I have heard many say that we should never forget. Never forget the tragedy, the people lost, the inhumanity. I didn’t understand that statement until I visited Auschwitz.
I first became interested in World War II and the holocaust as a child when we had to read The Diary of Anne Frank for school. I could relate to her because I was the same age. I could not imagine living a life like that. Her words haunted me, begging me to examine my life and how I engaged with others. Did I show compassion? Did I listen and observe those around me and make an informed decision based on that, or did I blindly follow others?
At thirteen I was living with my grandparents, and I had a person I could go to with questions on what it was like during World War II. My Grandpa had served in the Marines and had been deployed during the European Campaign. He didn’t like to talk about the war, but occasionally, when I had a question regarding what I was reading in my history books, he would expand on a point or two. Fascinated, I couldn’t understand why this happened; I liked everyone no matter what color or religion, and it was unfathomable to me that someone would target a group of people based on nothing more than their religion. I wanted to visit Anne Frank’s hiding place someday to see where she lived, I also wanted to see where she ended up after being captured. The lessons I learned by reading The Diary of Anne Frank have impacted my whole life.
Life for many of these people before the war was a beautiful ordinary life, full of difficulties or pleasures. Personal accomplishments, looking forward to the many milestones that each of us have in our lives.
Birthdays, anniversaries, coming of age celebrations, we all have them, even different cultures have a version of these milestones. This realization makes this dark period of world history so disturbing it’s because it could happen to any group of people in the world.
My questions today are, have we learned anything? Are we keeping vigilant? Will that period in history become so distant that, to our youth it resembles more of a fairy tale rather than a fact, losing its ability to warn us of the pitfalls of absolute power and turning a blind eye to the inhumanity of a government that is committing such atrocities. I have also asked myself the hard questions would I have turned a blind eye to what was happening? Would I have had the courage to hide someone from authorities, breaking the law and risking death for myself and my family? I hope I would have had the courage of conviction to do the morally right thing.
Forty-three years after reading The Diary of Anne Frank, my family and I were planning a trip to Krakow Poland. Researching what activities and museums were in or near Krakow, I discovered that the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum was close by and that we could book a tour. I was about to get one of my wishes granted, to visit where Anne Frank ended up.
Before leaving home, we arranged for a bus to pick us up at our apartment and take us to the museum. Carefully reading their website, we found out that there were restrictions on the size of bag you could bring in. I measured a bag to be sure it was compliant and packed a smaller one just to be sure. On the day of our tour, I took the smaller of the two bags just to be safe. I didn’t want to miss this opportunity because of something as silly as having a bag that was too big.
A van picked us up early in the morning outside of our apartment building. It was a one and a half-hour trip from Krakow to Auschwitz. It was a full six-hour day!
Excited to see what I had only seen in history books and in my imagination, nothing could have prepared me for the reality. There are rules for visiting the museum, I would suggest that you spend some time becoming familiar with them prior to your trip. (click the link here Rules for Visiting )
The day was sunny and calm; I had the chance to see the countryside from my window seat in the van. Arriving at the museum, overwhelmed with the quiet hushed tones of
those around me; I realized we would spend the day in reverence to those that had lost their lives.
In line to go through security, I witnessed other people being asked to take their bags back to their vehicles because it was too big to allow into the museum. Bags could not exceed 30x20x10 cm, I was thankful that I had chosen a small bag to bring!
Just past security we picked up our headphone guiding devices; and met our guide. The hushed tone of the guide further proof that you needed the headphones just to hear what the guide would say during your tour. A very somber and reverent attitude permeated the grounds.
The written word describing the Auschwitz did not prepare me for the reality of seeing
and feeling the camp. From photos on the wall of the prisoners as they entered the camp to the displays of their belongings, I was shocked and broken at every turn. There were ordinary objects that impacted me profoundly, eliciting emotions that I did not expect; images I can never get out of my head.
What amazed me was that each person in our group had a different item that seemed to impact them, shake them emotionally. For me it was the pile of shoes, I could place
myself in those shoes from the moment they were bought, worn and ultimately taken off of my feet. I could feel it, imagine it, and brought to tears by the emotions I felt while looking at those shoes. For my husband; the mountain of hair moved him. Each person in our group had something that moved them.
Our emotional journey did not end once we left Auschwitz, we still had to tour Birkenau. It was at Birkenau that I realized that the world around me seemed to be void of sound. It was like the universe was weeping with us as we journeyed back in history, and our tour guide recounted the moments when families arrived in box cars and how they would be separated, much like cattle. I had seen that term in a book somewhere and didn’t understand its accuracy until I was standing and looking at the tracks and the pathways. One leading to an area where there were showers and one leading to buildings.
The biggest surprise was the childish drawings, like the ones my own children have produced, were on the walls of one of the cabins giving evidence that children lived here. There was no escaping the sadness that hung over us like a cloud on this bright sunny day.
By the end of our day, as we climbed back into our van to make the one and a half hour journey back to Krakow, we were all humbled. The quiet surrounding me, not unwelcome as it left me to ponder all I had seen. I had more questions now, but I was resolved to one idea; this museum must continue to exist, we must NEVER forget the lives that have passed through these gates.
The distance I had felt prior to visiting was stripped away as I walked the same grounds as the condemned. I no longer had that distance, I was able to see everything from their point of view and even though it was an uneasy feeling I am glad I had the experience.
Don’t miss this experience if you can, visit, learn, question and accept that something this horrific happened and vow to never let it happen again. The only way to do that is to eliminate the distance that the comfort of history books afford us, history must be made alive for us to remember. The holocaust is real, it happened!
Humbly,
~Joy