Unforgettable - by Maria Wik

Day one: walking tour or Osciewim 

The beginning of the week we did local sightseeing that was great, and very educational. On Monday, when we went to Auschwitz for the first time I felt my life change before my eyes. On the walking tour through the camp I kept pulling myself away from the group simply so I would have less distractions. In doing this I closed myself off to feel the emotional of the group. The most common feeling at the camps isn't a feeling at all; it's nothing. It is precisely the feeling of nothing. Even when the camp is full of people it still feels empty and quiet, which in itself is an experience. The first time I felt the barrage of emotions was when we were in one of the barracks. I turned around and looked out the open window and something just clicked. My eyes watered, I felt the feelings I was anticipating, and in the moment I saw beauty. 

Auschwitz 1

There are no words that do justice to the feelings that Auschwitz-Birkenau forces you to confront. Walking through the gate and down the tracks where spouses were separated, children were ripped from their parents and where people were selected for instant death left another pit in my stomach. The enormity of the place is truly insane. Walking from the front straight down to where two gas chambers now lie in ruins seems to take at least 15 minutes, but to get to the pond of ashes or the mass graves takes another 10 minutes. What remains of the camp stretches as far as the eye can see. I can't imagine what it looked like when this factory of death was in operation, despite spending each moment here attempting to understand horror. 

 

Auschwitz Birkenau

I feel as though my journey of learning the Shoah (Holocaust) has just begun. I have learned so much in the past few days that I've lost the ability to comprehend additional information unless I write it down. There are a few things this week that have left me speechless; for instance, the room dedicated to the stolen hair of the prisoners, the children's clothing and also the room with just a single hallway floor to ceiling filled with shoes that will never be worn again. It's a bit easier to figure what it looks like to have all those shoes filled, but what isn't easy to imagine is what 6 million faces look like. My friend, Jordan Darling, commented during a reflection today that we won't even meet 6 million people in our lifetime-wow. 

Children's shoes in Auschwitz 1

I'm not the best at math or numbers but 6 million or even the grand total of 11 million people to never walk this earth again is breath taking. It steals your breath in a way that despite the length of this post, will always be indescribable. I was walking around some of the national exhibits that are up in Auschwitz 1 and stumbled upon these panels in the Netherlands exhibit. About 15 panels that simply look black from far away, but when up close I discovered it is a giant list of names, thousands upon thousands of names. In the Israeli Nation Exhibit there was this massive book filled with the names of 4 million people. This book is by far the biggest book I have ever ever seen and will probably ever see. They were remembered; what matters most is to never forget. This minority of those who are named are the lucky ones. There are countless prisoners who lost their identity the second they entered the camps only to be left with a number. A huge portion of those who died never had their names returned to them, they will forever remain a number. Even more were murdered before they could have a number assigned- sent immediately to the gas chambers. I chose to transfer to Iona College so I wouldn't be a number; these prisoners were forced to become a number. 

The Book Of Names in Auschwitz 1

Looking back at the notes I jotted down quickly some days I find it easy to get a better idea of the emotions I was feeling and the things I learned simply because now that I've seen the majority of what the camp has to offer its not so overwhelming. The anticipation of getting to the camps was almost dreadful. Now that I've been multiple times I simply feel as though I haven't been enough. We leave Poland tomorrow and I'm not sure when I'll be back next, and I am sure I'll be back. 22 million eyes never to see again, 11 million lives ended too soon and all I have to give in my one life is to look with my 2 eyes upon the lives of those who died all too soon, and never to forget. 

