I Will Never Forget

Monday, March 28^th, 2016                                                                                              

I’ve been back home with my friends and family asking me questions like, “How was Poland...Did you have fun?”  Dr. Procario-Foley told us to be ready to answer these questions.  Of course I had fun with my fellow peers touring Kraków and playing games like “Heads Up” and “Salad Bowl,” but touring Auschwitz was not fun.  Yes, I had a great experience and had one of the best weeks of my life, but fun wasn’t necessarily the right word.  How did I answer the questions about my trip to Poland?  Well, I simply said it was a trip I’ll never forget.  I will forever have the images of the cobblestone grounds, red/orange brick barracks, and the rooms of human hair, luggage, personal belongings, eyeglasses, shoes, and the photograph of the eight year old boy imbedded in my mind.  I don’t need to watch documentaries or look back at the pictures taken on my camera because seeing the camp has affected me in more ways than I could imagine. 

The prisoners' luggage.

The prisoners' belongings.



The prisoners' eyeglasses.

The prisoners' shoes.

Yesterday on Easter Sunday, I spent the day with my family, grandparents, and cousins at my aunt and uncle’s house.  After our meal, my family was eager to hear about my trip and look at my pictures.  I thought I would be able to hold it together while explaining my trip, but I was wrong.  Explaining each picture’s significance to my family brought me back to this past week and gave me flashbacks of each moment.  As I began to cry, naturally my mother and sister did as well.  My mom explained to me that seeing my pictures and hearing my stories was making her feel as if she was there with me.  Even though my mom obviously was not in Poland this past week, she sympathized with me and helped me process my feelings.  I cannot ever imagine losing my mom – she’s my best friend and the first one I call for everything.  Even though I’m twenty-one years old, I still count on my mom for more than I probably should.  So to even think about how young children, toddlers, and even babies were taken away from their mother’s is just so devastating for me to process.  For me to imagine being sent to a different line or different barrack than my mother after exiting a train at Auschwitz is one of the scariest things for me to think about.  Coming home from Poland, I have developed a much deeper appreciation for my life, my religion, and for those whom I love.  I will never take anything for granted – I am truly blessed and forever grateful for this unbelievable, eye-opening experience. 

With all I have learned throughout this past week, I will continue to educate those who are unfamiliar about the Holocaust.  One day, I will teach my children and grandchildren about the Holocaust by telling them the stories of my experience of Auschwitz and showing them my pictures.  Learning about how many people visit Auschwitz daily was just amazing and gives me hope.  Each visitor who attends Auschwitz becomes a witness of the horrific event of the Holocaust.  After visiting Auschwitz, each visitor may choose to do whatever they wish with their experience.  Leaving Auschwitz, I choose to become an advocate for anyone who has gone through a traumatic life experience – especially the survivors of the Holocaust. 

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Leaving With Peace

Thursday, March 24^th, 2016



Today we went back to Auschwitz 1 for the very last time. Entering the camp, I still had the same peaceful feeling I had when leaving Auschwitz-Birkenau yesterday.  This morning we attended a lecture and had some time before lunch to walk around the camp on our own.  I think today was the hardest day of the week for me.  As I walked around the grounds of Auschwitz 1, I entered barrack number twenty-seven where there were exhibits from Belgium and the Netherlands.  As I walked through the Netherlands exhibit, my chest began to feel extremely heavy and my eyes began to fill up with tears.  A large photograph of an eight year old boy wearing the Star of David pinned on his jacket immediately caught my attention.  The description underneath read that upon arrival to Auschwitz, this innocent eight year old boy was immediately sent to the gas chamber.  I found that I could not stop staring into the little boy’s eyes.  Throughout the week of tours at Auschwitz, I would begin to cry as soon as children were mentioned.  Innocent, naïve, beautiful children with the rest of their lives ahead of them were brought to experience this unbelievable cruelty.  Absolutely no one who suffered or died during the Holocaust deserved the inhumane treatment or horrifying death.  However, I cannot accept or understand how or why anyone could commit these acts on a child.

 

The babies barrack at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

As I walked around the corner, there was an entire wall covered with the names, hometowns, and dates of arrival/death of the victims from the Netherlands.  Every name that caught my attention was from Rotterdam, Netherlands.  I live in Rotterdam, New York – just outside of Albany.  I began to burst out in tears as I saw the names, and I couldn’t help but imagined my own family's name being on the list.  I felt heartbroken for the helpless people whose lives were senselessly lost.

