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| "Work Makes You Free" Entering the gate at the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp |
Traveling is almost always seen wholly as enjoyable and
relaxing. The traveling that people
generally associate with holidays or summer vacations is lighthearted, open
minded, and frivolous. The truth is that
the history, both past and recent, of certain regions of the world can be much less comforting than
this “holiday” ideal, and in some regions it is quite difficult to escape
without facing these unfortunate and uncomfortable truths. Learning about the history of the regions and countries I
visit is one of my favorite parts of traveling, although on days like today it
can be quite a heavy load to handle.
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| Barracks with beyond inhumane conditions |
Today Jennifer and I spent the day touring two of the three
main Auschwitz concentration camps compounds (there are about 40 individual
camps that are included under the Auschwitz name in the region), made famous by
the horrendous and unthinkable acts that happened here during the time of Nazi
occupation of Poland. Auschwitz and
Auschwitz-Birkenau were two of the largest and most notorious concentration and extermination camps
during this time.
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| One of the execution walls between barracks |
As we began our tour in the early afternoon, we were
silenced by the seemingly endless expanse of barbed wire surrounding the
compound and similarly unending row of “blocks” or barracks set up for the
prisoners. Many of the prisoners
initially brought to the infamous Auschwitz camp were Poles from around the region,
followed by Gypsies, Russian POWs, and then most famously hundreds of thousands
of European Jews.
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| Barbed wire surrounding Block 23 |
Although both Jennifer and I studied the history of the
Holocaust in an incredible class during our time at Marist, the expositions we
witnessed and the information we received were nothing less than harrowing. The truth of situations such as the events of
this genocide never lose their ability to shock and terrify individuals walking
through the sites as a student of history. The ceaseless question whispered by each of our group mates: who could ever be capable of such
atrocities?
The tour of the barracks and sleeping arrangements, the solitary confinement and
punishment wards, viewing the firing squad wall, touring the endless personal possessions stolen from the victims, and walking through the inhumane sanitary conditions were all individually
upsetting, but the moment that shook me most was walking into the Auschwitz gas chamber and crematorium with my youngest sister next to me.
While we walked we were asked to keep silent, but I don’t
think I could have spoken if it were necessary.
The idea of all of the innocent, dehumanized, tormented, and
horrified pairs of sisters (or pairs of brothers, mothers and their children,
and sometimes entire families) forced to walk through these same doors exactly
as we were, and not entirely too long ago, and knowing that they would never
live to see the light of day was a heavy burden to consider while simultaneously
reflecting on the catastrophic loss of these victims, their families, and their nations.
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| Horrific amounts of barbed wired surrounding the compounds |
What on earth could they have possibly said to comfort one another in these last moments as their impending doom lay in wait? Separated by sex, and then age, there would have been a high chance that if we were brought here as prisoners that this would have been exactly how we would have met our own fate. The endless rows of pictures of the sibling victims from the barracks were flooding my mind during the moments of walking through those horrifying walls.
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| Entering the gas chamber and crematorium |
The happenstance of our freedom and rights as women is something we have
constantly reflected upon during our travels, but during days when
such grievous atrocities are not only brought to light, but put in front of
your face, it is hard to move on without being put into a rather severe state
of deep, arguably depressing contemplation.
“We are alive. We are human, with good and bad in us. That's all we know for sure. We can't create a new species or a new world. That's been done. Now we have to live within those boundaries . What are our choices? We can despair and curse, and change nothing. We can choose evil like our enemies have done and create a world based on hate. Or we can try to make things better.”
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