Never Again

I've been home from my Poland trip for almost two weeks, and I've posted all about it ... except about my visit to the Auschwitz Concentration Camp.  I know that part of the reason I have been so slow about doing this is that it was a very humbling, numbing and overwhelming experience, and honestly, I don't believe I can do it justice.  But it's also about the political landscape in the U.S. today.  More about that later.

I know I won't be able to convey the enormity of a place like Auschwitz sufficiently, for I can hardly clear the chatter in my own head about it.  It's like you learned about the Holocaust in school, perhaps even studied it on your own.  But those are just words on paper, no matter how much you felt about the words while reading them.  You just can't imagine how inadequate your knowledge of the Holocaust really is until you physically see something like Auschwitz. 

Kristen in front of the "Work Makes You Free" sign


The day of our visit was gray and dreary, which I think is entirely befitting a visit to Auschwitz.  I don't know that I could reconcile a beautiful and sunny day with it; it belongs to the cold and the bleak. 






The bus dropped us off a short walk away from the Auschwitz 1 grounds, and that walk was lined with the stories of various people. 

 
These were real people - with real lives, and real family and friends, dreams and aspirations.  It's hard to believe that they were put in a place like this for nothing more than who their ancestors were. Who among us got to choose that?  I wanted to read every story, to at least pay that much of a tribute, but I knew there wasn't time ... there are just so many. 

After going through the museum entrance, we were left to wander the main grounds of Auschwitz 1.  This is an area of several acres with identical brick buildings neatly lined up.  These were originally barracks for the Polish Army, prior to being confiscated by the Germans.  The SS selected this site because it was out in the middle of nowhere, and was close to an existing rail line. These buildings eventually held more than 20,000 people until Auschwitz 2, or Birkenau, was built.  Today the buildings host a number of exhibits about the camp, as well as thousands of portraits of those killed there. 

Most of the buildings were either devoted to a certain aspect of camp life, and/or were an exhibit sponsored by a country. 

I have to confess that what I found most disturbing were the exhibits of ordinary objects - shoes, luggage, glasses.  But when you see such objects in these huge, impersonal piles - knowing that the prisoners were stripped of literally EVERYTHING as soon as they arrived - and you look at any given pair of shoes or glasses, and think, "That was a person.  A person who probably did not make it out of there alive." (The majority of prisoners were killed immediately; the remaining prisoners were worked and starved, and often subjected to medical experimentation.)  

 

Prisoners, standing in thin clothes no matter what the weather was, had to wait until the roll call list was verified ... however long that took.  If someone had escaped, it could take hours (the record was 19 hours).  If someone fainted or wet or soiled themselves, they were shot immediately. 

The court yard between Buildings 10 and 11 were where executions were held.  Many medical experiments were conducted in Building 10, and Building 11 was where court was held.  Prisoners endured lengthy court sessions for anything from working too slowly to pulling out a gold tooth to buy bread.  Punishments ranged from flogging to execution by firing squad in front of the court yard's "Death Wall."  Later, a mortuary/crematorium was converted to a gas chamber, which was used until 1943 when larger facilities were built at Auschwitz 11, or Birkenau.    We spent three or four hours there, and could easily have spent many more hours.  The enormity of what happened there is hard to imagine, let alone convey.  Believe me when I say I have only touched the surface.  Never again. That's the morally-correct reaction to the Holocaust; the only sane retribution we can possibly make is to vow that such atrocities will never happen again.  But they have happened again .... they ARE happening again... in places all around the world.  Places far enough removed from our safe little lives here in the U.S. that we don't have to think about them if we don't want to. I am not one to lightly toss around a comparison to Hitler or the Holocaust.  In fact, I think it's disrespectful to those who actually went through it to compare anything but the most evil of evils to the Holocaust.  But I'm going to come pretty close to it in my concern about Donald Trump.  In my opinion, Trump is a clown, a buffoon, an egomaniac.  He throws insults around like he gets paid by the insult, and yet becomes offended quite easily.  He professes to be a winner, but has bankrupted pretty much every business he has put his hands to.  He comes down hard on illegal immigrants, even though he used them to build his buildings.   But he ain't no Hitler. What DOES give me chills, however, is that he has tapped into a side of the American people that is so ugly and hateful.  He has proposed banning and/or registering Muslims, and people cheer.  He wants to build a wall all around the United States, and people think he's the neatest thing since sliced bread.  He mocks women, disabled people and pretty much every group that is NOT old white males, and he continues to lead in the primary polls.  He fans the flame of distrust and hatred toward the "other" and people praise him for speaking his mind.   It is not Donald Trump that I'm afraid of.  It's us. I'm afraid when so many people are not only willing, but anxious to destroy the rights and liberties of others simply because they're different.  You know, Hitler was, at first, welcomed by the German people because he promised prosperity to all.  He then gradually built up the fear and loathing of the "other," taking liberties away bit by bit from them.  The Holocaust didn't happen overnight, but it all begins with believing a fellow human being is "less" than you.  Ask yourself who will protect you when you become part of a undesirable group. Never again begins with each of us.