Town square in Oswiecim 

View of Auschwitz- Birkenau from the guard tower

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Auschwitz II- Birkenau

Auschwitz II -Birkenau, upon arrival I could tell that this place was much bigger then Auschwitz I but I really had no idea how enormous this place truly is. I can’t seem to wrap my mind around the fact that someone had sat down and planned out each detail of this death camp. These were highly educated men with doctorate degrees, planning the quickest way to murder thousands at one time. You would think with all of their education they would know right from wrong. They treated people like animals but didn’t realize the real animals were themselves.  Unlike Auschwitz one which was previously an army base, this was built to be a place for human beings to die. One of our first stops on the tour was the watchtower; I was taken back by the size and the emptiness from this view.  This is truly put the number of people in perspective. Our guide said that we would have been privileged to be up here because only the SS would have been able to watch from this tower, but I didn’t feel privileged at all. I was looking down at hell on earth. This was made more and more clear as we walked through, first to the women’s bunker, the “beds” or lack there of where pieces of wood, three levels, where any where from four- eight people would sleep. They would stay close together to keep warm. It also broke my heart hearing that the weakest would lay at the bottom, and if someone had to relieve him or herself it would be where they slept. I cant even rap my mind around eight hundred people living in these bunkers. They couldn’t even use the bathroom freely once for a few minutes in the morning and a few minutes at night to wash and use the bathroom.

Then there was the train platform that was built to make the selection process easier. We stood right where life or death was decided. Some Peoples lives ended right when they got off that train, but some didn’t even last the torturous train ride. A hundred people packed in cattle cars no food, no water, no fresh air, and no bathrooms. The people selected walked straight to the gas chambers, they were promised a shower. All they wanted was to clean themselves. What bothers me the most is the false hope that the SS gave these people. The men, women and children were told to remember their number of the hook where they had placed their belongings. They had structured the room to fool these people, to have them staying calm, to make it easier for themselves. They put the changing room and the gas chambers underground so no one could see, think about the thought out into this.

The only place I could feel something in this camp was at the pond. This pond was man made for the purpose of dumping the ashes. This pond was placed right next to the forth crematorium, all for convince. This Crematorium like the rest here at Birkenau had been destroyed, but the ruins remained. As we stood by the pond I looked down at the roses floating in the pond, and you could here the birds singing. I watched my fellow classmates sit by the river and pay our respects. I felt the wind, I saw my classmate Shristi’s book with Hebrew writing on the front and all her notes from the trip open up and all the pages flip open, in this moment I felt life. I took a picture, as this would be a moment I would want to keep forever.

Taylor Dougherty

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Men to the Left and Women to the Right By Shristi Gajurel

Entrance Gate to Auschwitz I

 “In a fraction of a second I could see my mother, my sisters, move to the right. Tzipora was holding Mother's hand. I saw them walking farther and farther away; Mother was stroking my sister's blonde hair, as if to protect her. And I walked on with my father, with the men.”

These are the words of Elie Wiesel explaining his experience inside Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Birkenau went on to become a major site of the Nazi "Final Solution to the Jewish Question.” Almost 1.5 million people were killed at Auschwitz and most of the killings took place at Birkenau. I was always curious of why the Nazis chose Auschwitz as one of their biggest concentration camps. It was interesting to find out that the Nazi’s chose Auschwitz because it was the center of Europe and Poland had the biggest Jewish population. Out of 11 million Jews in Europe, 3.5 million Jews lived in Poland. Poland wasn’t always the closest destination for all Europeans. It took a 2 week long train ride from people of Greece to get to Auschwitz. As a result 60-65 percent of people died on the train.

Cattle Cart used to carry Prisoners to the camp

Birkenau was constructed by the prisoners because the SS army wanted to speed up the killing process. Something that absolutely shocked me is that 7,000 SS army officers controlled 1.5 million people in Auschwitz. They planned everything and gave authority to some prisoners they knew would be absolute dictatorial to other prisoners. One of the Holocaust survivors mentioned that some prisoners who were in charge of certain cells were their own worst enemy and they were the ones that would go and report to SS army about other prisoners. My tour guide said that Holocaust was successful because thousands of intellectuals and leaders believed in it and joined the Nazi team. During this trip, I learned that even among the prisoners there was constant fighting to survive among themselves. Block of Death was the first building we visited today. It was given that name because women who couldn't do hard labor anymore were kept there to die. Seven to nine women slept together in one bed to stay as warm as possible. Bottom level is the worst as people who were weak slept at the bottom as bottom row increased their chance to be bitten by rats and insects   Also, since the prisoners were only allowed to go to the bathroom twice a day most prisoners would pee in their sleep so the last bunk was considered the worst place for prisoners. 5,000 women only had 96 toilet holes and 5 latrines. They only had 5 washrooms so they would only have 25 seconds to go to the bathroom.

