Deception

This picture shows the inside of one of the many Gas Chambers that were used during the Shoah.

This picture was taken in Auschwitz I. The moment I walked into this room I felt very cold and got a distinctive smell. This smell and taste of the Gas Chamber followed me all day for the next three days of this trip. I felt nauseous as I continued to “taste” this smell. As I walked in this room, all I could think was of those who marched into this room without knowing it was their last day. Many of them did not know what this room really was. They thought it was to take a “shower”. There was so much deception used into tricking them to walk without a fight into their death.

After going to Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II, Birkenau, we had a lecture with Father Manfield. He mentioned how the first victims of the Gas Chambers were not the Jews, but Germans who had a mental illness or a physical disability. Prior to hearing this, I thought that the Nazi would only hurt everyone who was not a German. I was very shocked to hear that they hurt even those who were from their same country. I thought they would glorify every German. This just made me angrier than I already was. How could anyone do this? My major is Psychology, and I hope to help those who have mental and physical disabilities. After seeing the gas chambers, and then hearing about this made me very scared of the control and influence one person can have on others.

In addition, I also learned how the Red Cross was used as a deception symbol. There was a building in Auschwitz II, Birkenau called “Red Cross.” Many of the victims who were weak and sick were tricked into thinking that they would be taken to the hospital to feel better. There would be a Red Cross symbol on the cart they were going to make them feel at ease that they were going to the hospital, but that was all a deception. The Red Cross was used to make the victims feel calm, and actually, believe they were going to get help. In this building, about 800 people would be brought in at a time.

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Dehumanization

A picture of how the bunkers looked in the wooden barracks.

This week has been a very emotional week for me as well as everyone in my team. We read several different texts to learn more about the Shoah, but there is so much that the readings could not cover. The picture above is a picture of one of the barracks that is located in Auschwitz II, Birkenau. When I first saw this barrack, my first thought was how similar it looks to a horse stable. The tour guide later mentioned that this, in fact, was a horse stable that was meant for 50 horses. However, the Nazi had about 400 to 500 men in just this barrack. I could not even begin to imagine how so many individuals would fit in such a small barrack.

In this picture, you can see that the “beds” they slept in were bunks of three. The stronger and healthier prisoners climb to the top bunk. Those who were weaker slept on the lower bunks. Being in the lower bunk made the weaker get even weaker. If anyone above them leaked any unwanted liquid (such as urine, throw up and so on), this would fall onto the person below them. In addition, you can see that there was no floor built. What you see is the ground level. When it rained or snow, the floor will be cover with water since there was no foundation. This only made the conditions in which they lived in, even worse. During the winter it was very cold, and during the summer it was too hot. Due to these conditions they lived in, diseases spread quickly. Moreover, there were 10 prisoners per bed. That means that each bunk of three had a total of 30 individuals.

In class and during our guided tours, we discussed how much weight the victims of the Shoah had lost due to lack of nutrient. Due to the drastic weight loss, the Nazis were able to fit so many victims into one bed. In the novel called The Holocaust Kingdom, Donat mentioned how low the calorie intake was. “Germans in Warsaw allotted 2,500 calories a day…The Jews ratio came to less than 200 calories a day” (Page 7). Only letting them eat such a low number of calories is inhuman. A healthy person should consume at least 2,500 calories which was what they let the Germans consume. Since they saw the Jews as animals, they made sure they barely ate anything.

This picture shows where you would tie the horse in this barrack.

The Nazi saw the Jews and all of their prisoners as animals. The picture above shows how this barrack was supposed to be used for horses. It has the ring where you would tie your horse to. Moreover, the Nazi only allowed them to shower once a month and go to the bathroom twice a day. By doing this, it continued to take away the prisoners' humanity, treating them like animals. For Nazi, it was as if they were taking their “pet” to the bathroom. They did everything they could do to dehumanize them. This is just one of the many examples of how they dehumanize their victims.

In one of the lectures that we had with Father Manfred and Stan Ronell, we learned that those who were taken were not seen as humans. They were seen less than human. They were given numbers rather than names. Their heads were shaved. The goal of the Nazi was to dehumanize and strip them of their identity in every possible way. Their reasoning for this was that they wanted to blame someone for their failure, and who else to blame but the group who does not have a home of their own, the Jews. Their ideology for doing this was to “Make Germany, Great Again.” They “knew it was hard, but it has to be done.” If someone questioned doing such acts for women and children, they were told that if they did not do it, it would be their own family who would suffer.” That this was done to save their own family and Germany.”

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From Judaism To Catholicism And Back Again

Friday morning, March 16, we traveled to Kraków to visit the Jewish Community Centre (JCC) of Kraków. It was there that we met Olga, who told us a little about herself and her Jewish ancestry. She also gave us information about the JCC itself, which is a Jewish cultural and educational centre that opened in 2008 as the result of an initiative by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. The JCC is the de facto Jewish visitors center for Kraków, Poland and provides social, educational, and community oriented services to the Jewish community of Kraków. After hearing from Olga, we got a chance to meet with a Jewish woman who survived World War II and she was kind enough to share her story with us. Although she herself had not been confined to a concentration camp, her father did perish at Auschwitz. She and her mother were forced to move to a new town after being blackmailed twice and it was there that she was baptized as a Catholic to hide her Jewish roots. After the war ended she eventually converted back to Judaism and went on to further her education, studying law and becoming a professor. Today she is an active member of the JCC in Kraków and was present for Shabbat dinner Friday evening at the JCC, a dinner in which we were also in attendance for.

Throughout this semester I have heard the personal stories of a few survivors of the Shoah but this story was the first in which the survivor converted to Catholicism in order to survive. Prior to meeting the survivor at the JCC, I had only encountered such a situation in Alexander Donat’s The Holocaust Kingdom: the author and his wife had decided to smuggle their son Wlodek out of the ghetto and sent him to the home of Stefan and Maria Magenheim, friends of the family. Before doing so, however, Wlodek’s parents had to prepare him for life on the Aryan side where he could no longer be Jewish: “Lena had, in the interim, been teaching Wlodek the Catholic prayers. ‘Now remember’, she told him, ‘you have never lived in the Ghetto and you must never use the word Ghetto. You’re not a Jew. You’re a Polish Catholic...We were bitterly aware of the tragic spectacle of a mother teaching her only child to disavow his parents, his people, his former life…” (Donat, 114-115).

A few weeks after Wlodek’s arrival at the Magenheim home, they were betrayed by one of their neighbors. With the help of Magdalena Rusinek, a seventeen-year-old member of the Polish Underground who collected, cared for and escorted Jewish children to their places of refuge with Polish families or in convents, Wlodek was brought to an orphanage near Otwock, Poland, where he remained for two years. During that period, Maria would come to the orphanage whenever she could, bringing Wlodek cakes and other delicacies. Although Wlodek was safe by being away from his parents and denouncing his Jewish heritage, during his time away he was brainwashed by the nuns at the orphanage. In his own words, Wlodek explains in The Holocaust Kingdom that “Miss Krysia told me that Jews were very bad. They drank the blood of Catholics on their holidays. They kill a young boy or girl, suck out their blood and put it in jars…she said if Auntie Maria tried to take me back to my Mommy, I should run away to the woods. I prayed that my parents would not come back for me. I believed in Jesus very much.” (Donat, 302). To think that a nun would say these things to a child is unimaginable but it occurred and wasn’t uncommon.

