The day has come. Today, I walk into the valley of the shadow of death. Rather cliche of a phrase but certainly appropriate. It is a place I have heard so much about. A place I haveread so much about. A place that has caused so much of an ever-lasting pain. A place that ended families and legacies. A place that reveals the suffering that humanity can bring to this world. Today, that is where I go.
Arbeit Macht Frei. Work Makes You Free. Those are the first words one sees when they walk into the camp. Walking under those words, one cannot help but imagine the prisoners walking on those same grounds. It is hard to get control of your thoughts as you enter the camp. That's just the first thing you see and feel as you enter the camp. This is just the beginning. Arbeit Macht Frei.
As we went through the camp, I saw the most daunting of things - the personal items. The suitcases, the clothes, the hair. Items that belonged to the victims. The hair exhibit is as close to the victims that you can physically get to and looking at it is almost unfathomable. There is a small exhibit at Auschwitz, with projections across the room, that shows videos of Nazi speeches that dehumanized Jews. The speeches were met with thunderous applause. You then get to see Hitler scream and rant about his evil thoughts on Jews. That is when anger set. Those speeches laid the foundation for what Auschwitz would become and thus burning 1.1 million people.
Later on, there was a beautiful exhibit of videos of Jewish life prior to the Second World War. It seemed like a place of happiness and comfort. It was peaceful, showing people smiling and being with their family and loved ones. A simple time revealed through individuals before the darkness would consume their lives. They never saw the horrors that would overshadow the light that once was.
It was Auschwitz II (also known as Birkenau) that was challenging to walk through. Birkenau was the exterminational element of the camp. The conditions that existed were beyond horrendous. I had a hard enough time just standing there. As I walked the beaten path, I imagined those who walked on it during the Holocaust and wondering what was going on through their minds. As you walk further down, you can see where the gas chambers were. The Germans destroyed them but remnants remain and we can see how it was used. Somehow, I haven’t cried yet. Somehow.
After it all, we as a group circled and said the mourner’s Kaddish (prayer for mourning), which I had not had to do before. That was a small moment of power to me.
After the tour of Auschwitz Birkenau, we sat down and reflected on our experiences and our thoughts with Sister Mary O’Sullivan of the Auschwitz Center for Dialogue and Prayer. She is a wonderful and sweet Irish Catholic nun and I am thankful that I got to reflect with her about my experience at the camp. At this point, all I could say was that I was still processing what I had seen and what it had meant. Again, I had known of Auschwitz-Birkenau since I was a child. I had read it in books and seen it in films. I even talked with survivors of the camp. But to be there on those grounds was an element separate from all I had learned. There’s no right way to emotionally prepare yourself for Auschwitz-Birkenau but nevertheless, it is important to see it with your own eyes and feel the earth it stands on through the soles of your feet. The grounds that its victims walked.
After reflecting further, I still didn’t know what to make of my experience. I asked Sister O’Sullivan about those thoughts and she told me something that will stick with me forever. She said “Let it sit with you and when you’re ready, let it speak to you.” What does that mean. I hope in reading this again in the future, I will have some answers to what Sister O'Sullivan said.
As I reflect on those words, I in some way felt defeated and overwhelmed. That’s when the number six million hit me. Six million people who shared my faith and peoplehood. Six million people murdered just because of their faith. Just because of my faith. I felt unwanted by the world, just floating in the nothingness. The fact that my people suffered this way and yet there are those that exist who simply do not care. There are those who still hate me not for me but for my faith. Why? How, after all this, can people still hate the Jews? As these thoughts hit me on the bus ride back to Krakow, that’s when the tears hit me.
I feel small, smaller than I’ve ever felt before in my life. But despite that and with the tears running down my face, I feel proud. I am proud of my culture and what it brings to the world. I am proud that despite all odds, it survives and thrives to this day. I am proud that despite it all, I can stand on the grounds of Auschwitz-Birkenau because it failed. It failed to exterminate me and for me to stand on its grounds is the greatest form of rebellion against evil. I stand on those grounds and I say “Never Again!” This experience will stick with me forever.
*Update as of December 2019*
It has now been a year and a half since I walked the grounds of Auschwitz-Birkenau. It is a little hard for me to reread this without tearing up a bit. Perhaps that speaks to the magnitude of the experience of walking on Auschwitz-Birkenau and the thoughts that came with being there. I am still trying to find out what the words that Sister O'Sullivan said to me. I am going to Israel in about a month. Maybe I'll find an answer there.
Noah: I think it's possible to overwhelmed by the evil that took place, feel small and powerless, both as an individual and a Jew, yet to feel proud that your People turned out to be invincible in the face of such evil power, that the Nazis proved that the Jews are indestructible. That indestructibility in my mind does not point back to intransigence, as Sartre would have it, in Anti-Semite and Jew, but rather to a Power more powerful that the human power to do evil.best, JP
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