Beds in the women's death block 

It was extremely difficult to be at Birkenau today. Auschwitz I was extremely difficult the other day but being at Birkenau felt so real. The hardest part was visiting the pond where Nazis dumped the ashes of tens of thousands of people, mostly Jews, who were gassed at Crematorium IV, just behind and to the left of the pond. Being at Auschwitz has been extremely hard but I have also learned the importance of remembering the victims, survivors and all the families affected.

 As Elie Wiesel  once said "To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time."

Pond with the victims ashes

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Processing In Poland

Greetings to you on a cool, clear night in Oświęcim! 

More often than not, students at any given college will speak about "the course that didn't really matter", and say that "they're not learning anything". I would venture to say that a good number of college students are not processing or thinking about coursework past the classroom. The classroom, in my experience, is where the seeds of an idea or learning are planted. The world is where these take shape and grow for me. What could a week long study of the Shoah (Holocaust) at different sites in Poland mean once processing them?

This experience is unlike any other. Alice Lok Cahana, an artist and survivor of Auschwitz says “The ground is different there”. When you travel through ground that has been tainted by racist, perverted ideology such as that of the Nazi party, where an inconceivable number of people suffered and died… it is a lot to carry. While I will not go into great detail about what I have become a witness to

through this study, I would like to speak about processing it.

What do you do to process what you hear, see, and feel? For our group, this means sitting together for sharing of feelings and insights from our many shared and individual experiences. It also means writing through blog postings and some papers when we return home. Processing is a key component of any powerful experience. Without it, part of the experience is actually lost.

Processing means with thinking and feeling in a deeper way about what you have heard, what you have seen, and what you have felt. This can be done through writing, silent meditation, conversation, drawing, or any number of creative forms. When you process, you take your experience to another level. You do not relive it, but you reinterpret it. One experience can mean a multiplicity of things. At face value it could have meant one thing. With processing, an opportunity for something else to emerge is given to us.

Developing one's own thought on any given topic is part of the academic process. The entire idea of it is as one wise woman has always told me "developing a question and exploring it". Part of my process this week has been taking photographs and selecting the ones I feel are most powerful. Upon return to the US, I plan on reflecting on each photo by captioning it.

Whether it is a 101 or a study abroad to Poland, the experience needs processing. Finding out what helps you process can be a challenge in itself. Trying more than one type can help you find the place where you best process.

-Luis Ramos

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Blog Post #2 Jordan Darling (Poland 2015)

Saint Maximilian Kolbe

For #16670

From the crux of this wave,

   I lounge like a martyr.

Will this remembrance fade?

   or am I more like my Father?

The stakes cause me no pain,

   compared to the faces.

Where all the hope just drained

   have their lives

     truly been impacted…

I'm a lighthouse's gaze

   fixed beyond horizons.

I am always the same,

   constantly changing. 

And so Death licked my ear,

    no more tears on my eyelids.

Waiting patiently here,

   in this darkness of panic,

      not a soul was buzzing.

I pray for the rain,

   to wash this blood from their bold hands.

Because I still love them the same,

   as long lost brothers.

Then my Father he came,

   embraced by my beloved.

Lost in the way,

   that things become each other,

      OH, that unitive oneness. 

So the last I shall say,

   this cross cannot hold me.

There is a force in the way

   constraints can be freeing. 

Be released of the sin

   you thought that defined you,

I raise my left arm,

   and wait for the ending,

      no it's the beginning. 