Wlodek 's parents both survived the Shoah and were reunited with their son and although the reunion was rocky at first, with Wlodek’s mind full of anti-Semitic thoughts, he eventually returned to the religion of his family. Although Wlodek and the survivor we heard speak at the JCC had different stories, both accounts had one thing in common, which is the title of this blog: from Judaism to Catholicism and back again. This is what it took to survive the horrors of the Shoah but this approach did not always work. Luckily for Wlodek and the JCC survivor, however, it did and we were lucky enough to hear their stories.

Pictured here is the JCC survivor (green sweater) sitting next to Olga.

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Sticks and Stones May Break my Bones, But Words…

Advertisement of “Der Ewige Jude” (The Eternal Jew), a 1940 antisemitic German Nazi propaganda film. This film was disguised as a documentary.

It has been one week since I last stepped on the grounds of Auschwitz I. Since my return from Poland, I have found myself especially sensitive to the use of words and phrases in everyday conversation, political discussion, and broadcast outlets. This stems from my shock at the absolute power of words- in forming an ideology, swaying a culture, and facilitating the genocide of millions of people.

In writing this, an old saying comes to mind: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me!” I can recall hearing this phrase throughout my childhood. Though it may have proved true in playground interactions, this phrase could not be further from the truth when one considers the impact of words, especially propaganda-fueled, in furthering the harm of the Jews and other groups.

In considering the power of words, one should start with the impetus of the Third Reich and Nazi Party- Adolf Hitler. Hitler was unabashed in his hatred for the Jewish people; in his first written comment on the “Jewish Question,” he asserts that the presence of Jews in any community was a “race-tuberculosis of the peoples.” (Source: US Holocaust Museum) His initial comments, released in 1919, are emulated in his further written and oral statements. In 1933, Hitler produced his first speech broadcasted live on all German radio stations. In this broadcast, he proposes a resolution to the “Jewish problem”- total annihilation of all European Jews, through a world war. (Source: BBC)

Propaganda poster labeling the Jew as “a people of contagion!” This poster mirrors the content of Hitler’s 1919 written comments.

Throughout our visits to Auschwitz I and Auschwitz-Birkenau, our tour guide Lidia further stressed the impact of words on disseminating Nazi ideology. She brought to our attention the establishment of Hitler Youth in indoctrinating German children, the use of propaganda by Joseph Goebbels and other prominent figures within the Third Reich.

Before we embarked on our journey to Poland, our group visited the United States Holocaust Museum in Manhattan, New York City. Here, we encountered a variety of propaganda pieces used to spread anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish sentiment. Most notable were a row of posters depicting the Jewish people as disgusting, leering, and money-hungry monsters. These images cemented in the minds of German society the notion that Jews were nothing more than parasites and a stain on the face of Aryan purity.

Antisemitic propaganda released in Poland in 1941. This poster depicts the Jew as a parasite, likened to that of typhus.

The influence of propaganda, and words as a whole, was made evident in the words and behavior of Nazi officers and even German civilians. Alexander Donat’s memoir The Holocaust Kingdom makes tangible the power of words, as he recounts the usage and power of words in promoting hatred and harm.

In the initial liquidations of the Warsaw ghetto, Donat recalls the phrasing that Ukranian guards and German troops used to force people from their apartments: “Alles runter!” – In English, “Everything downstairs!” Donat notes that “the tone was bad enough, but the humiliating impersonality of that ‘everything’ where normal speech called for ‘everyone’ was even more shocking.” (The Holocaust Kingdom 56) This shift in language illustrates the shift in thought of Germans and Ukranians towards their fellow humans, and the dehumanization of Jews.

Other insults hurled at Jews included: “Schweinehund [pig dog],” “Dreckjude [shitty Jew],” “whore,” and “Judenschmarotzer [Jew parasite].” Donat emphasized that “obscenities were used so abundantly at Majdanek that often you did not hear a decent word for hours on end.” (173)
And what resulted from these words? In my eyes, these words ushered in a disregard for human life that did not fit the “Aryan mold." German officers treated Jewish prisoners like their insults, and in reducing them to “parasites,” viewed their lives “as essentially worthless; in fact, contemptible.” (Donat 176) The SS soldiers delighted in ousting these “subhuman” Jews, inventing new methods of torture and indulging in the “fear and the death agonies of the victims.” (Donat 173) Beyond the torture and death of millions of Jews, the words of the Third Reich held the German people in an “iron grip; they followed orders and kept their mouths shut, they submitted…” (Donat 233) With overwhelming control and sadism, the Nazis destroyed the lives of many, even as the Third Reich began to collapse. How devastating words were, in facilitating the breaking of spirits and bones of so many innocent lives.

Just yesterday, it was announced that a Holocaust denier will be the GOP’s nominee in a Chicago congressional district after running in a primary election. Candidate Arthur Jones is an outspoken Holocaust denier; his candidacy website contains pages of documentation “disproving” the Holocaust and dismissing the death of millions of Jews. Phrases from his website are eerily similar to the aforementioned propaganda of the Third Reich:

"The ‘Holocaust’ is quite a racket. Millions of dollars are made each year by the Jews telling this tall tale…
Elie Wiesel [Holocaust survivor] is simply a skillful liar…
[Survivor accounts of the Holocaust are] propaganda, whose purpose is designed to bleed, blackmail, extort and terrorize, the enemies of organized world Jewry…
Their ‘Holocaust’ [is] just an extortion racket. "
I have been made furious to learn of this news and to read these documents, and have thought- What can I do now, with what I know? How can I, and others like me, best combat this utterly false information?

As mentioned previously, words can be used to generate destructive power. I recognize that my words need to be used to generate informative, educational, and defense of those who have suffered. This is certainly, in many ways, a power worth reckoning.

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Hope

A rose left on the bunk of a wooden barrack at Auschwitz Birkenau.

A calligraphy/hand-lettered piece on Hope.

“Despite everything, I still believe people are good at heart.” - Anne Frank

Similar to my last blog post, I begin with an Anne Frank quote. In contrast, this post is about hope, as opposed to hopelessness. To me, this quote displays hope in humanity, regardless of how horrifically Frank’s family and other Jewish families were treated throughout the Shoah.

This week has taught me so much about history. On top of that, it has taught me a lot about myself, especially the way I process things. Whether positive or negative, exciting or boring, I like to reflect on life experiences through calligraphy and hand-lettering. Calligraphy, which has been around for thousands of years, has evolved on social media to “hand-lettering” by millennials. Hand-lettering is a way of creating various fonts, alongside calligraphy to express words. Over the last decade, I have found myself taking profound concepts and minimizing them to handwritten fonts to express myself. It is therapeutic for me and can make for great gifts and cards!

