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Published: June 10th 2015
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The entrance gate to Auschwitz
The translation on the gate reads "Work will free you". Those who looked strong enough to work were kept, the others, including women and children sent directly to the gas chamber. It is impossible to adequately put into words the experience of a visit to the Nazi extermination camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau here in southern Poland. We should all know the history, have read the books, seen film and accounts and are disgusted by the crimes that were perpetuated against the Jews in particular and others, but unless one visits this place it may remain just another page of history and nothing more.
That must never happen! It was not just murder on an unimaginable scale but the ultimate in evil - unjustified assumption of superiority and hatred of one ethnic group over others executed in the most systematically horrific manner which sought not only to eliminate but to debase the Jews in particular as somehow even a sub animal species. It is simplistic to blame Adolf Hitler alone and consider the overwhelming support his party received as he sought to establish his master race. Even much of the industry today, particularly some pharmaceutical firms that participated in this enormous crime, still exist and have never been held accountable for the human experimentation that Josef Mengele and his cohorts conducted on fellow human beings.
As someone with roots in
the Caribbean, I shudder to think what would have happened to the people of our beautiful islands had Germany won that war. Politics aside, if one wants to understand the sometimes apparent paranoia displayed by Israel, surrounded as it is by enemies sworn to its destruction, then visit Auschwitz. For me personally, leaving that place brought relief but I left with a much deeper understanding of the plight faced by other human beings at the hands of despots.
I have deliberately published only ten pictures of the camps largely to show some of the infrastructure, just to give an idea of the place rather than make a futile attempt to convey the experience itself. This blog should be a reminder for those who have already visited this dread place and perhaps encouragement for others to consider a visit when in this part of Europe.
Attrocities such as what took place then surely start in the individual human heart and can mushroom to engulf society (Cambodia etc. etc.), if not first resisted at the individual level wherever such attitudes first surface. And now, a contrast in mood, thank goodness. After the glum atmosphere on the return trip
Each building was called a block
This is just one row of blocks of buildings used for unspeakable crimes including medical experimentation on innocent families. to Krakow and after a long rest and a shower we headed back to the favourite part of the old city to attend a
Golden Classical Music Concert by the Orchestra of Saint Maurice presented in the ornate and beautiful setting of St. Peter and Paul's church on Grodzka Street.
Soon after taking our centre row front seats, a soloist emerged and introduced the program with a superb Albeniz piece, Asturias, on cello. After the well deserved applause, the other members joined and proceeded to delight the audience with an exciting and captivating program of well known classics from
Mozart, Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky and Chopin. Being so up close and personal with the Orchestra in such an intimate setting was magical. Every piece was great and I looked over and watched as Jeanette, with eyes often closed , swayed to and fro as if lost in the serenade of strings. I myself felt heavenly, temporarily surrendering to the uplifting and sublime as I absorbed the vibrato of Khachaturian's Sabre Dance and the romance of Tchaikovsky's Dance of The Flowers.
Afterwards, stopping for some tasty street food, we slowly worked our way back to the apartment under the floodlit structures
of the old town, our mood and spirit uplifted and finally back to a more appropriate vacation mindset.
"A creative mind for good is more powerful and enduring than the evil one" - Roger.
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Heather Gun-Munro
non-member comment
Second blog
Every time ibeven hear the names of those camps my heart breaks and seeing those pics as I have done others is almost unbearable. I wont personally want to go there but i am glad you did. Blog very well written with vivid imagination for the reader.