatives in the Holocaust.  Since the public school system didn't really teach us much, if anything, about that I was stunned at things he told me.  He was a young man working his way through law school at the time. His Mother and Father were very tortured by the loss of their relatives.  Somehow they had made it safely to the USA before the war started.  I went to their home for dinner once and they showed me the family album; pointing out many relatives that had perished in gas chambers or other violent deaths at the hands of the Nazis in small Polish villages. Being an unsophisticated, wide eyed, teenager at the time I'm not sure how I handled it when they wept over the pictures.

Sandy gave me a book to read entitled  "The Painted Bird" by Jerzy Kosinski.  It's the story of a young Jewish boy that was separated from his family and wanders around Poland during the Nazi occupation trying to survive among peasant villagers.  Very dark and graphic.  While it may be fiction, many think it was based in the author's own experiences as a child.  It's a very difficult book to get through.  It affected me like no book ever has.  Still sticks with me.  I read it again a few years ago and yeah, still powerful.  I believe that it was made into a movie but I don't want to go there again.  

So this trip is party because of that friend and that book.  

The Battle of the Bulge

 

So the failed Operation Market Garden ended in September. On the plus side a few Dutch towns had been liberated and some V-12 rocket launch pads were destroyed (the first guided, unmanned missiles). At least the Allies had established an area from which to launch a future offensive into the Rhineland area.

Little did they know that Hitler had one more trick up his sleeve.  Against the advice of his advisors and generals (they already saw the inevitable outcome of the war) he ordered them to plan for a major offensive in the Ardennes forest area of Belgium against the very unsuspecting Allies.  

Don't forget that by this time there had been an unsuccessful assassination attempt against Hitler by his own men on July 20, 1944.  Watch Valkyrie.  So many of his men knew that he was quite mad but were afraid to openly oppose him lest they meet the same fate of the the Valkyrie men.  Hmmm...sound familiar?

Feeding his delusions, he sent valuable troops and armored divisions from the Eastern front to Belgium, Luxembourg and France to mobilize what would be called the Battle of the Bulge.  He hoped he could surround the Allies and perhaps negotiate some kind of peace agreement where Germany would not loose all.  That was never going to happen.

Our historian took us to a town called Neuville near the city of Bastogne, Belgium this morning.  Not much of a town.  Just a few buildings at a crossroads in a tiny village.

The Nazis occupied Neuville since the spring of 1940.

The Allies managed to liberate the town on September 10, 1944.  The towns people were so happy they danced in the street with the soldiers and gave them flowers and hugs.  Someone took pictures.

By December 18th, 1944 the Nazis recaptured the town. Someone found the pictures taken with the Allies. Those towns people were rounded up (the Nazis like to round up people) and made to clear the debris from the battle.  Once the debris was cleared they were told to line up in a straight line and count off by 3's.

The 1's were sent home.

The 2's were sent home.

The 3's were lined up in front of this wall and shot.

Over 100 people died there.

Just another day in Nazi Paradise.

The famous Siegfried Line that was also called the West Wall building started in 1936 and was 400 miles long.  It was supposed to make Germany impregnable by tanks.

Many miles of it still exist today.  You see it driving down the roads.

We stopped by the memorial of the Massacre at Malmedy.  84 American POW soldiers were mowed down by the SS because they were slowing down their progress.

We visited foxholes that are still there that were dug by our boys in the Ardennes. The Battle of the Bulge lasted from December 16, 1944 to roughly January 25, 1944.  Record cold temperatures, average 8 below zero each day, no hot food, no winter clothing and our guys had to fight in this forest and cling to their foxholes as their only defense.

This area had to be fenced off by the locals because re-enactors wouldn't leave it alone and were damaging the foxholes.  People!   

It was truly a busy day and we spent some time at the Airborne Museum in Bastogne.  This is privately owned and the owner opened just for us.  This is by far the best war museum I have been to. The exhibits are amazing.

There was a bomb shelter reenactment in the cellar that shook your bones. 

He told us the story of how "Airborne Ale" came to be.

During the American occupation some GI's were desirous of beer as GI's sometimes are.  One of them, Private Vincent Speranza ventured into a blown up tavern and found a beer tap still in tact.  No glassware was to be found so he filled his helmet with the beer and brought it back to his buddies.  He made numerous beer runs back and forth for helmet beer.  Someone started calling it Airborne Ale and it is still produced today.  He visited there in 2009 and the owner of he museum had his likeness made in tribute.

I would have loved to bring some home but I think I can order it online.

Glad there are some good stories that came out of this

war.

We arrived at our hotel this evening in Luxembourg and I discovered something wonderful.  HEATED toilet seats.  Dave, if you're listening please put it on the list!

Tomorrow is my last day here.  We are going to see Patton's grave.  Woo hoo!

I am always anxious to get home but so thankful for this experience and the great people who have been along on the trip with me. Some really nice people interested in the war just like me from all over the USA. Not once was current politics mentioned on this trip (yes, even by me!) and it has been great. Our young historian, Jonathan, made the places we visited come alive with his stories. 