I decided to center the entire piece around hope. Before creating it, I read through “Celebrating and Deepening the New Christian-Jewish Relationship”. The natural optimist in me loved this, as hope is a common theme throughout it all. This statement was sent out for the Golden Jubilee of the Second Vatican Council Declaration, Noestra Aetate. Within the introduction, there is a positive undertone that guided my thought process. “Like people dreaming of what were once unimaginable possibilities (Psalm 126:1) we look forward to a future full of hope” (pp. 44). Written by the ICCJ for a conference in Rome in 2015, this statement reviews the new, positive dialogue between Christians and Jews since the Shoah. It begins with the distance made from the awful starting point that allowed millions of Jewish people to be persecuted and killed. Christianity played a role in allowing this to happen, through the Teaching of Contempt. Jewish people were made out to be “Christ-killers” by many Christians in the early 1900s and this negative connotation brought about indifference, which led to the genocide. The council states that today “we have been learning to speak to each one another as friends and companions…for the first time in history Jews and Christians can work and study together in a sustained way, thereby enriching each other’s covenantal lives” (pp. 45). I was able to see this first hand multiple times, and I am thankful I was able to express this in hand lettering.

First, (the top left corner reads) “Saint Maximillian Kolbe, pray for us”. I added this when I saw it left in the room he was kept in during his starvation period. He was an example of hope for me this week because he gave of his life for another, which is the greatest form of love. Amongst hate, I was reminded that people are also good.

Second, (the top right quote) says, “life makes sense as long as you save people”. This quote, by Oscar Schindler was painted on the wall of Schindler’s Factory, which we visited in Krakow on Wednesday. Schindler saved over 2,000 Jewish people by hiring them in his factory so they would not be sent away to ghettos and concentration camps. He was courageous, and the face of hope in a very tense time.

Third, (the words directly below) that read “Shabbat Shalom”, and were said during the Shabbat dinner we ate on Friday night with the Jewish community in Krakow. The entire community brought me so much hope for peace in the world today, because they invited people of all ages, backgrounds, and religions into their center to enjoy a meal with them. Their hospitality, despite barely knowing us, brought me encouragement and taught me the significance of recognizing dignity in all people.

Fourth, (to the left of the prior quote) is from Simon Peereboom. “We still believed it would all be alright”. This quote was on the wall in one of the blocks at Auschwitz I. It stood out to me when we returned Thursday, because Peereboom displayed so much hope in his future, regardless of how anxious the present seemed.

Fifth, (to the left of Peereboom’s) is a John Lennon quote from his song “Imagine”. Written on a stone outside Auschwitz Birkenau, it says, “imagine all the people, living in peace”. Although I had known this song before coming to Poland, it struck a chord with me before entering the “Gate of Death” because it was a display of hope for a more peaceful future in the world, but left by an anonymous stranger. It left me with the comforting thought that our group was not alone in being advocates of peace, that there are many others out there, too.

Sixth, (above Lennon’s quote) is a verse. “And in your book they all will be written” (Psalm 139:16). This was written in front of the Book of Names at Auschwitz I, which documented the names of the victims of the Shoah. As I walked around the largest book I’d ever seen in my life, I felt hopeless. But, when I saw this verse I felt comfort and hope that this memorial was summarized with a verse that reflected back on a Creator, one who is loving and keeps the names of His people, even if humans replace those names with numbers.

Finally, I end with the quote that started this blog. “Despite everything, I still believe people are good at heart” (Anne Frank). After hearing this quote, I eagerly picked up her book in one of the bookstores and I began it. Although I am only 40 pages in so far, I can see how she displayed humor and an uplifting outlook, even though her world was rapidly declining.

This theme of hope will stick with me forever when I recount this trip to others. I am confident that I will be able to reference all of these quotes, as well my Catholic faith through documents like Nostra Aetate and the more recent ones to remain hopeful in humanity and be a voice for the voiceless.

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16670

Religion in Auschwitz is a topic I never thought about before coming to Poland. I always figured the victims were always more concerned with getting from one day to the next rather than if they would be able to practice their religion. However, its important to be able to practice because any detail you can do to maybe make the experience even a little less painful is very important, and practicing religion could be one of those things. The main victim was of course the Jews. 6 million is a number we should all be familiar with. However, what we don’t hear about often is the Christians that were also prisoners in the camp. One of the most famous is Maximilian Kolbe. He is a Polish Christian Monk who was imprisoned as Polish Intelligencia his Prisoner number was 16670. One day while he was in Auschwitz a prisoner escaped, when Prisoners escape there is collective responsibilities in the camp and 10 people are chosen to die at random for each escaped prisoner. When the ten people were chosen to die one man in the line up yelled out about his wife and child. this is when Maximillian Kolbe decided to step forward and offer his life for the man with the family. The Nazi guards accepted the exchange and chose Kolbe. The death would be by starvation in a starvation cell. The in mates would be placed in the cell for 2 weeks with no food or water. the other 9 men perished, Maximilian lived. When the Nazis entered and Kolbe was still alive they lethally injected him and he died immediately. He is remembered for his extraordinary acts that day and was Beatified on October 17th 1971 by Pope Paul VI. His nick name is the Saint of Auschwitz. This story was told in Auschwitz by our first guide but also in a special lecture that took place in a renovated Barrack in Auschwitz. The lecture was titles Clergy in Auschwitz and explained not only the incredible story of Maximilian Kolbe but also other information about the practice of religion in Auschwitz. It is said that only 6 mass services took place in 5 years at the camp because it was so dangerous if the prisoners were caught. There was also 464 Priests and 35 nuns 70% of which died. 3 Popes have visited Auschwitz since the museum has opened, the first was Pope John Paul II who had visited many times before as a bishop, the second is Pope benedict XVI, and the third is Pope Francis. Each of them left a memorial for inmate 16670 Saint Maximillian Kolbe in the cell in which he starved for two weeks. The lecture on Clergy in Auschwitz was very important because it was on a topic that is very important which I had never thought about previously. The ongoing participation of religion inside the walls of evil is an important lesson. It also was good to help realize that while of course the Jews suffered far grater losses there were also other victims within the walls of Auschwitz.

Picture description: a drawing done by Holocaust survivor Marian Kolodziej Inmate number 432. Who drew many pictures of Maximillian Kolbe. Kolodziej survived the entirety of the holocaust and has an art exhibition in the basement of a monastery in Harmeze.

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THE JUXTAPOSITION OF AUSCHWITZ

Before my trip to Poland, I had many preconceptions and ideas of what I thought I was going to see and what my experiences would consist of. Although I had seen pictures, learned about the history, and heard stories from various people, nothing could have prepared me for stepping foot onto one of the largest mass graveyards in history. The experiences I have had during my time in Poland have truly opened my eyes into the cruel torment of people and dehumanization that existed only seventy-five years ago.

A view from underneath the sign at the entrance of Auschwitz I. This sign was often one the first sights that prisoners and victims would see before entering the concentration camp.

As I walked out of the gate of Auschwitz I today for I can confidently say will most likely be the last time, I couldn’t help but take a moment and pray for those who never had the opportunity to. The juxtaposition of the sign at the gate still haunts me. The sign reads “Arbeit Macht Frei,” which is translated to “Work Will Set You Free.” Unfortunately, for those who were forced to walk under the sign, they would soon realize it was a lie.

