Wall of Death

A reconstruction of the Wall of Death

During our first time visiting the location of Auschwitz I, we learned about the Wall of Death, locating right next to Block of 11, a place of pure horror. This building was responsible for the torture and murder of thousands of people, including Father Maximilian Kolbe, who eventually became a saint after his martyrdom. Not only that, but the first tests of Zyklon B were used down in the basements of Block 11. Being relegated to Block 11 was practically a death sentence if you were being held at Auschwitz I. With the use of standing cells, which forced individuals to stand for days on end forcibly, and starvation cells, where you were sure to perish, no one made it out alive of this building of death. However, this Wall of Death was where many individuals met their untimely end. It was a location of execution, meant for inmates who were sentenced to death in Block 11. These individuals were stripped naked, dragged out to the wall, and made to stand facing it. Then, a single shot to the back of the head marked the end of their lives. Their bodies were then placed in a pile near the Wall of Death, piling up before they were eventually carted away to the crematorium. Like pigs, they were lead to the slaughter and then discarded, piled up without any decency whatsoever. This type of inhumane behavior towards Jewish individuals reminded me about some of the scenes in The Holocaust Kingdom that outright disturbed me. There were descriptions in the memoir elaborating on the slaughter of people on the streets of the Warsaw Ghetto, individuals being beaten up, mocked, and shot dead for no reason other than their religious faith. Not only that, but the occupants of the Warsaw Ghetto were treated like pigs as well, being locked in the ghetto, not allowed to leave, left to starve to death. This imagery is striking on its own, outlying the atrocities that many individuals in the Shoah had to experience. However, combined with the treatment of executed inmates at the Wall of Death, a clearer picture is painted on how the Nazi's truly felt about Jewish individuals. The Jews throughout the Shoah were treated like pigs; cattle lead to the slaughterhouse. They started to lose any semblance of human dignity that they possessed, robbed of their humanity by the Nazis. To them, the Jews were nothing more than dirty animals, and they were treated as such throughout the extent of the Holocaust: verbally and physically. Learning and seeing where these atrocities were committed stirred something within me, a desire to prevent these crimes from ever happening again. Individuals should realize that no one deserves to be discriminated against for their beliefs; robbed of their humanity due to faith. Auschwitz itself was a place of death and torture, where many individuals lost their lives due to misguided contempt. As a society, we need to learn from our mistakes surrounding the Shoah and come together to respect one another. If we fail to do that, then history will end up repeating itself all over again.