     I chose to write about Saint Maximilian Kolbe because his story particularly resonated with me. To think about the number of "Christians" whom in the face of the Shoah either were complacent or active participants in the genocide of the Jewish people, Saint Maximilian engaged in the deepest Christian act imaginable, the selfless sacrifice of his life for that of not only another prisoner, but that prisoner's family. It is a reminder that even in the face of such malevolence that there were actions committed recognized, and unrecognized that truly embodied selfless love and action. For every story of heroism we are able to pluck from the Shoah there are surely thousands more in which attempts of righteousness were immediately snuffed out. The only way for me  to retain any reasonable level of sanity and optimism in such a challenging emotional, physical, and academic topic is to search deeply for these jewels of humanity amongst the barren wasteland of inhumanity. I now proceed through my life carrying the knowledge and burden of Saint Maximilian, as we all should. 

    Would I bare such a Christly burden as he did? Would I make a sacrifice with no reassurance of my memorialization or success, and more importantly would I do so for he who has been manipulated into begin subhuman? It is not an easy question, nor is any question in connection to the Shoah, but how can one love God, if he doesn't love his fellow man regardless of perceived barriers and otherness? 

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Encountering Evil Day 2: Birkenau

“Stand tall. Smile. Breathe.” These four words of my professor, Dr. Procario-Foley I kept in mind as I embarked on Auschwitz II-Birkenau on Tuesday. To be honest, I had enough; I did not think anything could get worse than Auschwitz from Monday. But, I was wrong. Things only did get worse at Birkenau. But, it was a different kind of worse. It was that kind of worse where your body is completely numb and you cannot feel anything. You are hurting so much and your body is so stunned by human pain, it is not even possible to feel.

You know those pictures we see of train tracks running through a wide brick building? It you google the Holocaust, it would probably come up. Well, that wide brick building with the train tracks running through it is Birkenau; never did I think I would actually see those train tracks. 

Birkenau

View from the SS Tower

Birkenau is a lot different from Auschwitz. It is simply land that is filled with pure terror that goes on for several miles. The place even has a distinct smell to it. Our tour guide, Aggie from Auschwitz took us up to the SS guard tower. From here, I could see how far Birkenau stretched too. I looked left, I looked right and all I saw was brick and wooden buildings prisoners were tortured in. We first entered Block 16a. Block 16a was incredibly hard to walk through, as it was a place strictly sick women were placed. Block 16a had three shelves for where the women slept. Each shelf was to hold three to four women. Emancipated women were just pile on top of each other just to keep themselves
warm. 

In Block 16a, I was particularly disturbed by the giraffe past visitors had written on the brick walls. These people never even received a proper burial and barely even a chance to survive. I was not only disturbed by Birkenau, but by the disrespect from other visitors.

Block 16a Sign

Bunk Beds in Block 16a

Aggie continued to walk us through Birkenau and just like Auschwitz, things only got worse. We confronted the cattle car, which “resettled” the Hungarian Jews. For the Nazis, resettled merely meant deportation to a death camp. Aggie was telling us the story at the cattle car at how families would be separated forever. The Jews would be separated into lines of either forced labor or immediate death in the gas chamber. I tried my best to put myself in those people’s shoes, but it was just impossible. Anytime I try to put myself in a victim’s shoe, I simply cannot. It is impossible; something happens inside me that I understand what is going on, but I cannot get past that step. I’ve learned however that it is something I should never have to understand. What happens to those Hungarian Jews is simply incomparable to anything else. 

Birkenau stretched on and so did my pain. The death camp does not have anymore standing gas chambers and crematoriums, but the remains are still there. What hit me the host when looking at the ruins of the gas chambers were the steps. I starred at the steps and could only think about people did not even know those were the last steps they would ever take.  I started to cry again and just like in Auschwitz, all I could do is pray. It’s interesting how the darkest of places has shown me where God is.

I continued on through Auschwitz and like I said, only felt empty. I almost felt bad at one point cause I thought I was not feeling anything. But, I realized that one of the most inhuman feelings is to not feel anything at all.

Aggie took us to the place where I could finally feel something. In Birkenau, there is a pond where the ashes of the victims have been placed. It was finally a place I could feel something; I felt peace. I felt peace for the victims that they could rest in the beauty of God’s creation. There were roses and all sorts of flowers floating in the water; birds were chirping; and the wind was singing. I closed my eyes and felt God’s presence holding me as I prayed for all the victims and peace in our world. 