I stood for what felt like hours staring at the atrocity of the history that lie directly beneath my feet. I couldn’t help but take notice of the vast number of people with melancholy expressions and the sound of shuffling feet, it was almost if I closed my eyes I could be a witness to the first inmates of Auschwitz I. This experience reminded me of Alexander Donat’s memoir, The Holocaust Kingdom where he recounts the sounds and sights of his deportation to one of the camps. “When I reached the corner of the building, I understood the terror I had seen in everyone’s eyes. On both sides of us stood SS guards with grenades in their belts and submachine guns at the ready, holding barking police dogs straining at the leach. Never had I seen a collection of such murderous, degenerate human faces.” (pp. 140)

Throughout my time in Poland, I am constantly reminded of the importance of relationships between people. I find it difficult some days, with our busy schedule and the time difference to find time to talk to my mom, dad and brother, which are the most important relationships in my life. During one of our lectures with Fr. Manfred, (a German, Catholic priest who has devoted his life to studying and teaching German-Polish Reconciliation and Christian-Jewish Dialogue) he talked about the importance of our responsibility in relationships. One quote he said that stood out to me was “Relationships died at Auschwitz.” The horrific torture of the people brought to the Auschwitz camps was not only cruel but dehumanizing.

After spending what could have been weeks in cramped cattle cars, the inmates of the camps were stripped of all their possessions and separated from their families. As if this wasn’t cruel enough, they were subjected to brutal shavings and inhumane conditions. “We were told to strip; male barbers shaved our heads and the rest of our bodies with clippers. A girl rubbed each of us under the arms and between the legs with a rag dipped in disinfectant....as new arrivals went up to them in turn, they made adroit pricks in the skin with a tattoo needle on the left forearm.” (pp. 260)

Suitcases belonging to those who were brought to Auschwitz. In order not to panic the masses of people, SS guards allowed people to pack items they thought they would need, only to have it be collected upon entrance to Auschwitz, yet another juxtaposition.

As I look back so far on my experiences in Poland, I cannot help but think about the future that lies ahead. I think about explaining each and every picture that was taken in detail in order to spread the knowledge of what I have learned and to be a voice for the 6 million people that are now voiceless due to the Shoah. In the Nostra Aetate, written in 1965, there are many questions that come forth regarding what we can do now that the Shoah has ended. “Whence do we come, and where are we going.” (pp. 4) Moving forward from our experiences in Poland, I hope that my knowledge and improved language allow me to advocate for those who suffered and were senselessly killed.

Some of the innocent victims who were stripped of their identity and forced to work in Auschwitz during the Shoah.

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Where Was God?

The “Wall of Death”, located at Block 11. This courtyard outside of Block 11 and the block itself were mainly used as direct killing sites.

Just the other day, I was walking through Auschwitz I… which is a sentence I never thought I would say. Doing so, millions of thoughts raced through my mind. As a devout Christian, I can’t help but think about why God would let such a cruel thing happen. If God is so loving and so forgiving, then where was He at a time like this? Especially coming across the Wall pictured above was one particular moment in which I really could not fathom how people did such a thing to other people. And if God works through us, why did his workings include mass murder?

Luckily, in his second lecture, Father Manfred addressed this topic directly. He made some very compelling points that have allowed me to be less confused with the question, “Where was God?” He began by talking about who God really is, in the perspective of the Jewish faith. He mentioned the importance of the covenant that is shared between God and his people like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and that this is the foundation of Jewish identity. The most admirable thing about the Jewish people was that they did not lose their faith no matter what was happening to them. In the words of Anne Frank, “Despite it all, I still believe that every human being is good at heart.” As the last line in her famous diary, this is a perfect representation of her unshakeable faith, and that of other Jewish people at the time.

Father Manfred assured us that though you may not understand why God let this happen, it does not mean He does not exist. We are not God, and we do not know more than He does; He is all-knowing and all-powerful. Answering this difficult question is not a matter of understanding God, but rather trusting Him. And in the same way that God was present in the suffering and death of Jesus, He was present during the Shoah. Though God is ever-present, what made the Shoah seem as if that is not true was simply Nazi anti-Semitism. This is explained further in “We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah”, which was written by the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews in 1998 and is a part of the teaching of respect:

“…At the level of theological reflection, we cannot ignore the fact that not a few in the Nazi party not only showed aversion to that idea of divine Providence at work in human affairs, but gave proof of a definite hatred directed at God himself. Logically, such an attitude also led to a rejection of Christianity, and a desire to see the Church destroyed or at least subjected to the interests of the Nazi state.” (We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah, pg. 9-10).

To conclude, I think it only makes sense to mention one person in particular who truly portrayed God’s presence at Auschwitz—Maximilian Kolbe. His noble act of taking the place of a prisoner sent to die is one of pure love. He loved until the very end of his life, and Father Manfred even said that they Nazis may have killed him, but they could not kill his love. I cannot help but be reminded of the verse from 1 John which reads, “Beloved, let’s love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves has been born of God, and knows God. He who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, for God is love.” Those last three words are definitely something to reflect on, especially when pondering the presence of God during the Shoah. If God did happen to be present at all at Auschwitz, which I believe He was, then it was most certainly evident through the selfless love of Kolbe and other martyrs of the Shoah.

The cell of Maximilian Kolbe, with candles in remembrance of him placed there by Saint Pope John Paul II. As the place where Kolbe was killed by lethal injection after living without food or water for two weeks (because of his faith in God) is truly a sacred place, especially for Christians.

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The Power of Kinship in the Camps

This blog post references The Holocaust Kingdom, a memoir written by Alexander Donat. This work was originally written in 1963; all quotes are from the 1999 edition.
"“Kinship is…being one with the other.” "– Fr. Gregory Boyle, Tattoo on the Heart

Holocaust survivors displaying their numbered tattoos as assigned at concentration camps.

During my time in Poland, I have gained a wealth of knowledge and insight with regards to the experience of prisoners within concentration camps, specifically Auschwitz I and Auschwitz-Birkenau. From my readings of survivor accounts and interaction with tour guides and information at the camps themselves, I have learned that imprisonment within these camps was the epitome of ostracization. Prisoners endured maltreatment, hatred, and were blatantly dehumanized by Nazi actions and speech. They were torn from their families, rendered identity-less, and endured abuse at every moment.

Death and defeat always loomed, and fellow prisoners died in great numbers; while visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau, our group was informed that as many as 6,000 Jews were gassed by the S.S. per day (Source: our wonderful tour guide, Lidia). S.S. soldiers and block leaders within the camps were quick to remind prisoners of the inevitability of death. In his memoir The Holocaust Kingdom, Alexander Donat notes the motto of a previous Barrack Elder during his time at Majdanek: “Don’t forget, you must die so that I may live” (161).

In considering this, I found myself asking the following question: How could prisoners survive in such a volatile, horrific environment?

Shortly after walking the grounds of Auschwitz I and Auschwitz-Birkenau, our group went to an art exhibition entitled “Photographic Plates of Memory. Labyrinths” by Marian Kolodziej, a former prisoner of Auschwitz. This exhibition, which is permanently installed in the lower level of Our Lady Immaculate Church in Harmęże, gave deeper insight into the ostracization and loneliness faced by prisoners. As our guide, Fr. Florio, led us through the exhibition, I felt deflated. Was there no way to navigate the hell of Auschwitz? Was there any hope to be found?

As Fr. Florio beckoned towards images of prisoners huddled together, he addressed their agonized unity in remarking, “kinship was crucial to surviving.” It was at this moment that I found a sense of resolve to my inner questions, and saw the truth in this statement illuminated. The concept of kinship as that which sustains another resonated with me; as a person of faith, I have found the idea of kinship echoed in various theological sources. Fr. Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit priest, alludes to the importance of kinship in his work Tattoos on the Heart. He notes that kinship brings us “closer to creating a community,” where we can “stand…with those whose dignity has been denied.” It is important to note that Boyle is speaking from his experience as a rehabilitator and advocate of gang members in Southern California. Despite this, his assertions hold validity in considering how kinship fueled prisoners in their plight to survive.

