My husband and I went to Auschwitz with a school group from our high school son's boarding school. We traveled by bus from Bratislava, Slovakia to the camp in Poland. It was a full day's drive, so we left very early in the morning to arrive at the camp in the afternoon for our tour.
When we arrived we found our tour guide
and began the walking tour of the museum/facility which lasted about four
hours. The first thing we did was enter in through the gate with the infamous
saying - "work makes freedom" while looking down the long line of
double barbed wire fencing. Many of the former barracks have been altered to
contain displays. Photos were allowed outside, but were not allowed inside, so I only have a few photos.
There was much that was disturbing. I have seen several
movies and read books before about the holocaust and Auschwitz ,
but that is nothing compared to being there. There is nothing that can prepare
you for it. Even the trees that grow there today have the tall, emaciated
appearance of concentration camp victims as if the place is still accursed. (One thing I didn't notice until I was getting these
photos ready for publication was that they are very dark. These photos were
taken in late afternoon on a sunny day with 400 speed film in an analog camera. All the other photos
on the roll were fine, but these two were dark.)
There were
several things which especially struck me. Those things which brought home the suffering and death of individuals. It is easy to get lost in the huge numbers and the factory-like efficiency of the use, abuse and murder of so many people here. It can be heart-numbing, so that it isn't real, it is numbers and statistics and some great horror, instead of millions of small ones. Several things along the way punctured that clinical analysis and numbness.
The first one came as I entered one
of the display rooms and I was struck by a strong and strange smell, like the
inside of an old chair. As I entered fully into the room I saw that along a
long wall was a deep glass case full of hair. Over 4,400 pounds, more than two tons of it. Laid out
in rows. It was a small amount of the hair shorn from the women who were
murdered here. Much of it still braided as it was when the woman fixed her hair
that last time before meeting her death. I was pierced by this. As I thought
about why this particular display struck me so deeply, I realized several things.
I will confess like my hair. Many women have a love/hate relationship with their
hair. I don't. Maybe it is because it never gains weight like the rest of me. Sometimes I felt it
was my only good feature. I allow myself a smidgen of vanity about it. I shouldn't but I do. I do feel it is my crowning glory, long, soft, shiny. A
woman's hair is a strong symbol of her femininity. This hair was sold and used
to make a burlap type material. They had a bolt of it in the room. I thought of
my hair lying in that dusty case or woven into this coarse fabric. It seemed
such a personal affront and an attack on femininity to take such beauty and
make something so ugly and utilitarian out of it.
The second
thing that struck me was a room full of shoes and next to it a small display of
children's shoes. Within the children's case was a small pink cowboy boot. I noticed
it because in the midst of the dull, worn, brown shoes, here was this beautiful
pink boot. It looked like something a little American girl would wear today. I
thought about the little girl who owned these boots, probably wealthy to own
such frivolous boots in such an impractical color. Did she have to beg and fuss
to bring her special boots? Each family was allowed only one suitcase. Did her parents indulge her this one last time? Perhaps
she wore them on her little feet. Did she pretend to be a cowgirl when she wore
them? Did she ride a pretend horse and gallop along in them? She would not have lived even hours after arriving at this camp and her
shoes were thrown in the pile with all the rest to be resold to the German
people as were the useful clothing and other articles the prisoners brought
with them. She would have been one of the last groups of people brought here
because her little boots still remain. My heart was pierced.
The second wave hit me as we walked down
a hallway with a gallery of photos of the prisoners. Originally the photos were
used to ID the prisoners but after an average of three months of hard labor
they would die. Worked and starved to death. In their very efficient manner, the Nazis kept meticulous records of those who arrived and died. They very quickly found that the people were so
changed in appearance after months of hardship and starvation that their entry photos could not be used to ID them upon death, so they began tattooing the numbers on their bodies. The photos struck me in two
ways. One was the expressions in the eyes of the people, a few were angry, one
looked insane, and most were just beaten and resigned. They had dead eyes. As I
looked at the photos on both sides of the hallway I thought of all these men
who had died here, then I heard our guide say that those on the right-hand side
were photos of women and those on the left were men. As I had looked at each
face, I had no idea they were women. After only a short time here there was no
vestige of beauty or femininity left in them.
The third
time reality struck was when I went down into the gas chamber and saw this place where
so many had died, then we went next door to the crematorium and saw the ceiling
black with soot. We were standing there and my husband, Jon came up beside me looking at
the ceiling he said something which made me realize that all that black soot
and smoke stain came from human beings. It was such a strange feeling.
One of the
last things we saw in Auschwitz was a
political prisoner’s barracks. These prisoners were tortured here and often
shot against a wall in a courtyard between two barracks. The barracks windows
were covered so those inside couldn't witness the executions. What was
especially cruel about this building was a special punishment area in the
basement. Three tiny rooms were built which were completely closed in with a
small door at the bottom. A prisoner would have to crawl on their belly to
enter this room. Four prisoners were put in each room which was just big enough
for the four of them to stand in. Literally, just big enough to stand in. It
was probably two feet square. This punishment was meted out to those who lagged
behind in their work or fell behind in the marching to the nearby fields and
forests for work. They were considered lazy. They would be forced to spend
their nights in here - propped up by the bodies of these other prisoners with
no air ventilation, then expected to head to work the next morning. It wasn't bad enough that these prisoners were starved, worked, and beaten to death. The
Nazis planned and built these punishment rooms as well. Anyone who believes
that man is basically good should come to this place, hear the stories, not
just of the SS commanders and guards, but also of the fellow prisoners and the
cruelty they were capable of against other and see what mankind is capable of.
So while much of what I saw at Auschwitz
showed me what we, as people are, there was the story of one man, that showed
what we can be in Christ. Though men
are fallen and cruel and given over to the evil in their hearts, there are also
men and women who reflect their transformed nature and the love and strength of
Christ. We heard the story of one such Christian and he truly was a
"little Christ", which is what the word Christian literally means.
In the same
basement where prisoners were punished by standing up all night is a cell which
is now a memorial to a Polish priest named Father Kolbe. Whenever a prisoner
escaped, ten people were chosen to die in their place. After one such escape
ten men were chosen to die by starvation. One man with a wife and children
begged for mercy. He received none from the camp commandant, but Father Kolbe heard
this man’s pleas and volunteered to take his place. Amazingly the officer in
charge allowed this. Father Kolbe shepherded his last little flock as one by
one they died. The guards could hear them praying and singing hymns. After two
weeks the cell was needed for more victims and yet Father Kolbe still lived, so he was given a
lethal injection. He was ready to go home to Heaven. Even in the midst of the great
darkness of this place, God's great light shone.
