Gdansk & Stutthof

Dad & I have been travelling for just under a week - arrived Saturday night in Berlin, spent the weekend with aunt, cousins & cousins' kids, then Monday and Tuesday we were hardcore tourists: we visited a few museums (Jewish Museum, Pergammon, Gemaldegalerie, Holocaust Memorial), saw the Sony Plaza at Potsdamerplatz, took a boat tour through Berlin's canals, all in the company of my aunt C. Wednesday we flew through Munich to Gdansk: we were greeted at the airport by our guide Adam, who first took us to see the only synagogue in town (in the district of Wrzeszcz - he also told us of another synagogue in nearby Sopot that was set on fire on Cristal Night in November 1938) before showing us to our rented apartment in the middle of the old town of Gdansk. It's really a beautiful place.

This morning Adam picked us up early to drive to the Stutthof labour camp where a museum has been set up. It was quite intense - they have maintained about 1/4 to 1/3 of the original camp, including the commandant's buildings, several of the ubiquitous watchtowers, the dogs' quarters where specially-trained attack dogs were kept, prisoners' quarters, and the gas chambers and crematoria. Unlike many other Nazi labour or extermination camps, Stutthof was very international: there were prisoners from 23 countries, plus Jews and Gypsies. We learned that the Jews (all women) arrived much later, transported from Auschwitz. They were in barracks at the edge of the camp, and after those filled up, the kitchen building was used for additional Jewish women. Dad thinks that our three ancestors who were at the camp must have been at the kitchen building based on the description in the autobiography that mentions this experience.

We met an archivist briefly who showed us the log book entry including the three names in order, and she made a copy for us to take with us. Dad left her a copy of the autobiography, though since it's only in Hungarian, I suspect it'll be a while before they can get any information from it ...

We were invited to join an English-language tour being given by a Polish survivor to a group of Swedish high school students. It was really moving to see this old man telling his story, and seeing the kids so engrossed.

One of the first exhibits was a small portion of a mountain of old shoes that were found when the liberators first came to Stutthof after the war ended. The small exhibit extended the full length of one of the barracks. Prisoners were forced to give up their shoes in exchange for clogs. There were tiny childrens' shoes in the mix.

We saw the "hospital" where human experiments were conducted. They still don't know exactly what the Stutthof doctors did, but suspect they supplied a local soap factory with human fat for soapmaking. There was another operating room where people were injected with phenol, which killed them within a few minutes.

We saw the mess hall where prisoners were given their meagre daily rations.
We saw the lavatory, where water was turned on twice a day for 30-40 minutes for the entire camp of several thousand prisoners (originally the camp was designed for about 3,500, but was later expanded to hold 57,000). They had seconds to get their water supply, wash, and use the toilet.

The watchtowers were everywhere, and the camp was surrounded by layers of electrified barbed wire. Many prisoners hurled themselves against the wires when they could no longer bear the conditions.

There were numerous testimonials, mostly in Polish. Our guide Adam translated one for us that spoke of an endless journey in a train, where a small one day's ration of half a loaf of bread and a piece of sausage was all the prisoners received before travelling for six days. The weak and ill died, and by the end of the trip, those who were still alive did what no human ever wants to resort to in order to survive a little bit longer.

Near the end of the tour, near the gas chamber and crematoria, is a memorial from the 1960s. On one side extends a long windowed chamber where one can see a long stretch of ashes and human bones - skull remnants, jaws, arm bones, bones of children.

The Stutthof Museum has a small screening room, and the operator offered to show us two films they have in English, so we had a private viewing for three. One of the films documented what the Allies discovered at Stutthof a few days after liberation; the second documented the trials of the various camp guards, kapos, etc., which were held in nearby Gdansk.

Stutthof camp is surrounded by a beautiful forest that kept it sheltered from the nearby town, and must have been a bittersweet setting for those who passed through or for whom it was a final resting place. Today it is overrun with friendly feral cats, the grounds are well kept, and it is a shadow of the hell it was 65 years ago. Still, the museum has done a commendable job of respecting and remembering the memory of the horrors that took place there.