We see the power of kinship in Alexander Donat’s The Holocaust Kingdom. Kinship, in word and in deed, emerges as a conduit to survival throughout Donat’s oppression. Though there are examples of kinship between Donat and other individuals in the Warsaw Ghetto, for purposes of this post, I will refer to scenes of kinship in the camps.

Display mimicking the march of prisoners within the Polish block, at the Auschwitz I Memorial / Concentration Camp in Oświęcim.

One scene of kinship is captured in the interactions between Donat and Horowitz, a Czech Jew assigned as the Lagerschrieber of Field Three in Majdanek. Donat appeals to him, begging for help in survival: “I felt [as a journalist] I had a duty to survive tell the world about the murder of the Jewish people. I appealed to him to help me survive” (164). Moved by the similarity of their prior professions, Horowitz works to find Donat a lenient job, eventually securing him a well-fed job at the Fahrbereitschaft (the motor pool of Majdanek). Though Donat’s time at the motor pool is short-lived, Horowitz’s kinship sustains him and enabled him to gather “physical and moral strength” (Donat 172). Surely if Horowitz had not been aided, Donat could have faced a worse fate.

Donat’s interactions with the Jews after being transferred to the Radom labor camp further illustrate the power of kinship in the camps. Here, Donat and his peers received nourishment, medical attention, and compassion from the other inhabitants at Radom. He emphasizes that despite the food received from the Jews of Radom, “the cordiality shown us was even more precious than the food.” (187)

Other less-detailed but still relevant examples of kinship exist throughout the text; Donat mentions that upon fainting during a roll call, his neighbors came to his aid and propped him up. A particularly touching scene is when Szulc, a former restauranteur, would describe dishes he had prepared in his restaurant to induce a relieved appetite for surrounding prisoners. (Donat 168) How minute this seems, at first glance, yet how important these and other gestures were to Donat and his peers during his stay at Majdanek. Boyle emphasizes that “the self cannot survive without love.” In considering the kinship among Donat and other individuals in the Ghetto and camps, one sees the validity of this claim and the power that is inherent in kinship. The accounts of kinship between Alexander Donat and other prisoners moved me in a profound way, and caused me to think more deeply about the impact of human relationship in surviving one of the worst acts in human history.

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Imagine All the People

A rock that was on the ground near an original cattle car for Auschwitz that says, “Imagine all the people living a life of peace.”

When reflecting on my experiences in Auschwitz 1 and Auschwitz-Birkenau I can’t help but remember the people of all the lives lost during WWII. All of the people that the Nazis took to the concentration camps and killed who had been living normal lives. And in seconds their lives were turned upside down and taken from them for no reason other than the fact that they were Jewish. They were treated like animals, as if they weren’t even a human being at all by immediately being shoved into cattle cars by the hundreds and majority of the time being sent directly to the gas chambers and crematoria. Seeing how small these cattle cars actually were was really surprising to me even thought I had heard so much about what it was like to be in one of them with hundreds of people and no space to move or breathe.

The first day in Auschwitz, our guide Lidia spoke about how Jews from Greece were taken to Auschwitz on cattle cars which was a two-week drive and when they arrived nobody got off because either they had died during the trip or they had no strength in them to even move. It sickens me to think that the Nazis would just shove all these people into the cattle cars leading them to their death and that they would just lie to them and say that they needed to leave their homes for safety reasons and that when they arrived they would get a shower, which we know was the gas chambers.

The state in which innocent people were kept in the concentration camps was inhumane and I wish something would have been done about this sooner in order to prevent either less or no people dying at all. Even prior to being sent to the camps towns were barricaded into small areas called ghettos and the life in the ghetto was not much better than in the camps. SS Officers would parade the streets and just beat people for any reason that they wanted to. They could just go into your home and force you to leave all the while destroying it and taking your valuables. We learned a lot about what it was like living in the ghettos in Alexander Donats book, The Holocaust Kingdom. This book was really powerful and gave a lot of great detail of the events and pain that took place while trying to survive in the ghetto walls.

Imagine all the people who would still be alive today if it were not for WWII. What would Poland be like? How would the entire world have been different if this atrocity did not happen? I always think about what could have been if the Nazis did not kill 6 million Jews during the war and how things would have been so different if this did not happen. Would we have found the cure to cancer or other horrible diseases? Would we have world peace, would we have even had a second world war to begin with? These are the questions that sit in the back of my mind when I think about all the people that were killed or had to give up everything they had just to escape to freedom.

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Childhood Innocence

Above portrays a drawing from a child and their interpretation of the Shoah. This drawing exemplifies how the Shoah stripped many children from their childhood innocence.

“I’ve found that there is always some beauty left—in nature, sunshine, freedom, in yourself; these can all help you.” - Anne Frank

As I walked through the bunkers at Auschwitz I, I felt chills as I looked at photos of small children and their families. As humans, we selfishly have the tendency to think of our own lives during tragedies. As I walked throughout Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II- Birkenau, I thought my little siblings: the people who mean the most to me. It is so difficult to imagine how the Nazis chose the evil side. How could these humans treat other humans in such a way? I asked myself this as I walked through the bunkers and could not wrap my head around these atrocities. As soon as the Jews were taken to Auschwitz II- Birkenau, they faced selection. Here, families were torn apart and lives were changed forever. Mothers had to make terrible decisions whether to go with their children to the gas chambers or to better their chances at selection by leaving their children.

As I approached the exhibit full of children’s shoes, my heart broke for the millions of children and families who had to experience the unimaginable. Next to this stood a glass exhibit box that contained clothes from some of the suitcases. Here lied a little girl’s sweater, a sneaker, some socks, and a boot. I could not help, but imagine the people who these precious items belonged to. A little girl, perhaps, who enjoyed playing with dolls or had dreams of being a teacher. These precious items symbolize how pure and innocent their lives were. I cannot fathom the cruel and inhumane conditions they experienced or how they felt when were separated from their mothers, siblings, grandparents, etc. As the days in Poland have passed rather quickly, I find myself thinking about these children more and more every day.

As these children experienced such cruel and inhumane punishment, I also think about the children who went into hiding. The children who were again separated from their parents and forced to conform to a completely different lifestyle. Stan Ronell, a survivor of the Shoah, who visited Iona College and told his story of how he went into hiding with his mother when the war began. They were hidden in many different houses throughout the war where he stayed in a small, dark closet with two books to read. Luckily for him, one of these books contained Christian prayers which allowed him to expand on his “act” and survive the war. Mr. Ronell’s story reminded me of Alexander Donat’s son, Wlodek, as his story was quite similar in the novel, The Holocaust Kingdom. Wlodek was a three-year-old boy who was brought in by a local Polish friend and cared for throughout the war in hiding. Wlodek learned Christian prayers, got rid of his Yiddish accent, and lived a “typical” Christian life to deceive those around him. This is what saved his life and allowed him to be reunited with his mother and father after the war. These stories exemplify what most survivors suggest that allowed them to survive the Shoah: youth, health, and luck.

