Provincial Life Goes Global: My trip to hell on earth

This past weekend my class took a trip to Krakow, Poland, and while it was amazing and I loved exploring it- today’s blog is going to be focused on just one specific day on this trip. It was a day that reminded me of how truly important it is to love everyone, the day we visited Auschwitz-Birkenau, the location responsible for an estimated 1.1 million deaths. This blog most definitely won’t be fun or lighthearted, but it’s one that needs to be written if not for others to read, then for myself. I need it to help me process the things I saw and the feelings I felt as I walked where so many had suffered and died in unimaginable ways.

The infamous 'ARBEIT MACHT FREI' gate

The gas chamber

The feelings I experienced as I took steps where so many walked starving, beaten, sick, and without hope are some of the hardest feelings to describe. My skin crawled as I read ‘ARBEIT MACHT FREI’ on the gate above me as I entered Auschwitz. The phrase of false hope that all those innocent people read as they entered hell. I felt confused as we walked around Auschwitz because it looked nothing like I imagined. The buildings were relatively nice-looking brick barracks that were abandoned by the Polish army prior to the war and then turned into the home of something malicious by the Germans. I felt unsettled as I walked down the paths; paths that were lined with beautiful green trees. My eyes filled with tears as I stared at a room full of shoes, and my stomach began to turn when I saw the hair that was shaved off the heads of countless dead bodies so that the Nazi’s could sell it to be used for rugs. I had to look away as we walked into a room filled with pictures of men, women, and children so malnourished that their skin clung to the sharp edges of their bones. These pictures are ones I’ve seen before in textbooks, but have never felt real until I was standing where they stood. My heart broke as I saw the clothes of children who never had a chance to grow up, and whose childhoods were filled with unfathomable horrors instead of playgrounds, birthday parties, and innocent and pure happiness. I felt angry when we walked single file through the barracks used for the defiant prisoners. I was angry as we gazed into rooms meant for those sentenced to starve to death and standing cells the size of my closet meant for four people at a time as a ‘sleeping quarter’ after their 12+ hour shift of hard manual labor. I felt helpless as I walked down the halls and looked at the pictures of the residence of the camp, picture after picture with shells of people with not a flicker of life left in their eyes. I felt immense sadness and despair as I walked into the only gas chamber to survive the Nazi’s attempts to cover their tracks. The gas chamber that only survived because they stopped using it years before because taking 800 lives at a time wasn’t efficient enough. Because 800 lives, gone in less than an hour wasn’t efficient enough.

The ovens recreated with the original materials

One of the hardest things for me is trying to rationalize the number of lives discussed in the statistics that are constantly shared. Saying ‘800 lives’ is one thing but putting it in a way that you can truly see the impact is another. As I process this experience, I find myself looking up population counts to help me really comprehend these numbers. The gas chamber I walked into could have wiped out the population of Osceola, NE in less than an hour. The number of deaths from just Auschwitz-Birkenau is the equivalent of killing every single resident of Rhode Island. The true realization of just how many lives were taken proves just how powerful unwarranted hate can really be and how dangerous it can quickly become.

The train entrance to Birkenau

As we walked through the gates of Birkenau (or Auschwitz II), I looked around and saw what I previously envisioned what these camps would look like. We walked the length of the camp sprinkled with brick buildings and brick chimneys where the wooden barracks had once stood. As we reached the end of the camp, we saw the remains of the gas chambers, and I was again filled with a nauseous feeling. My eyes filled with tears for what felt like the hundredth time that day as I read to the inscription on the memorial in front of a small body of water where the ashes were dropped; “To the memory of the men, women, and children who fell victim to the Nazi genocide. Here lie their ashes. May their souls rest in peace.” No words can describe the emotions felt at the realization that I was surrounded by the ashes of thousands and thousands of innocent lives. We then went into one of the barracks where the children were housed. All the room had was three levels of wooden shelves that were called beds with the bottom ‘bunk’ simply being the dirt floor. These shelves were slightly larger than a twin bed and would sometimes collapse under the weight of the 8 or more people made to sleep on each level. My eyes fill with tears one more time as I tried to comprehend what it would have been like to exist in a hell like this.

The remains of one of the gas chambers

The Holocaust has always been an enigma to me. How could a travesty so large be accomplished so easily? How could people be so filled with hate? How could they think that massacring so many was the solution to their problems? After my visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau I feel that I am farther than ever from answering these questions. This experience is one that all people should have in their life, because the only way to keep from repeating history is to never forget. We can’t grow numb to this atrocity. We can’t just think of all the lives lost as statistics and numbers, and we can’t let prejudice and discriminatory thoughts plague our actions. After this experience on Monday, I have decided that I need to make a change in my life. I will thank God for not only the big blessings in my life but, the small ‘everyday’ blessings that I take for granted. I will go out of my way to help those in need and not just when it’s convenient for me. I will stand up for what I believe in, even if I am standing alone, and most importantly I will make a conscious effort to love unconditionally: family, friends, and strangers.