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Saved: September 15th 2021
I can't remember how old I was when I first read "The Diary of Anne Frank." What I do remember is waking up one night shortly thereafter, screaming because I had dreamed the Gestapo were chasing me through the streets, and had cornered me. I woke up as the gun was pointed at me. I get nightmares easily. Tonight, I am afraid I will have those nightmares again, because today I went to Oswiecim, the Polish town known to the world by its German name, Auschwitz.
For the last few days, when I've thought about visiting Auschwitz, I didn't think I wanted to go alone. I went with one of my friends from the hostel, but when I got there, I didn't want to speak to anyone all day.
The bus ride out was 1.5 hours, and I thought about where I was going the whole time. I thought about how awful it must have been for the Polish people living near the camps.
Arriving at 'Auschwitz I' and going through the gates, under the words "Arbeit Macht Frei," was surreal. The whole camp was bizarre--the buildings are along wide, tree-lined 'boulevards.' If you can shut out the
barbed wire fences and guard towers, you could be in a little village. But you can't shut out the fences and the towers. Inside some of the buildings are exhibits, and the stairs are worn from the millions of visitors every year.
In the room with all the hair that was taken from people, I felt ill. And in the room with all the shoes, they were displayed in such a way that I felt like the mass of them might crush me.
When I got to the courtyard with the execution wall, I cried. At the base of the wall are flowers and candles, and some teenage school boys were leaving candles.
In one of the buildings was a memorial exhibit to the Jews. One room had a glass tile on the floor with slabs of rock beneath it. Candles formed the Star of David on the glass. The room was dark, except for the candles, and a sad Jewish song was playing in the room. That was the second place I cried.
After Auschwitz I, we caught the shuttle 3km away to Auschwitz II--Birkenau. It is massive. Nothing, no pictures or films or studies,
Arbeit macht frei
translation: work brings freedomprepared me for being there. To see the railroad tracks making their way through the Death Gate is ominous. Most of this camp was destroyed by the Nazis when they fled, but the remaining chimney stacks seem to go on forever.
I felt ill walking through the remaining buildings, with the rows of three-tiered bunks. I've seen photos, but I never imagined the scale of it.
At the far end of the camp are the remains of the gas chambers and crematoria. and the ponds where the ashes were dumped. The ponds were still, and the simple monuments marking them were beautiful. But there is no peace there.
Beyond the ruins and the ponds was the bathhouse, where the prisoners were received at the camp. The original floor is not walked on by visitors now--there is a glass floor for us. It seems such a simple way to honour those who passed through there, but it is very stirring. There is a memorial room with photos of the victims, and poems and letters. I cried for the third time when I rounded a corner and came to a wall of photos lit by a few lamps. On
the polished floor in front of the photos were three wreaths, and the photos and the wreaths were reflected in the floor.
This part of Poland is incredibly beautiful. Beyond the camp are woods, and it is hard to comprehend how something so horrible could happen in such a beautiful place.
Just past the end of the railroad tracks, marked in the Polish way with flowers, was a monument calling for the cry of despair to stay in that place forever as a lesson. But genocide is still a reality in the world, and we still don't do anything about it, because we think it doesn't affect us.
It is a long walk back the the gates from this end of the camp, and the bitterly cold wind that was blowing all day chilled me through to my heavy heart. It was cold, but it seemed fitting for this place.
It was a really hard day, and at the end of it, I feel disconnected from humanity. I don't know how to fit into a world that hasn't learned from what happened in this place, and places like this all over Europe. But the quote that
will stay with me is this: "He who saves a single soul saves the world."
Paul, if you are reading this, thank you for being so patient with me when we were there.
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kate
non-member comment
Moving Tribute
Your photos and written piece are a moving tribute to what happened in that place. People need to see that to believe it - because otherwise, its very hard to imagine that such horrible things occured in a place like that. k