I will never understand how these atrocities took place. However, I can remember those innocent children and adults were affected and keep their stories close in my heart. As I left Auschwitz I on Monday, I left the grounds many people prayed to run free from. And for them, I walk forward into my future with the knowledge to share some of their stories and prevent this kind of evil from ever existing again.

The above photo further represents the innocence that was stolen from many children throughout the Shoah. Families were ripped apart, and the drawing above exemplifies the absence that many children and parents faced.

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Traumatic Impact of the Holocaust on Adolescent Behavior

The following blog references Alexander Donat’s memoir, The Holocaust Kingdom, the 1999 edition, originally written in 1963.

Replication of a Child’s Drawing of KL Birkenau (Auschwitz II).

When visiting the Auschwitz I Museum, I took interest in a room filled with children’s drawings from the war years. The room was part of the Shoah exhibit in Block 27. The above drawing displays the railroad tracks leading into the entrance of Auschwitz II. The exhibit contained dozens of reproduced drawings found in concentration camps, orphanages, and hiding places. Although many sketches revealed the ordinary imaginations of youth such as family, animals, and flowers, a large portion revealed a child’s experience of life in Nazi-occupied Europe.

Children commonly reflect their surroundings and experiences of their world, yet looking back on this piece of history through the eyes of a child is particularly jarring. This insight into a child’s mind is also seen in The Holocaust Kingdom through Alexander Donat’s (Michael Berg) son William (Wlodek). Donat would come home from work in the ghetto to Wlodek playing make-believe games with another child. He recalls his “son was screaming, 'Juden raus! Allen Juden runter!' They were playing the resettlement game” (Donat 90). These harsh German words translating to ‘Jews out! All Jews down!’ were being shouted from the mouth of a four-and-a-half-year-old Jewish boy. Without a full comprehension of the world around him, the impressionable child was left with the dangerous combination of the toxicity in these words and the imagination his age brings.

Replication of a Child’s Drawing of a Threatening Soldier.

The drawing shows a woman. trapped by trees, vulnerable to the will of a soldier with a weapon. This portrayal was a common occurrence to war time activity, potentially witnessed by the drawing’s artist. The violence seen in this image was clearly felt by the child as they later drew it. Similar to Wlodek’s make-believe game, the drawing served as an outlet for what the child experienced. The violence seen by Wlodek caused him to have inclinations towards pretending to act out the anger, even just for a game. Donat was concerned, as many parents would be, by the rise in violent behavior he saw in his child.

The subjects of these drawings and games, though distressing to any individual, could be especially traumatic to the vulnerable mind of a child. Without the proper development to process the events happening before one’s eyes, the innocence of the child is broken. Beyond the shift in childhood drawings and games, the child’s psyche becomes darker, angrier. Their innocence is taken, forcing them to comprehend the real world far too early.

What moved me about this exhibit was its initial simplicity and brightness. I walked into a room of four white walls filled only with pencil sketches. It is immediately obvious that these pictures were made by children, creating an almost lighthearted sensation as I remember the countless scribbles that represented my own childhood experience. Only upon a closer look did I realize the material that tormented these bright walls. My emotions changed in conjunction to my realization of the innocence of these poor child victims. Age does not create security from the Holocaust’s damaging impact. This truth was instilled in me as I mourned for the loss of these young lives over their own form of testimonials to the horrors endured by so many.

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Resistance through Documentation

Resistance to the Nazi regime is a recurring topic when speaking about World War II and the Shoah. The question of whether the Jewish people fought back has appeared several times throughout this course. The answer to this question is yes, the Jewish people resisted. They were not docile lambs led to slaughter. Jewish resistance is evident not only in the texts I’ve read, but also through Jewish people’s actions to their situation under the Nazi regime.

List of Prisoners Found in KL Auschwitz.

This list was found after the liberation of KL Auschwitz. It holds the names and numbers of seven prisoners, and serves as a reminder that they existed. As mentioned in The Holocaust Kingdom, existence in itself was resistance. The Nazis wanted to exterminate the entire Jewish population. By leaving their name behind, the Jewish people were fighting this goal.

There are many different types of resistance that are significant. Besides the obvious opposition through fighting with weapons, the is also forming groups, maintaining culture and religious practices, and the recording of the harsh experiences one suffered. Whether Jewish, another victimized group of people, or an ally, it was so important to preserve the atrocities occurred in the Holocaust.

Alexander Donat also practices this form of resistance in The Holocaust Kingdom. Donat felt a responsibility to survive not only for his family, but also to share all he endured. He kept a detailed account in his notebook of the events as they unfolded. His first-person accounts were crucial to the cultivation of his memoir.

Resistance though the preservation of information was also a prominent theme in The Portraitist. This documentary sheds light on the life of Wilhelm Brasse. A photographer by trade, Brasse was selected to photograph the prisoners in Auschwitz I when he was taken and sent there himself. His photos served as evidence for the sheer amount of people held in the camp as well as the cruel experiences taking place When the Nazis knew they would lose, they began to destroy all proof of the horrors conducted at their hands. Although ordered to destroy the photo documentation, Brasse ensured the preservation of all he had recorded through his camera’s eye. The Nazis could not succeed in covering up their injustices.

The Jewish people were in a threatening situation under the Nazi regime, making it difficult for a mass uprising to physically counterattack their oppressors. These men are three examples of many that found their own ways of resisting those persecuting them from their vulnerable positions. The documentation and preservation of the events that comprise the Shoah creates evidence of its horrors.

The list found of prisoners’ names and numbers instilled in me that not all resistance had to be obvious in order to be effective. This discrete form of fighting back maintained valuable evidence that later held the Nazis accountable. Accountability is vital in the reconciliation of a disastrous tragedy such as the Shoah, making the resistances seen by the prisoners, Donat, and Brasse a key factor in overthrowing the Nazi regime.

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Our Duty To Remember

Today is our last full day in Poland. I am filled with emotions as I sit on the bus to Kraków for a long and full last day. As I look out the window, I am reminded of the opportunities that I have been given and how I can use these experiences to advocate and teach others. This week, I have been exposed to many different elements which have left me speechless, yet still I feel the desire to talk about each moment in such detail. The physical aspects of the Auschwitz camps are something that cannot be explained by pictures alone. Many friends and family have been asking what his trip has been like for me and it is impossible to describe my experiences in the short time that we have to talk. When I return to America, I believe it is my duty share the knowledge that I have learned throughout this experience. During one of the first classes we had, Dr. Procario-Foley shared with us the importance of being a witness. After hearing the testimonies of survivors of the Shoah and walking in the footsteps of those who have suffered, I am inspired to continue to share their stories.

Looking out at the immense size of the camp from the watch tower at Auschwitz II – Birkenau.