Pond of Ashes at Birkenau

It’s hard to even imagine thinking positive when it comes to the Holocaust. But, it does not seem as possible as soon as you come face to face with it. Auschwitz and Birkenau helped me realize that God did not cause any of this. God is human too and simply was crying with me that day. God was just as disappointed with humanity as I was. We think God is this almightily, powerful, and perfect being, in which He is; however, we forget he is also human and can feel horrified, ashamed at other humans, and immensely distraught on a situation that he may not even know what to do. During the Holocaust, God may have not known what to do except simply cry.

We ended our day at Birkenau with a prayer service. We bought six roses, gold and maroon, to represent the six million Jews and Iona. Professor Nadel prayed the Kaddish, a Hebrew prayer and we remembered all the victims we may have personally known that were affected by the Holocaust. I may not have known anyone personally, but I did understand that even though different religions, we all are brothers and sisters that believed in something that ultimately led to the same God.

Ultimately, is that not something to remember in our present day? We may all have different faith beliefs, but don’t they lead to a God that is all loving and peaceful. Maybe if we recognized this, our world maybe different.

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Butterfly -Rachel Baio

The entrance to Auschwitz II-Birkenau

I don't think its possible to write to you about the things that I saw today. To explain the feelings that ran through me, and by ran I mean forced themselves through my chest, would be impossible. I still don't know for sure what those feelings are.

                  Train tracks exiting Birkenau

When I imagined Auschtwiz, I imagined Auschwitz II-Birkenau, and I think thats why yesterday was such a weird day for me; because I had expected something different. But today we went to Birkenau and I can promise you that I was not ready for what happened to me there. My expectation was exceeded by tremendous realization after realization of just how big and horrible this lair of evil was.

The main guard tower and the railroad tracks leading into the camp was a sight that always gave me the chills in pictures. It just looks like it would be an entrance to death and despair. I now associate the entrance of Birkenau to the entrance of death. As we drove to the camp I really wasn't feeling or acting in any particular way, I was just wonder how long the drive was, and exactly then is when the road we were on suddenly wound and took us right to the entrance tower. I went speechless and my body filled with complete dread. From that point on I felt like I couldn't breathe; there was just something off with me. I felt heavy...empty...and hopeless. The entire grounds of the camp didn't feel right.

Looking at the train tracks made my stomach twist into a discomfort I felt for the rest of the day. I couldn't believe where I was. This was truly hell. And I haven't even been inside yet. It was like every prisoner was standing with me, looking at the endless railroad that took them into their doom, stuffed like animals in a cattle cart. Before the Jewish prisoners built the internal train stop where their death began, the original prisoners of Birkenau had to walk about fifteen minutes from a train stop not far from the camp. As we walked this trek, I imaged the dread of seeing those terrible towers in the distance and knowing that thats where I was being herded.  I truly don't know what I would've done. I don't know what I would've felt.                                                      
                                                                                       A cattle car used to transport Hungary Jews 

As we walked through the opening of the camp, through that hideous tower, I became more aware of my surroundings, and the motion of uneasiness set in. The first place we went inside was the women's block of death. This was the barrack where the women who were too weak and sick to work were put in a holding cell until it was time for them to be liquidated. The women received no food or water and stayed here because the gas chambers were too crowded. If a woman died, her bunk mates had to move her corpse outside until it was time for them to be murdered. The women knew where they were and what was to come to them in their future. Just hearing that seemed to remove me from my body, and as we entered I felt more and more separate from myself. It was awful in there. The floor was dirt, the beds were wooden boards, and it was so cold. They slept next to each other, possibly 8 of them squished, but they needed the warmth of body heat. The bunks were built to  have 3 levels, with the sickest on the bottom because they didn't have the strength to climb to the middle or top section. The women defecated on themselves throughout the night because they couldn't go outside- the guards locked the barrack. Thinking about these poor women, their bodies of just skin and bone, and that they lost the ability to h
ave their period, made me feel even more empathetic because I am a women. They were so mutilated that they not only lost their identity of a person but as a women too. I walked up to one of the bunks and did something I've yet to do to something in the camps... reached my hand out to touch the artifact. My hand seemed to lock up and resisted to reach further, but something inside me pushed it forward and when I finally grabbed onto the wooden board I felt something that I still do not understand. I felt her with me. Her. Them. Women. And I seemed to become full with presence, and at the same time completely drained of all energy. I had become completely numb.

