Auschwitz and Auschwitz Birkenau

Auschwitz and Auschwitz Birkenau
June 16, 2010
On the train to Warsaw. Just made out last concentration camp visits to Auschwitz and Auschwitz Birkenau. That was the last hurrah as concentration camps went this trip. All of the camps were disturbing and powerful in their own ways. Auschwitz is the camp that has rooms full of hair, suitcases, brushes, shoes, glasses, hair, etc. These things evoked an emotional response, no doubt. I couldn’t take pictures, which wouldn’t have done this place justice, of all the things I saw. If you go there, you’ll understand, otherwise I can only explain my experience to a very short extent. The pictures of the prisoners, of the children especially, made me look at the people who were at the camp in the face, in a way. I could see the fear in their eyes. I could see the scene behind the camera, something like “look this way or you die now.” I saw the shooting wall where prisoners would be stripped down naked and shot. I saw yet another gas chamber, and the remainder of two at Birkenau. The Nazis tried to demolish the evidence at Birkenau. The gas chambers and crematoriums are ruins now. I don’t like the reason why they are ruins, but it is kind of comforting to know they can’t ever be used again.
What a picture of human nature. I believe it’s true, that we all have the potential to bring out our deepest darkest parts of us, especially to survive. But what I think is most telling is when, even in the face of their own death, people still can still chose to do the human thing. This dilemma was tested to the fullest at these camps. Prisoners ran the camp in a lot of ways for the Nazis. Criminals, for example, beat the crap out of other prisoners of lower ranking status to keep more privileges than others. Prisoners had to decide who was going to be killed in the next pick sometimes, and if they did not pick, they would lose their own lives. Just think for a second about what you would do at your most desperate, I challenge you. Think of what choices you might make if your poverty was exploited and you were tired and hungry and had very very little… would you step on others to get what you want? Would you let some things go? Chose not to hear things? We are not perfect. Nobody is perfect. I am not. And, I have no idea what I would do in these circumstances, but now I do know what can happen at people’s absolute lowest. I was right there touching the product of fear, hate, greed, us vs. them, abuse… Are we immune from this? Will this really never happen again? It has, and is happening now. Do we accept this as fact? How do we stop it? What are we willing to give up? What are we willing to give? I’m left with more questions that I brought with me. It’s not about wanting to know how this could happen. I learned how it happened. What are we willing to do to really make it not happen again? Are we really learning our lesson?