Upon arrival to Kraków, we visited the JCC (Jewish Community Center), which is a center focused on reviving the Jewish community for all generations. The center started only 10 years ago after Prince Charles visited Poland and spoke with Holocaust survivors about what their needs were, to where they explained that a place of community was needed. The JCC is a great example of how today’s Jewish community can come together a move forward from the destruction caused during World War II. At the center, we heard from a Holocaust survivor named Zofia. I was extremely impacted by her story of survival. She talked about the many obstacles she faced, one which was when her and her family were blackmailed. “Worst moment of my life - we were blackmailed when someone came to my apartment. My mom was terrified. We gave him money, clothes, and whatever else he wanted. After he left, we escaped.” (Zofia, 2018) In class we talked about the many sacrifices that Jews in Poland had to make in order to be kept out of the camps. Zofia admitted she knew she and her family were Jewish, however she was still baptized and learned about the Christian culture so that no one would suggest she was a Jew. Her story concluded with an uplifting quote, “so I am here now, safe, happy and lucky.” This brings me back to what I believe is one of the most important aspects of this trip; it is our duty to remember.

The group posing for a photo with Zofia, a Holocaust survivor after she shared her story.

This theme of remembrance is clearly outlined in not only the Nostra Aetate, but also in the 1998 document written titled We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah. This document was significant in many ways, one being that it was the first time that the term “Shoah” was used rather than Holocaust. This clearly showed the empathy and growth in the relationships post World War II. Both documents show steps towards moving in the direction of understanding that the murder of 6 million Jews, cannot be forgotten. Whether it be reading and listening to stories or visiting and learning about different sites we have as a group become witnesses to what happened during this dark period in history. I now understand the important of being a witness – it is to share the stories that have been passed down from generations and to share the cold, dreary atmosphere of Auschwitz so people will never doubt, question, or most importantly forget about the Shoah.

I am a witness and I will not forget.

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The Execution Wall and the Majdanek Massacre

On March 15th, we returned to Auschwitz I to attend a workshop and explore more of the camp. I decided to revisit the execution wall between Blocks 10 and 11. Most of those executed here were Polish political prisoners, above all the leaders and members of clandestine organizations and people who helped escapees or facilitated contacts with the outside world. Prisoners of other nationalities and ethnic origins, including Jews and Soviet POWs, were also sometimes shot at this wall. The execution wall was dismantled in 1944 on the orders of the camp authorities. Executions were subsequently carried out elsewhere, most often in the gas chambers and crematoria at Auschwitz II – Birkenau. After the war, the execution wall was partially reconstructed by the Museum.

Visiting this wall again reminded me of a scene in Alexander Donat's The Holocaust Kingdom, which can be found on pages 200 and 201 of the text. In this particular scene, an SS officer explains in detail the events of November 3rd, 1943 to the author, in which 18,000 Jews were killed in two days. Why? “Weapons were found hidden among the prisoners. They were going to mutiny!” (Donat, 200). Of course this was nothing more than an excuse and the Majdanek massacre’s true objective was the mass extermination of the Jews located at Majdanek concentration camp and all of its subcamps.

Prior to the massacre, prisoners were forced to dig three ditches that were two yards deep and about 1000 yards long. Male and female prisoners were then driven naked into separate ditches and forced to lie flat before being showered with bullets from automatic rifles. As Donat explains it, “the next groups were forced to lie down on top of the corpses of the previous ones" and “the killings went on for two days, from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m.” (Donat, 201). The killing of all those innocent people struck the author particularly hard, since he thought his wife was among the dead. This scene described in The Holocaust Kingdom may not have occurred at Auschwitz I, where the execution wall is located, but they are indeed connected to each other through a dark and sadistic twist: the irrational hatred of all the Jews of Europe. The murders at the execution wall in Auschwitz I and the scene described in Alexander Donat’s book could have and should have been prevented. It is one thing to read about mass murder in a memoir but when you are standing in a spot where so many innocent lives were wiped out, it brings a new understanding to the cruelty of mankind.

One thing I have learned from this trip is the importance of physicality, for physically being in an area where so many lives were destroyed or forever altered brings a whole new understanding of a situation. In this case, visiting Auschwitz I and seeing a site of mass murder helps me to truly grasp the words written by Alexander Donat in The Holocaust Kingdom.

The Execution Wall at Auschwitz I.

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The Eyes are Windows to the Soul

An endless hallway full of photos of the many prisoners of Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II- Birkenau which were mostly taken by Wilhelm Brasse, a Jewish inmate.

Hundreds of faces looking back at me; faces of people who were doctors, engineers, teachers, and many more. Sad, scared, and fearful faces displayed down a never-ending hallway. “How could this be real?,” I thought to myself as I stood in the bunker speechless. How could these human lives have been taken? These are questions I asked myself throughout this entire trip. I gave myself a few minutes to look at these photos and continued my walk throughout Auschwitz I. As many different things caught my attention, I could not stop thinking about these faces. But more importantly, their eyes. As Khaled Hosseini once said, “The eyes are windows to the soul.” Looking into the eyes of these victims pained me. Their stories were jumping out through the frames, but I could not hear them. I could not understand what they experienced or what they saw or what they wished to pursue. I could not understand any of it for the Shoah is unimaginable to those who did not experience it.

During the atrocities committed by the Nazis, I cannot help but wonder if the Jews or other prisoners could have escaped their fate. During a workshop we attended at Auschwitz I, we watched many videos of scholars who shared their interpretations of many questions regarding the Shoah. When speaking about the Jews and their fate, many scholars suggest that they could not escape their fate. There were so little opportunities for Jews to act on their own fate. For example, the Germans threatened the lives of individuals and families who would potentially help the Jews. Therefore, there were many little opportunities for Jews to accept the help from non-Jews. The Jews were blindsided with the atrocities that were committed due to the manipulation and lying of the Nazis. There is no such way for an individual to prepare for something as terrible as the Shoah which made it difficult for Jews to escape their fate and save the lives of themselves and others.

Therefore, I think of the people displayed in this hallway, and I cannot help but wonder what they could have contributed to this world. One of them could have found the cure for Cancer or saved the life of another person. These were real people with lives, families, dreams and aspirations. As we near the end of this experience in Poland, I reflect on the lives of those who were taken too soon and wish peace upon their families and the survivors of the Shoah. These survivors can spread their stories and reflect on the atrocities that occurred. And for those who did not survive to tell their stories, we remember them for “the one who does not remember history is bound to live through it again” (George Santayana, Auschwitz I bunker).

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Jews in Hiding

Hiding place in which Anne Frank and her family hid for 2 years before being found by the Nazis.

Today, I learned a lot from visiting the Netherlands Exhibit at Auschwitz 1 about how Jews hid and what they did in order to not get captured and brought to the camps. As you can see in photo 1, Jewish families in the Netherlands and many other places were able to build secret places in the homes and place of work. The most famous story of a Jewish family in hiding is that of Anne Frank and how she and her family were able to go two years living in that small space behind the bookshelf. This was a hard time for Jews because they had been hearing about what was going on and they knew what their fate would be if they were to be found by the Nazis, especially because they were hiding. According to the exhibit, Jews were summoned to Dutch labor camps and this led a lot of them to hide, but a lot of them did not because they did not have the connections or the means to do so. One fact that struck me was that from the estimated 140,000 Jews in the Netherlands, 40,000 of them were able to go into hiding, and only about one third of them were found and arrested. By 1942/1943 almost all of the Jews in the Netherlands had been found and sent either to the camps or arrested. The Nazis were able to accomplish this because they had Dutch citizens help them for a portion of money for every Jew they reported to them or told their hiding spots. I had not known how much of a difficult situation it was in the Netherlands for Jews there and the types of things that they had to do in order to survive even just two more years of their lives. When reflecting upon this story of Anne Frank’s family and many others hiding, I thought back to when Stan Ronell came to our class and spoke to us about how he had survived the Holocaust. Stan was able to leave Krakow and go to another place in the hopes of hiding and not being found by the Nazis after his father and uncle were caught and taken to Auschwitz where they unfortunately died. When Stan’s mother got a job working in a house in Krakow, the agreement was only for her but she would not leave Stan behind so he had to hide in the house for a long time. The only place for him to stay was in a small closet and since he was not supposed to be in the house in the first place he never really got to see the light of day. The only time he left the closet was very late at night, to a fire escape, when he knew that there was no chance of him being caught. He had told us to go into a closet if we felt so called to, to imagine what it would have been like to be in such a small space for a long time. After going through Auschwitz 1 and Auschwitz-Birkenau, and seeing the types of small spaces people were put in and the small rooms in which people him, I give these people that successfully hid and survived the war a lot of credit.