I needed to get out of there. And I was I did, but I felt just absolute remorse leaving, like I had left a part of me behind in the block. Maybe a part of these women are left behind in this block. There was no hope here. I always try to find hope in things, even when life seems totally hopeless, but there was no hope here.







One of the crematoriums destroyed by Nazis

The bunkers in the Women's death block

The air felt evil...and empty. There was a smell to Birkenau. I have no idea what it is but I'll always associate that smell with the horrors of Birkenau. We were shown so many horrible things. There was the gas chambers, where people were told and tricked to undress and hang their coats up on a numbered hook so they wouldn't forget it. Children were told to tie their shoes together so they could find them when they were done showering. These people had no idea what was happening to them. Or maybe some did, which is even worse. These children had no idea that they were never going to see those shoes again. They were never going to see the outside world again. What was worse came after that. When the bodies were cremated and the ashes were just completely disregarded in ponds and farm land. The Nazis took everything from these people---their belongings, their families, and their bodies---to benefit Germany.


What happened next was the most emotional part of the tour for me. The part where I finally felt something. We were shown the back of the camp, so far away form the public's eye. This is where the ashes and other chambers were located. There was a river filled with ashes of the deceased. Ashes of innocent people. Tens of thousands of innocent people. It was here I finally was able to have a realization of just how devastating this camp was. It was here that I was able to bring myself back into my body and feel again. As I put myself in solitude and stared at the pond my heart suddenly seemed to beat again and it was just filled with this complete feeling of sorrow. I was so sorry. I hadn't done anything to the deceased, but I was so sorry. And I let them know that. And just as my eyes began to tear for the first time since arriving in Poland a butterfly appeared and flew over to me. The butterfly lingered for a while as if to say, "Its okay." My tear never fell. But I was okay because I felt that the souls of these ashes have been liberated in their own way, and that they were finally at peace now.

The pond with victims' ashes

As we walked out of the camp a fire alarm in the near distance started to sound. As if me and my group were being liberated. Let out. Free. But most of the prisoners there would never know the feeling of freedom again. And it didn't seem fair to me that I only had to stay inside this camp for a few hours and they never got to leave.

Auschwitz I was a hard place for me to get a reaction because the whole camp looked like a set to me. Since its a museum I had a hard time visualizing it as a concentration camp rather than an exhibit, and I think thats why it was so difficult for me to put myself there and imagine the devastation. I did not have that issue with Birkenau. The devastation was clear. Nothing looked like it was fake. It was too real.

To feel okay about the horrid things that happened at Birkenau I remember the butterfly. The only symbol of hope and freedom I saw throughout my entire tour. That butterfly can fly away whenever it wants to. It is free.        

