Entrance Gate to Auschwitz I Camp
Why? How? What could have been done? What should have been done? Could this have been prevented?
Upon my arrival at the Center for Dialogue and Prayer in
Oswiecim, I already had many questions floating around in my mind. Some questions were very personal to me,
relating to my own faith and personal understanding of the Holocaust, and
others were regarding information I had not yet had a chance to acquire. Most of these questions are still in my mind,
and after visiting Auschwitz I for the first time, many more questions have
developed for me.
It is an incredible and indescribable experience to face a
location developed for the destruction of human life, and to face the remains
of an evilly twisted ideology. Despite
numerous lessons about the Holocaust taught over several years through various
mediums, there was nothing that could have prepared me to walk through the
Auschwitz I camp.
As we entered the site, there was an immediate feeling of
the stillness in the air. Everything
that I had seen in pictures and films suddenly became real and felt
overwhelmingly heavy. I was filled with
apprehension while approaching the gate with the infamous phrase, “Arbeit Macht
Frei,” as shown in the image above. For me, the iconic image of this gate always
represented the complete and utter worst of humanity, and up until I reached
the gate, it had always seemed worlds away.
Thankfully, as our group walked through this gate and the
camp grounds, we were led by an extremely knowledgeable and compassionate guide
who was able to provide us with a comprehensive understanding of the events
that had taken place. Each exhibit that
we witnessed was comprised of astounding facts and artifacts, telling a more
horrendous story than I could have ever imaged.
The most striking pieces I encountered centered on the
experience of the child victims. A
particular picture of Hungarian Jews arriving at the camps stands out boldly in
my mind. In the bottom right corner of
this picture stood a young child, no more than four years old. The innocence of such a young age cannot
easily be described, and yet this child was already condemned to death due to
his family’s religious affiliations. After seeing this picture, we encountered an exhibit containing
belongings confiscated from victims upon their arrival to the camp. One specific portion of this exhibit was
displaying the shoes of children. It is
unthinkable to me that anyone would be able to harm a child, let alone thoughtlessly
kill thousands. So, because these images
and exhibits struck me so greatly, they have also left me with much to think
about.
I came into this experience with questions I hoped to
answer, but I am beginning to realize that some questions are only meant to
inspire thinking, not necessarily to be answered. Now, what I truly hope to gain are not
answers, but experiences that I can share with those who have not been blessed
with an opportunity to visit these sites themselves.
-Joanna Ziegelbauer
Class of 2014
Class of 2014
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