Photo of the Diary of Anne Frank available in the bookstore at Auschwitz 1. Anne Frank kept a diary of great detail about what it was like to live in hiding for two years.

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Dehumanization

Nazi Cattle car used to transport holocaust victims from all over Europe.

As the days go on in Poland, the class has visited Auschwitz I three times and Auschwitz II Birkenau once. Throughout these experiences the most prominent thing for me as been the dehumanization of all prisoners of these two camps. My first realization of this dehumanization was my first time seeing one of the cattle cars which is placed on the tracks outside of Auschwitz II Birkenau. This vessel used for transporting live stock was used to transport hundreds of humans to the location their lives would end. I shortly there after realized that all these people were to the Nazis Cattle and they were going to the slaughter factory to be processes. This evil twisted ideology is what allowed this to continue for so many years. These were not cattle these were people with families and homes from which they were so far. Throughout the class we learned the dehumanization is what made killing more simple for the Nazis, but not until seeing the cattle car did the class lesion make the full connection. After walking into the Nazi Death Camp I had my second realization of dehumanization. The barracks where the prisoners stayed looked like farms, I had noticed this but I figured it was an easy design and probably the quickest way to construct so many buildings. However, while that may indeed still be the case, no longer believe that is the reason the Nazis chose this design. After walking in our guide brought out attention to metal rings twisted into the foundation of the barrack, for which I could not imagine a purpose. The rings were stable rings for tying horses down in their stalls. The barracks we were standing in were horse stables. They road in on trains meant for cattle and were living out of stables meant for animals. They were packed into one barrack with approximately 700 other inmates with nine prisoners per bed. The prisoners lived like farm animals beside rodents and lice. Further, the Nazis would shave the prisoner’s heads. For many women, their hair acts as a major part of their identity. This is exactly what the Nazi’s desired to do: steal innocent people’s identities.

The irony of all of it is the true animals were the ones not in striped pajamas, but in uniform. The animals were controlling the humans: a new breed of animal called the SS. Sitting in a class room and learning about how the Nazis treated the victims is incredibly important and I believe all should know how the Nazis dehumanized the victims of the Shoah. However, I do not know if my words here will truly allow people to understand what went on in these camps just as my professor’s words could have never made me truly understand. No one, but the survivors themselves could imagine the atrocities that took place and the way these innocent people were treated. I do hope that no human ever again will be treated even half as poorly as the victims of the Shoah were treated. Through those who immerse themselves in education regarding the Shoah and Jewish-Christian relations, perhaps we can stop history from repeating itself.

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Hopeless

A quote by Simon Peereboom about listening to the media throughout WWII.

A picture of a Hungarian woman before the Shoah next to a picture of her after the liberation.

“Where there's hope, there's life. It fills us with fresh courage and makes us strong again” -Anne Frank.

Reading that is quite uplifting, until one remembers that Anne Frank was captured alongside her family, sent to multiple camps, eventually died at Bergen-Belsen. Did she lose hope? Since her writings halted on August 1st, 1944, we will never know. But Frank’s diary depicts a very joyful girl despite the hopeless end to her life. This stuck out to me today as we returned to Auschwitz I. I recognized a reoccurring theme of hopelessness today.

But, this is not a foreign idea, as we read through The Holocaust Kingdom by Alexander Donat and noticed this constant loss of faith in the future. In the first chapter of Donat’s story, he describes life in a Jewish ghetto in Warsaw, Poland. He speaks about the gradual changes that turned his every day life to misery. From the German soldiers robbing Jews without any repercussions, to their eventual beating and killing of people, these people participated in Donat’s eventual loss of hope. Donat’s story begins with the loss of hope by a loss of reputation. Early on, propaganda began to kill the reputation of the Jewish people. “Polish-Jewish relations deteriorated…the wartime sharing of experience had brought Poles and Jews closer together…but the idyl was short-lived. Poisonous Nazi propaganda soon reawakened native anti-Semitism.” (pp. 11). This exact quote struck me today in Block 21 of Auschwitz on the third floor. This area is a memorial dedicated to those who were killed during the Shoah, specifically from the Netherlands. An entire section of the area was dedicated to Nazi propaganda, which is a large reason they were so successful. These soldiers were able to recruit more non-Jews to join the SS and the non-Jewish citizens to remain bystanders, since they were fed lies. Reading these advertisements, posted publicly throughout the Netherlands and (in Donat’s case) Poland after German occupation, caused me to lose hope in people, especially those in power who used their media presence to spread false accusations.

Later in the day, I found myself again losing hope as I walked through Block 18 on the third floor. This section is a memorial to the Hungarians lost in the Shoah. Throughout the floor, there is no music, only a heartbeat playing on repeat. A section that struck me was from the time frame of 1944-1945, There were dozens of pictures of corpses of Hungarians that had starved to death in Auschwitz Birkenau and pictures of Hungarian women shortly after the liberation of Bergen-Belsen. The skinny, sick bodies made me hopeless. I imagined the perpetrators and lost hope in humanity, most especially the lack of empathy throughout this time. How could they not stand up for those starving people? How could they eat their meals knowing that they were going to spend their days next to hungry people? I recall Donat facing the same thoughts in the Polish ghettos during The Holocaust Kingdom. “Even a crust of bread that went to sustain life was dearly bought with Jewish blood.” (pp. 31). Our author begins to lose hope in the perpetrators, who grew harsher and harsher each day.

A third moment of hopelessness came today during our lecture. We reviewed “We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah”. It was written in 1998 by the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews. Although it was a step forward for the Catholic faith for addressing Judaism in a document, it turns into an apologetic for Catholics. An apologetic is a defense, specifically used to defend religion. In this case, the writers attempt to defend Christian participation in the Shoah; “many did, but others did not”(pp. 10). Being that Catholicism is the largest religion, the word “many” is a poor word choice because it makes it seem as though a majority (millions) helped. But, we know factually this is not true. Reading this brought me full circle to this morning, reading the propaganda and losing hope. This exaggeration by the writers, though not full propaganda, ruined the clean intention of defending the dignity of the Jewish people, and instead tries to make Christians look good.

I have hope, however, that through our trip to Poland this week, as well as the use of these blogs and social media, we can bring hope to preventing something like this from happening again. We can spread the truth and advocate for populations that do not have a voice, with the click of a button. As Dr. Procario-Foley said moments ago, “what is on the internet, is forever”, so let’s take that challenge and use it for good.

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