But I have to tell you about Auschwitz.
This is a travel story that I have to share. It is my most moving travel experience to date and in many ways I feel like whatever I say is insufficient to convey to you all that I should about Auschwitz. But I’ll try anyway. This concentration camp isn’t so much about the place but about the people who were imprisoned there. It isn’t just about the height of man’s cruelty towards another but about the resilience and faith of the human soul. I don’t want you to look at this post and think it as a downer to dampen your spirits but as a reminder that horrible things did happen but that the good of man prevailed.
At the infamous entrance to the concentration camp with the words “Arbeit Macht Frei”, I begin…
“On 7 October 1941 a camp was established in Auschwitz for Soviet POWs (Russisches Kriegsgefangenen Arbeitslager). About 10,000 men were registered as prisoners and held in a special fenced-off compound comprising blocks 1-3, 12-14, 22-24. Most of them died of hunger, hard work, and SS brutality. Many other were gassed or shot by order of a special Gestapo commission. Those who refused to work were forced naked out of their blocks in the freezing winter weather and doused with water, as a result of which many froze to death.
Within five months, by March 1942, some 9,000 had died. The remainder were transferred to the newly constructed Auschwitz II-Birkenau.”
That was written on one of the information boards scattered around the compound and with those words still resounding in my mind I stepped into one of the world’s most horrific places. An onslaught of emotions overtook me. There was a heaviness in the air that pulled at you when you walked through this place. It’s the history of the camp, the evil of humanity, and the unheard stories of nameless prisoners that seemed too overwhelming. And yet, we need to go to these places. We need to learn from humanity’s mistakes. We need to honor the memories of those victims. We need to remember.
There’s a short film you could watch before you enter the camp, which showed footages of Auschwitz during WWII. It was disturbing to watch in many ways, but the fact that this was not just some Hollywood horror movie made it all that much worse. Watching the documentary film and then actually being there in that place made all the things I’ve read and seen about the Holocaust painfully real.
Walking through prison blocks that barely over seventy years ago held people, which were subjected to atrocious acts, was overwhelming.
I was looking through the exact barbed fence that so many had looked through with a longing to escape.
A hallway in the museum was lined on either side with pictures of Auschwitz victims and I was deeply moved that under every picture was a name. Dear reader, think about it. The Nazis tried to eradicate these people; they were merely numbers to be slaughtered. Not fathers or mothers. Not sons or daughters. Not husbands, not wives, not children...not people, but numbers! Nameless numbers to be forgotten. But on these walls, their identity was given back. In this hallway, we tell them that they are not forgotten but remembered.
Here’s a map showing from where Jews and prisoners of other nationalities came from prior deportation to Auschwitz.
Here’s a punishment report requesting a penalty for a Jew who used a towel to wrap his feet.
Probably one of the most shocking parts of the museum were the mounds of personal things that once belonged to the prisoners. Without actually seeing hundreds of half-starved victims standing around you, the sheer mass of accumulated items gave you an idea of how many there actually were.
The last three pictures show a munition bunker that was used as a crematorium during the war. The largest room of the building was then turned into an improvised gas chamber, which was the first of its kind in Auschwitz.
Dear reader, I hope you will not have finished reading this with a heavy heart nor an indifferent shrug. As I said, I did not write this to dampen your mood. This post is not about the inhumanity of mankind but about the triumph of the human soul. When I speak about triumph, I do not mean those who won the war and liberated the prisoners nor do I mean those who survived being incarcerated in Auschwitz. I speak of that inherent goodness that dwells in us that can triumph over evil. It is what made people want to liberate others from suffering, it is the birth of compassion, it is the spark of hope that gave them the will to survive.
I highly encourage you to visit Auschwitz. I had a lesson in history that day but most importantly, I learned to remember history’s lessons.
I share with you a quote I read in Auschwitz:
"The one who does not remember history
is bound to live through it again."
-George Santayana
Thank you for reading!
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