untitled deliverance

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Two weeks ago, or thereabouts, on a Friday, Joshua and I were enjoying an evening with Don and Deila. At one point, the discussion turned to our planned Auschwitz-Birkenau visit. The four of us engaged in an intellectual dissection of this place, its significance in the annals of history, and its significance to us. Deila asked that upon our visit, or shortly thereafter, that I share my emotional reaction to this rather than my (usual) analytical perspective. So begins the diagnosis of my soul on 09.04.09.

The Auschwitz Muzeum at Ocwiecm, Poland is not a museum at all, but a cemetery. Hallowed, ghostly, terrifying, and peaceful. Blue Stars of David, yamekahs, and the confused and tearful eyes of youthful visitors are enough to make one feel overcome. Enough to produce a desire to wrap your arms around these fragile shoulders and cry for forgiveness, “we’re sorry…we’re all so sorry that this happened…we wanted to be better….we believed in ‘lest we forget’…we’ve not protected you…we’ve not forgotten…but we’ve done nothing…we’re sorry…so sorry…”
This overcoming moment shook me just inside the barbed wire gate, along the railroad track that stretches inexplicably into the future.

We walk along the silent road, between barracks and among the past. Crunch crunch go our soles on the gravel path that separated men from women, sheep from goats, death from life. In each Block, barrack, we are fed facts so horrific that we nearly become desensitized; the human soul is not made to endure such things. Not in reality, not 60 years later, not ever. Faces, eyes, and color coded triangles stared us in the heart. Pink for homosexuals, black for gypsies, red for political prisoners (even if they were 4 years old) and yellow for Jews. We have not felt death in our lives, not one of us. At Auschwitz, 60 years later, you can smell the shit, sweat, smoke and death. I have not felt this death, but I will smell it in perpetuity.

I read the suitcases: Klara Claussing, Please return to Rue de Something, DOB 01.22.1929. Bela Liebowicz, Oswiecm, Polska. Just like my luggage: Susanne Cramer, Please return to Dale & Barbara Lif, St. Libory, NE. Klara and Bela thought that they, too, would be picking up their luggage when they returned home. A tall, aged Swedish man turns away from Klara and Bela’s belongings. I too, turn away. “Why! Why do I not face it?!” Because if I face it…every suitcase, hairbrush, tiny crocheted mitten, strand of hair, every hollow-eyed, pleading photograph…a nauseous tightness comes up my throat, my eyes fill, and I know I will sob, unendingly. My soul will break.

In Crematoria One, near the lovely commandant’s wife’s home, we (Joshua, Susanne, Israelis, Irishmen, Swedes, Poles, humanity), file through the underground killing and burning space. I stare up at the metal “shower heads.” I am afraid. The door is closed, the smell is ripe, I cannot stand it. I close my eyes and envision the ashes ascending through the chimney. Curling, stretching, reaching, being delivered to God. The ashes of this place are on Our soles. In Prisoner Block 5, the inscription reads: “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” and “Forever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity…” We do not forget. The smell, the ashes on our soles will not allow it. But the children under the blue and white Star of David flag and the children of every corner of the earth look to us with confused and tearful eyes. “why Rwanda? why Darfur? why White Clay? what do the ashes on your soles and on your souls mean for us?” To them, on this day, my answer is but tears...

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Comments

[Auntie Ann]

I cannot see
My tears are dripping and I cannot see the screen or the keyboard. We must advocate peace and say our prayers. xxxooo