For the past two days we have sat in barracks listening to lectures and engaging in interactive activities.  I sat in the barracks without a worry that at any given moment my life could come to an end.  I was sitting at desks and computers without a worry in my mind, while looking out the windows seeing tour groups pass by.  I thought how fortunate, safe and sound I was, knowing that in this very room, on this same ground, people hopelessly suffered, were cruelly tortured, and died.

Looking out the window at Auschwitz 1.

Reflecting on my experience at Auschwitz.

Exiting the camp for the very last time was bittersweet.  I walked around the camp ground and gathered my thoughts.  I tried to think about the beauty I saw in the rose yesterday.   I remembered what Sister Mary told us the first day we arrived in Poland – “It’s not the 1940’s anymore, its 2016.”  I tried to talk myself out of envisioning the dismal history of the camp and attempted to focus on whatever beauty, in nature or on the grounds of the camp that I could find.  I glanced up to the beautiful blue sky as I felt the strong rays of sunlight beaming on my back.  I looked at the green grass and I heard the birds chirping.  As I walked along the cobblestone pathways, I became a witness along with the hundreds of visitors also touring the camp.  I leave believing that experiencing Auschwitz has given me a greater appreciation of my own life, and because of this experience, I will take nothing for granted.

Glancing at the beautiful blue sky, while taking my few last steps at Auschwitz 1.

 

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Can There Be Peace In Auschwitz Today?

Tuesday, March 22^nd, 2016

For the past week, I have been experiencing many different emotions: anxiety, happiness, sadness, but also excitement.  I wasn’t nervous about traveling abroad or about being on an airplane.  My anxiety stemmed from the unknown reactions I was going to have during and after my arrival at Auschwitz.  This class has been extremely eye-opening, since I have never been exposed to any of the history of WWII other than high school history class.  On Monday, I felt as though I had a pit in my stomach as I found out a resident from the nursing home I have worked at since my sophomore year of high school had passed away.  Her death was not the only reason I did not feel right – it was also due to knowing that the next day I would be walking the grounds of a place where 6,000,000 people were tortured, murdered or died from starvation and disease. 



"Work Will Set You Free"

Yesterday at Auschwitz 1, we bared witness to just how horrifying and gruesomely the prisoners were treated.  As we entered the camp, the sign read, “Arbeit Macht Frei,” which means, “Work Will Set You Free.”  We learned that this quote was to mislead prisoners and to attempt to obscure the dreadful events happening inside of the camp.  The German Nazi’s concealed from the outside world all the harm they were doing to the Jews and prisoners.  As we learned today at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Germans destroyed the gas chambers in an attempt to cover up the evidence of their disgusting and inhumane acts.  Walking through the grounds of the camp, I reacted less emotionally than I had imagined.  I found myself tearing up at times, especially when we entered the rooms displaying the luggage, belongings, and especially the hair of the prisoners.  I cannot fathom what the victims went through.  Seeing their hair gave me an indescribable feeling.  I immediately began to think of the loss of individuality and identity the prisoners experienced.  Upon arrival, they were not only tattooed with numbers to replace their names, but they were all given matching clothing, and all men, women, and children’s heads were shaved.

 

One of the many demolished gas chambers.

The steps down to the gas chamber.

Walking through Auschwitz-Birkenau today, I remembered what Alice said from the movie we watched in class – that in Auschwitz, “Each step hurts.”  Today, I experienced that hurt.  Walking around the gas chambers made me feel that same indescribable feeling I had upon seeing the prisoner’s hair.  I could not help but imagine and internalize the horrific aurora that came from the gas chambers.  It made me so sad and I tried to imagine how I would have felt if I had been a young woman taking those steps down into the chamber.  Would I know my life was about to come to an abrupt and gruesome end?  I had to take a few moments for myself and I sat down on the steps of a memorial adjacent to the gas chamber to process my feelings.  At first I felt devastated, but then I saw a long-stemmed, red rose lying on the destroyed wall of the gas chamber.  Suddenly, the rose made me feel peaceful and content.  The rose gave me some satisfaction that there is still life in a place where too many innocent and loving people were killed.

The rose that gave me a sense of peace.

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