Escaping Paris - Operation Market Garden - Highlight of the Trip for Me So Far

The idea was to leave Paris for Brussels via the fast, super quiet, super smooth, electric train and to give we Americans a taste of efficient French mass transit. 

What happened was that on the way to the Paris train station our train struck a vehicle.  That put us in limbo in the Paris train station for nearly two hours.  The Paris train station is not the most desirable place to spend any time.  There is no where to sit and sketchy characters all around.  We were told ahead of time to be very vigilant of our purses and backpacks.  Two of our fellow travelers, get this -- a retired 4 Star Combat General and his Air Force pilot daughter traveling together had their backpack stolen!  The General's passport was in the backpack!  So, we left them behind to deal with the Paris Police and wait for the American Embassy to open Monday morning.  This happened on a Saturday of course.

Super bummer!  These trips are not without risk.  I compulsively check my passport, cell phone and credit cards multiple times a day.  Trust no-one!  

Operation Market Garden was our next objective. The operation went from Sept 17-25, 1944. Hopes for a quick end to the war quickly turned to ashes as the Allies outstretched their supply lines and Germans reinforced their defenses.  Montgomery had a plan to flank the Germans to the North.  He would then attack into the Netherlands with an armored force. He would drop three airborne (paratroopers) ahead of the ground force to capture the all important bridges and towns.

The Allies were under the delusion that the forces left to defend this area were the lower echelon of the German forces.  Old men and very young men with no combat experience.  Some of the soldiers were 16 years old. However, these young men had grown up in the Hitler Youth and had the Nazi ideology so engrained in their souls that they fought fanatically for the Fatherland.  Hitler said something to the effect of  "Give me your youth and I will control the future".  Take warning my friends.

Operation Market Garden was not considered an Allied success by any means.  It cost us over 17,000 soldier's lives with very little gain.  It did liberate some Dutch towns and they are forever grateful.

We visited one such family in Sonbruggel at their farm.

On the morning of September 17, 1944 a little 6 year old boy walked out into the farm field behind his house and saw this.

This is the same field today.

Thousands of Allied paratroopers were being dropped in to start Operation Market Garden.  

We met that six year old little boy and his family at the same farm house.  He is now 84 years old and  doesn't speak English so his grand-daughter translated for us.  The have a little museum set up to commemorate this big moment in their family history.

We were able to ask him questions and he seemed happy to answer them all.  He told us of a paratrooper who landed near his back door and was hurt and his mother helped bandage his wounds.  He showed us the exact spot as he remembered it as a little boy.  40 years later that same solider came back to visit the family and they had a huge dinner together to celebrate.

Their museum is full of military items that they have found in their fields through the years.

               His prized item is a parachute.  

They served us apple cake and coffee and couldn't have been more gracious to a bus load of Americans.

The 4 year German occupation of their homeland was a nightmare. Many people starved to death and the German soldiers pillaged their homes for what ever they pleased.

The war for them was over on that Day 1 of Operation Market Garden, as they were liberated by the paratroopers.  So, for the Dutch the operation was a success.

This visit with an old man was the highlight of the trip so far for me.  Dates and statistics and bridges and strategies are interesting but talking with him touched  some of us to tears.  

Tomorrow we set out for the Ardennes and a whole new bloody chapter of this war. 

P.S. The Paris police actually caught the General's thief, but the passport was, of course, gone.  They had tried to use his credit card unsuccessfully and that tipped off the police. 

 

 

American Cemetery - Pegasus Bridge - Paris

Visiting the American Cemetery in Normandy is a solemn honor that I wish all Americans had the chance to do.  It grabs you by the heart and it is one of those "quiet" places that makes you want to whisper out of respect.  It sits on a cliff overlooking Omaha Beach and roughly 9,400 Americans are buried there.  White marble headstones mark each one.  There are over 1,500 names of the still missing carved on the walls and a small chapel sits in the middle.  Three medal of honor winners rest here. Forty-five sets of brothers lie side by side.  Two of the three brothers killed that inspired Saving Private Ryan lie here.  The third brother died in the Pacific and the brother "Ryan" (not his real name) did get sent home.

What I see here, as a mother, is endless rows of dead sons.  Sons who were barely men yet. Lives that were never finished and grandchildren that were never born. These sons went to fight in Europe by enlistment but mostly by draft.  But it was a noble war that had to be fought, unlike some that came later and tore apart our country.

The Cemetery is immaculately maintained.   The US Government does a lot to keep it manicured but so do volunteer community groups in Normandy and many, many vets who also volunteer.  The people of Normandy still appreciate what we did for them and treat American visitors with respect and grace.  Gotta say the closer you get to Paris that isn't always the case!

Our historian did something really cool.  At the start of the tour he asked for our maiden names.  I thought that a bit odd but OK.  It seems many of the graves have never been visited by family from the US.  It is not an easy trip and sadly they have never had anyone pay respects.  He searched the cemetery records using current last names and maiden names to find graves with that name.  He marked the location on post its so it could be found and passed out the info to us on the tour.  Most of the people has someone to look up.  There were no matches for Zingo or Tufts.  My fellow tour members were able to locate all the gravesites and pay their respects.  Awesome.

