Encountering Evil: Day One At Auschwitz- Ashley Hubaykah

Selfie with Fred and John Paul II

 It seemed only appropriate that the day before our tour at Auschwitz that we visited Pope John Paul II’s hometown in Wadowice. As a Catholic, it was exciting to walk through his home, attend his church and eat his favorite pastry Kremowka. I even got to chase the pigeons in the market square! Just call me the bird lady! Anyways, it was incredible seeing all the places Pope John Paul II visited including Lebanon, the country where my family is from.

Selfie with Lebanon Plaque

Just call me the bird lady!

With Pope John Paul II

One thing that struck me in the museum at John Paul II’s home was that forgiveness is an essential element of Christianity. During his papacy, Pope John II was shot. It was incredible moving to see Pope John Paul go to visit the perpetrator in jail. Not only did he speak with him, but also he forgave him.  I kept a similar lesson in mind as I listen to Father Manfred’s lecture later that night. He taught us to look at Holocaust from a different perspective. He taught us to look at from viewing the perpetrators like the Auschwitz’s commander Rudolph Hess also as humans. While the actions people like Rudolph Hess performed were absolutely wrong, they still were humans just like us with equal human dignity. I went to bed that night really distraught and did not fall asleep until 1:30am. I could not believe what I was feeling. It was like I was feeling sympathy or compassion for the perpetrators. I felt like a traitor to the victims of Auschwitz. I pondered on this even as I went through Auschwitz.

The morning of our tour I was afraid and honestly did not want to go. I was already crying the night before during lecture. How could I get through walking through the actual camp? The first artifact we encountered we encountered was what you see in many pictures. This time the sign above the gates of Auschwitz, “Arbeit macht frei” was not a picture; it was real. At this moment, I understand that the complete translation of work made you free. The freeing was death; work would cause death. The goal was that no one came out back through those gates alive. As I walked through the gates, I already had tears in my eyes.

Auschwitz

Every step of Auschwitz I took was painful. The best way I could describe it was like it was a never-ending funeral and in a sense, it was. The people that died in Auschwitz never got a proper burial. The first place in Auschwitz that struck me was the first building we entered. Our tour guide instructed us to look at a vase filled with ashes; it was here I was faced with looking at innocent people who were murdered. 

Everything started to become too real going through the museum. My classmates and I truly started to feel the pain when we entered a room with a large glass case that preserved hair that was shaven off the prisoners when they entered the camp. I could not believe what I was looking at. Something that we are all born naturally with was stripped from these people. The worst part of all of it was the hair was used to make fabrics in Germany. Not only were people being stripped of something inherently natural to them, but also it was being used by someone else. The feeling of dehumanization was most paramount in this room; so paramount that this was one of three places in the museum pictures were not allowed. The preserved hair was seen as a burial for those souls who never received one or will ever be known.

Glasses that belonged to the victims of Auschwitz

Auschwitz only seemed to get harder as I walked up the stairs. The stairs were caving in because they had been stepped on by so many prisoners. It made me sick to my stomach walking up the caved in stairs only to find more preservations such as hairbrushes, shoe polish, and suitcases of the prisoners. The amount of items preserved I cannot even estimate. And I only broke down more when I entered a room preserving not only one case of prisoner’s shoes, but two. 

Caved in stairs at Auschwitz

 Auschwitz was hell on Earth and this came alive walking through the gas chamber and crematorium. I did not want to go in; I felt my legs shaking and could not get myself to move. I stepped into the gas chamber, closed my eyes and could hear the screaming voices of those who would have been inside. The screaming stopped when I turned the corner and I was face to face with the crematorium. This is when I was screaming and hysterically crying one of my classmates had to hold me. As I walked out, all I could only do was say a short prayer. I prayed that I would have the strength to finish my tour, but also for those who lost their lives. I asked God to allow me to remember a life of God’s love is still possible. God listened because moments later as I turned the corner from the gas chamber, I saw a life created in the loving image of God. A little girl was walking along and all I could think was, God is real. I could not be more thankful to have God remind me at that moment that new life is always possible. 

I tried to keep this in mind as I saw starvation, suffocation and standing cells that all had the goal of torture and death. The standing cells were extremely painful. Four people would be in this small, tiny, square corner and had to crawl like dogs on all fours just to get out. The standing cells were used as punishments for the prisoners like Auschwitz wasn’t already enough.

However, it was in the torture cells I started to see where God was in Auschwitz. At one of the starvation cells, I heard the miraculous story of Father Maximilian Kolbe. A man next to him in the stall asked one of the soldiers to not kill him because he had a wife and family. Maximillian voluntarily stepped up and told the soldiers to take him instead. I was touched by love’s great mystery here to lay down ones life for another particularly a stranger. Humans still thought and cared about one another in the camp.

 In a place that seems so absent of God, it was here I found him. The mystery of God’s love will always triumph over the suffering and mystery of evil.