My Lessons from Auschwitz by Kara-Jane Senior (Activities Officer)

Wednesday 25-01-2017 - 12:24

My Lessons from Auschwitz

In November 2016 I took part in the Holocaust Educational Trust’s Lessons from Auschwitz, along with other student leaders invited by the Union of Jewish Students (UJS). The programme included discussions on pre and post WWII life for the Jewish community, a talk from a Holocaust survivor and a visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland. This is my account of a life-changing experience, which has furthered my resolve to campaign against prejudice and oppression. Please be aware that you may find some things I describe particularly upsetting. I think it is important to talk about them and for us all to know the true reality of what happened, but please do remember to take care of yourself and not read more than you are able.

My visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau

Driving through the Polish town of Oswiecim you wouldn’t realise that this was where the biggest mass murder in human history took place. In German Oswiecim is known as Auschwitz.

The town looks like any other, with people living normal lives. Our first stop takes us to the site where pre-WWII stood a synagogue. An image of a menorah made of bark by a local school marks the spot where the Jewish inhabitants of the town once worshiped. Before WWII 58% of the town’s population were Jewish, but today there is not even one. Looking at images of the town before the war, we discuss what life was like in Oswiecim: fairly harmonious. The spot of the synagogue sits between two Christian Churches illustrating that once there was acceptance between both religious communities.

The next stop isn’t far away and everyone is feeling a little anxious, not really sure of how to react to the biggest death camp ever. Red brick buildings suddenly appear on the right hand side of the coach: Auschwitz I. But the visitor entrance throws us off a little due to its touristy nature with a food stall and hordes of coaches. Across the road is a hotel and some restaurants - it’s not quite what I imagined of such a place marked with evil.

Inside Auschwitz I we quickly reach the infamous gate “Arbeit macht frei” (“work sets you free”) - the wicked irony of it. You can almost hear a Nazi soldier sneer whilst saying the phrase. The “freedom” for most that passed through this gate was death. But through the gate this camp in areas almost looks...pretty; with the bright red bricks of the former Polish military barracks, set against silhouettes of dark wooden structures, trees full of autumn leaves around the perimeter and a light dusting of snow on the ground. The thought that such a place could even be considered photogenic is disconcerting. Of course that is now, when the camp is almost deserted, quiet and clean, and not in the depths of winter. The buildings don’t seem that bad, but that’s without knowing how people resided there; how they were forced to subsist. No SS soldiers and no starved prisoners.

Some of the buildings today contain exhibitions of photographs of prisoners and the possessions that were taken from everyone that arrived at the site, along with other artefacts. Among these are shoes - the tiniest children’s shoes particularly grab our emotions - and a large collection pots and pans illustrates how these people never realised where they were being taken. One exhibition is especially chilling as it’s a collection of human hair cut off of every prisoner on arrival. Knowing what became of the majority of people that entered this camp makes me think about how this hair is all that remains of some of the lives so cruelly extinguished. Another exhibition shows a few blurred photographs revealing the true horror of the death camp, that some prisoners risked their lives to take. These few images depict naked people being marched to the gas chamber, and of the pile of bodies after - the furnaces couldn’t cope with the sheer number of people the Nazis were killing so they ended up burning bodies en masse out in the open. The photographs are the nearest most of us will ever come to what happened at Auschwitz-Birkenau. It is beyond belief, but it was far too real.

There are two areas of this site that could never be described as photogenic: the death wall and the gas chamber. The death wall is where thousands of prisoners (mainly political) were shot. Today there is a reconstruction of the wall as the original was demolished. A shrine of candles and flowers fills the space in front - in this place prisoners were also subjected to forms of torture. Moving on to the last part of our tour of the Auschwitz I site we enter one of the most emotionally taxing parts of the day, which is the gas chamber. I step into this small grey box almost before I am ready, following a small flow of people which helps give me energy to do so. I stand in the room where so many people were needlessly murdered out of sheer hate. In the ceiling I can see the holes where the poison was inserted once everyone was locked in. I hover for longer than I may wish to really feel the reality of the place, thinking of all those people that breathed their last here. The crematoria is right next door, the first furnace barely two metres from the gas chamber room. I really can’t imagine just how it would feel to be one of the prisoners moving the dead bodies, who may be friends or family, and knowing that that fate awaited you too.

After leaving Auschwitz I, I have a bit of time to think. I have a little German blood in me and it’s rather unnerving to think that part of my cultural heritage involved the regime that did this. I don't know much about my family's history during the war, but they would have been part of a society that was being indoctrinated to hate people based on quite arbitrary things (in my belief). Quite often the Holocaust feels quite distant from our reality but it is entwined in my own existence if even indirectly.