                                                    Students from Israel visiting the camp

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With Bad Comes Good

Day 4: Auschwitz II - Birkenau was an experience I don't think I would ever want to experience again. The horror, the size, and the feelings were much more than I expected them to be. This picture is the first thing I saw of Birkenau and instantly my stomach dropped. From this moment, until I got back to the center where we are staying for the week, this feeling never went away. I've seen pictures of the train tracks entering Birkenau before but I never realized how real a picture in my head could become and so fast. Going into the guard tower was by far nauseating because we were able to see the size of Birkenau and try to understand the amount of people that could fit in this camp at one time. Then to find out that there are two bunkers way in the back, past the never-reaching trees, of where the unknown beginning happened. Seeing the size of Birkenau and seeing the trees in the distance knowing they are the end and seeing exactly how far away they are is completely mind-blowing. Another sickening thought was, when we were in the guard tower we were told "women to the left, men to the right" with this being said, when you looked to the left you saw not even a quarter as many barracks as you did to the right. This later became our knowledge that women, children, too old, too young, handicapped or pregnant people were the ones who died most often from right off the cattle car. This meaning they didn't need as many barracks for women and children as they did men. Men and women were completely separated and most of the time the last time they saw each other was at the unloading station. Listening to our tour guide I understand what she was saying and I can try my best to picture the sadness but trying to put myself in these peoples shoes has been the hardest thing for me on this trip. With every situation I try to understand all different sides to situations and how I would feel if I were to be in someone else's shoes, I do this all the time, and the time where I want to do it most and understand the most, I can not do it. Another thing that I have been struggling with is the number "six million." The number is bigger than anyone will ever understand and I think with this number being so high it makes this entire experience just that a bit more challenging.

This picture was found in Block 16A which was a barrack strictly for Russian and Polish children. These children were sometimes forced to leave the camp and were adopted by German families. Most of them so young they don't even remember. This picture was found on a bunk in this barrack. To me, this looks like a guard tower. Can you imagine waking up every morning, looking out the window, and knowing your every move is not your choice and that you are being watched at every moment of everyday? Because I can't. This picture is so interested and not until I looked at it after I got back did I realize a stronger meaning than just a guard tower. If you put your finger over the right side of the "guard tower" you will see what looks like a guard or a police figure. Then, if you cover the left side you see a farmer or a worker of some kind. This picture made me think of how talented a child is, and then I think about if this specific child was killed, liberated, or sent to Germany to be adopted. This child is more talented than I will ever be and it just shows the pain these children felt. Children should not feel pain, they should be coloring and playing around outside. These children were exposed to so much hate, crime, and dehumanization. With me being an education major and hopefully a mother one day, I can not imagine children not growing up without an education and with fear or where their parents are or whats going to happen to them that day. Children are the future of this world that we live in and we want to continue. We bring children into this world so they can make a difference and so that they can become anything they want to be but these children didn't have the choice, they didn't even know that there are people in this world who do have a choice. Most of those children never got to see what they could've done in this world and maybe it is for the better. Maybe this shows how messed up the world is, and honestly who would want to live in a world like this? Hearing about the torture all of the children went through breaks my heart.

This is a picture I took when we were walking towards "Canada II" and back by the administration office. I stopped for a minute because I thought it was nice, so I took a picture. This picture gave me hope, something that many of these people had. No not all, but I do believe that people did have hope because without hope they wouldn't have lasted more then two-three weeks, which some people did not. There are so many different little miracle stories that we have learned about. Stories like people who help each other when they can't move, people who get shoes for others, people who keep swallowing diamonds that were given to her by her mother that she managed to keep her entire time through Auschwitz. Stories like this show that even when you are put in the worst situation you need to look at the bright side, even though sometimes it might be absolutely impossible. These people needed something, anything and I think something like this, seeing the water run could've showed that that water has to be going somewhere, somewhere further than they know. Even though this can be taken as they can be going somewhere that they don't know as another camp, I like to look at the brighter side of things. They could've gotten the hope they needed, that little something to know that there are bigger and better things out there that they need to stick around for. I know this scene gave me the little hope I know these people needed and I pray to God that it happened for these people too. Even if it wasn't this little creek, even if it was just seeing a sign of some sort. I can not imagine waking up and not thinking that today is a new day and I can make it anytime I want, everyone should have this freedom. These people deserved this freedom, they were as innocent as you and me.


- Patricia Keating

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Halt!

My feet led the way. The air was thick. We walked through the museum sections of Auschwitz that I spoke about in my last blog. These spots made me think. They put a face to the six million people murdered.

Those spots are easier to describe. I could tell you about the showcases and what information I learned about them from our tour guide, Aggy. But trying to explain the other places in Auschwitz is much harder.

These other places are the spots that give off the spirit of the people who passed.

