Europe Euphoria

With the mention of the name of Auschwitz and Birkenau, the Nazi killing camps of World War II, we are tend to think the rain teeming these areas. Dorita Nicz, our guide whose two non-Jewish uncles were sent to Auschwitz for giving water to an escaped prisoner, led us to the otherwise serene and picturesque terrains of this place. "I was a little girl, but I remember he never smiled," said Ms. Nicz, a guide provided by Butterfield & Robinson. "He talked only to my grandmother, and he kept always a piece of bread in his pocket." Ms. Nicz took us through the concentration camps, recounting the horrors of the ‘killing camps’ where Jews were put inside the gas chambers faster than the Nazis could liquidate them Butterfield & Robinson had a surprise in store for us when they arranged an interview with 86-year-old Kazimierz Smolen, a Polish partisan and survivor of five years’ imprisonment at Auschwitz. The Nazi Party’s SS ( short for Schutzstaffel) had kept the inmates, including him, standing in a totally dark cell. Mr. Smolen and the other prisoners were made to do the bear dance by turning around in circles with their arms raised above their heads. When inmates stopped or lowered their arms, the SS beat or shot them. The food given was marginal and most the inmates were forced to starvation where the food consisted of a quart of herbal tea in the morning and half a pound of bread in the evening and sometimes soup. When Mr. Smolen was in a position to type, he was entrusted with the job of registering those who were about to be killed.