At the end of the day we visited Pegasus Bridge.

It crosses the Caen Canal.  English gliders flew in 181 men and they had to hold the bridge until relieved by the British invasion forces.  The object of this action was to prevent German tanks from crossing the bridge and attacking our forces at Sword Beach.  This happened in the wee dark hours of June 6th before the beach landings.  One of the glider men, Lt. Brotheridge, was mortally wounded while crossing the bridge and became the first member of the invading Allied Armies to be die of enemy fire on D-Day.

The bridge was captured after a fierce ten minute fight!

It was a rainy ride to Paris along the French countryside.  Looking out the window it could have been the same view along upstate New York roads.  But so much happened here.  So many thousands of stories in those little farm houses and villages.

Got to our hotel after passing the Eiffel Tower and the Arc De Triumph a little after 4pm.  Just spending the night here then tomorrow morning taking the fast train to Brussels.  Lucky for me I have been here with Kristy before so I'm just going to find a bistro for dinner and catch up on this blog before I forget everything I saw.

Crossing the English Channel to Cherbourg France and the D-Day Beaches

My 5 hour ferry crossing from England to France was quite posh; air conditioned, had a restaurant, bar, recliner chairs and smooth seas.  I was reasonably sure there wouldn't be anyone shooting at me once I got to the other side.  (I wasn't in the USA after all).

The average age of the boys who stormed the beaches on June 6, 1944 was 18-19. Think of our current day kids at that age! Mostly draftees and although trained; they had never experienced real combat.  The seas were extremely choppy and once loaded into their landing craft a few miles out, they had to wait around for all the other landing crafts to be loaded, by circling around in big water. Toting their 80 pound packs and rifle they we given anti-nausea pills but the majority were retching their guts out, shaking uncontrollably and scared out of their minds.  The opening scenes of "Saving Private Ryan" show it best.

Operation Overlord was underway and no turning back now.  Utah Beach was the westernmost landing beach. I could go on and on about the details but that even bores me.  You've seen enough old movies I'm sure to get a picture of the carnage.  

The beaches, and especially Omaha Beach, where our boys landed, were sacrificial grounds for the first waves who landed. 

The Germans on the hill, although caught by surprise, had a real advantage (always be above the enemy--right?) and mowed our boys down. 

The most unbelievable mission was the scaling of Pointe du Hoc by our Army Rangers.  9 stories high and very steep.

Out of 225 Rangers only 90 survived.  They had to get up there and destroy some big German guns and bunkers early before the first waves landed.  When you look at those cliffs you think no way that could have been done.  But it was.  

Ordinary Americans doing extraordinary things.

We visited all 5 beaches but of course with our group Omaha Beach was the holy ground. Dave and I visited there 13 years ago.  It still grabs you.  It happened to be a beautiful sunny day and there were many visitors milling about from many countries.  WW2 touched everyone in some way.

There is a tribute in the sand on the beach where the first boys landed.  Every day at 4:30 someone plays the Star Spangled Banner here on trumpet along with Taps. 10,000 Americans died at Omaha Beach in the opening days. Fewer than 3,000 D-day vets were still alive as of 2021.  Very soon there won't be any.

Think of them the next time June 6th rolls around and there is no mention of D-Day on the news, social media or the history channel.

Our historian, Jonathan Carroll, (a  Military History Professor at Texas A &M) is making this solemn trip so interesting.  At each memorial or site he injects personal stories of our soldiers who were there.  That means so much more than dates and statistics.  Great job.  Good storyteller.

Sainte Mere-Eglise was occupied by the Germans in June of 1940.  5 roads pass through the town and it was only 7 miles east of the landing beaches. Transport wise it was a very strategic location for both sides. Supplies had to reach the troops or game over.

On June 6, 1944 it was the first occupied town in France to be liberated by airborne troops.  The 82 Airborne Division dropped in town late at night.  Many landed in trees and utility poles and were shot before they could cut loose. As luck would have it there was a big fire in town that night and the sky was lit up.  Not good. One paratrooper, John Steele, became famous as the one who got stuck on a church spire.  He hung there limply for 

two hours playing dead before the Germans took him prisoner.  The town pays tribute to him still today. He managed to escape the Germans and rejoin his infantry going on to help capture 30 Germans and killing another 11.  The incident can be seen in the movie "The Longest Day".   He was played by actor red Buttons.  Hollywood still loves WW2! Endless stories to tell.

Moving along through Normandy we stopped at various memorials.  Too many to mention.  One that was very special was a monument to Lt. James M. Gavin of the 82nd Airborne.  At this site  (a bridge) he and his men held this crossing site over the Merderet Causeway with many casualties.  A very small bridge.  No big deal huh?  Very big deal.  Very important supply route.

This is the same bridge today.  Our historian brings these stories to life and you start to see the importance and difficulty of advancing inches at a time into France and ultimately to the Rhine.   

I thought maybe this tour would calm down my obsession with the subject of WW2 but it seems it's only feeding it. (Sorry Dave)  We visit the American Cemetery next.