Rudolf Hess was commandant of Auschwitz. Father Manfred, director of education at the Center for Dialogue and Prayer, told us about Hess the night before in class. Fr. Manfred wrote a book on Hess and the autobiography Hess wrote. I bought Fr. Manfred’s book called, “And Your Conscience Never Haunted you?” (The book cost 55 zlotys which seemed like a lot but that’s actually only about $14!)

Aggy took us out of the camp. We went through two sets of barbed wire fences up to a hill with a chimney coming out of it. Then if you looked to the far right, you see a big white house. In between the two was a hanging post. The left was the crematorium, the right was Hess’s home and right in the middle was where Hess was hanged after he was found guilty in 1947 for killing 1.5 million Jews.

The killing centers needed to be outside of the camp away from the prisoners to keep them from panic and uprise.

After that, we went into the gas chamber. Usually, the killing center was comprised of a changing room, the gas chamber, and the crematorium. However, this set up was a little different because they used buildings that were already constructed and redesigned the insides of them to fit the camp's needs. There was no changing room and it was half above the ground.

I was one of the first people behind my tour guide. My feet just walked in her path. The room was made up of cement walls and it was not that big. There was a small opening in the ceiling where they would put the toxin in. My tears started flowing automatically. My chest felt tight and it was pretty hard to breathe. I looked to the left and saw the ovens through the doorway. At that point, I was hysterical. I walked in, looked around, and got out as soon as I could. It wasn’t the image of the ovens that put me into shock but the presence that affected my whole body.

I felt the same emotions looking at the hanging post. Looking at the wood post with the hook on the end, I felt like I saw a quick, blurry imagine of a man who was hung. In the crematorium, I could see the Jews placing the corpses in the ovens one by one. The smells. The ashes. The heat. In the gas chambers, I could imagine the claustrophobia. The screams. The gas. The bodies falling on the ground one by one.

I walked back into the fresh air. The air was light again and I could control my sobbing a little better. My mind was racing and thousands of emotions were running through my body. Aggy gave us a couple of minutes to reflect and catch our breaths. Then she started leading us to another location.  I was walking behind Luis and as he tries to walk around something, I see a little girl on the ground.

The little girl with brown hair was playing with the rocks from the ground.

Innocence.

I thought back to the tour guide saying the statistic that one out of the four people who were killed in the gas chambers was a child. Most of the children did not even get registered in the camp. They were sent right to the gas chambers. The images in my mind went back to the videos from various documentaries we watched. There was always someone talking about the selection process. With tears rolling down their face, they talk about when they were ripped away from their families. I could not see this girl’s parents anywhere. 

During group reflection, everyone spoke about how he or she saw the little girl and how she gave him or her hope. Hope that there is still good in the world. Hope that there is still innocence. My classmates also reminded me that the children who were gassed, were saved from having their innocence stripped away from them. Death was their freedom from the emotional torture and starvation they would have faced. God saved them with eternal life and they are safe in His hands.

Unfortunately the tour did not end there. 

We went to Block 11 – the first administrative center and camp prison. This was the place where prisoners were held on trial without a lawyer and then punished/held there until they were killed. We saw examples of living quarters for the prisoners and an office for the SS guard. The worst part of this building was the basement.

Down there, we saw the starvation, standing, and suffocation cells. Each cell was like a dark closet that you are too afraid to look into. First, we saw the starvation cell where Father Maximillion Kolbe stayed for 2 weeks until he was killed by the SS guards. The Nazis assumed that he would have died from hunger and it was a miracle that he survived for as long as he did without food.   Kolbe was in the starvation cell because he switched spots with another man who was in trouble. The other man survived  the war because Kolbe sacrificed his life for him. Pope John Paul II visited Kolbe's cell and canonized him in 1980.

I left Auschwitz I emotionally and physically drained. My upper back was in pain and I needed a nap desperately. I am going back on Thursday morning for class. I am nervous for all of the emotions to come back. However, I know that all of these experiences at the camps will help me deepen my faith.

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