We drive down the road for a few minutes to our final stop, Auschwitz II (Birkenau). The infamous entrance seems somewhat smaller than it appears in the black and white photographs - perhaps the lack of colour makes it even more imposing. This site looks much more the images of concentration and death camps shown in films, of thin wooden structures, though few remain today. 100, 000 prisoners were packed in here, the size of a town - it’s a big site but not that big! However, many that entered the gate never became prisoners because if they weren’t deemed useful (fit and strong) they were sent straight off to the gas chambers.

This camp is vastly different to Auschwitz I. No part of it looks like it was built for humans to live in. Our tour guide explains the extent of the disgrace of this place. The huts would have been full of three storey bunk beds, which often collapsed injuring or even killing the many people crammed into them. Sanitation was abysmal. No soap, toilet paper or sanitary products. Prisoners were only allowed to visit the washrooms twice a day, sometimes not even managing that, so you can just imagine what substances people were sleeping in. There was no privacy, no dignity; not one nod towards prisoners being real living human beings with basic needs.

We walk around the rest of the expansive site, visiting the remains of two crematoria the Nazis destroyed before the Allies came to liberate the camp, trying to cover up the evidence. Then past the large memorial to all the victims of the camp, with a plaque in every language of the people recorded as being prisoner there. The sun is now starting to retreat to below the horizon so as we walk through a wooded area past the memorial the place feels much creepier, though maybe this is because of how peaceful the place feels in contrast to the terror that once occurred here. We reach the registration building where those “granted” a few more miserable moments of life were literally stripped of everything including their identity and became a number. Here at least the showers were real.

Entering the last room of this building there is an exhibition of photos and stories of a few Jewish families. Much of what this trip is about is re-humanising the victims, giving back individuals their identities. Looking at the happy faces of people living their ordinary lives pre-WWII really hits home that it wasn’t just numbers that were murdered; it was people, with family and friends to love and whom love them, with lives like any other; aspirations, skills and talents that society benefitted from. Here is where our tour of Auschwitz-Birkenau ends.

At the start of our tour in Auschwitz I our tour guide said something that has stuck with me. Political prisoners were sent to the camp for what they did (though the justification of their sentences is doubtful) but the Jews were sent there for who they were. Our guide has been taking people around Auschwitz-Birkenau for about 10 years yet she has not become immune to the horror. She spoke with passion and ensured that we were left in no doubt that the victims of the regime had done nothing to deserve what they were subjected to.

Before getting back on the coach to take us to the airport we have one final experience of the day. A Rabbi who has joined us on the trip leads a memorial ceremony at the end of the railway tracks by the Memorial. Sixth form students take turns reading poems about the Holocaust. The Rabbi speaks passionately of love and tolerance, and finishes singing the song El Molei Rachamim (For Martyrs of the Holocaust) in Hebrew. The sound is beautiful - the sound of a people so cruelly torn apart. All day I have held back tears but in this moment I can’t anymore and they stream down. The Rabbi finishes the ceremony blowing the shofar (a ram’s horn used for religious purposes) and we each light a candle and place in down on the railway line. Light in the darkness, both literally and symbolically. There is always hope in the darkest depths of despair. I feel hope that there is goodness in this world that will fight for love and tolerance.

    

Never again(?)

Before taking part in this programme I certainly didn’t think British society was void of prejudice, but in a follow-up seminar to the trip my eyes were opened even wider. The event was held in the Jewish Community Centre in London, and before entering my bag was searched. I wasn’t completely shocked by this, particularly being in the Capital. But later we heard from one of our discussion facilitators, who is Jewish, that being searched can be an everyday occurrence for people attending Jewish schools and centres. I have heard of schools with high level security before, but this really highlighted that anti-Semitism is prevalent enough in the current day for Jews to fear for their safety. Looking back historically Jews have been used as scapegoats for various issues throughout time. Putting the Holocaust in this context illustrates the deep-rooted problem of anti-Semitism - it wasn’t just the conception of one man.

During the post-trip seminar we looked more closely at anti-Semitism, both thinking about the historical conclusions of the Holocaust, and in contemporary society. Some prejudice is obvious for most people to recognise, which whilst awful is more straightforward to condemn. It’s the less blatant prejudices that can often go unchallenged by the majority, such as nuances in the language people use or insensitivities towards cultural traditions. Sometimes people really don’t mean to cause upset but their ignorance means they do. Other people think in certain ways due to lack of understanding and fear, again caused by ignorance. Sadly, some consciously seek to hurt others too, but the way to combat all of these things is through education. This is why Universities are so key in making our communities more tolerant and harmonious. It’s important that students are encouraged to challenge and to stand up against hate.

Unfortunately, since the Holocaust there have been other genocides most notoriously in Cambodia and Rwanda. However, as one staff member of the Union of Jewish Students put it, if you think about it you could consider all murders as genocide as, we are all part of one race: the Human Race. Just look in the news and on social media; there is most certainly far too much hate, violence and war around in the world today. It is about time we actually learnt our lessons from Auschwitz.

 

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