Memorization

After coming back from Poland, I have been finding it hard to give myself space and time to process all that we witnessed. Feeling bombarded by family, friends, and professors with well-meaning questions about the trip and our experiences has been overwhelming. I keep coming back to the phrase “the more I learn, the less I understand”, which was a title of a book I saw in the book store at Birkenau. The more we learned and saw, the less I understand how all of this destruction could have happened. I found it difficult to come make sense of what the destruction of an entire group of people looks like, until we stood next to a pond filled with ashes. That is what destruction looks like.

Memorial next to pond at Auschwitz II-Birkenau

Throughout our time at various sites, there are memorials at very deliberate places. Whether in Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II- Birkenau or the ghetto and concentration camp, Plaszow, memorials were intentional, and I found them to be extremely impactful. While all of the camps serve as a memorial to the destruction, there were certain places that had special plaques. Places where human ashes were spread had memorials, as seen above. The plaque states, “To the memory of the men, women and children who fell victim to the Nazi genocide. Here lie their ashes. May their souls rest in peace.” There were several sets of these memorials in the area of the pond and by crematorium 4 and 5. They are in four different languages; English, Polish, Hebrew and Yiddish.

In class before traveling to Poland, we spoke about conceptualizing 6 million people. We spoke about different movements started by teachers to help educate others about the Holocaust and to help understand how devasting the scope of the Holocaust was. One of these projects was the paper clip project, where a school tried to collect 6 million paper clips to represent all the people murdered in the Holocaust. This was an attempt to not only conceptualize what 6 million people looks like, but to also understand that each of those paper clips represented an individual. Dr. Procario-Foley stressed in class to not only remember the individual, but to understand that each individual had a network of people that were affected. Each individual was a mother, a father, a daughter, a son.

A photo found in a suitcase hidden in Auschwitz II-Birkenau

If was difficult for me to come to terms with the scope of the murder until visiting Auschwitz II-Birkenau and Oswiecim. In Oswiecim, there is no longer a Jewish community. There is currently only one Synagogue, which is functional for groups that would like to use it but is also a museum. Seeing the site of destruction of the majority of a population and having that destruction mirrored in Oswiecim brought everything we learned together.

I found the ways in which different communities and places memorialized the ones they lost impactful. Some were more emotionally impactful, which others strived to draw attention to the individual; by remembered that reach person was a man, women or child, not a nameless prisoner.

Memorial at Plaszow Concentration Camp 

The memorial at the Plaszow Concentration Camp site to be beautiful. The crack in the statue is meant to be the broken heart of the Jewish people. It remembers those that were lost by visualizing the hurt and loss that this devastating event caused. Heart that was felt by every member of each community effected. A hurt and loss that brings me back to the question of how could groups effected by the Holocaust trust society again? These memorials not only remember those who were lost, but also serve as symbols of strength. The strength of a people who can come back from destruction to remember those that were lost while educating others on power of hate.

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Blog 1

This picture was taken on March 20, 2019 in Kraków Poland at 4:53pm. I chose this picture because I liked how the community got together and decided they needed a way to show their respect for the people who suffered in the Holocaust and remembered those who lost their lives and suffered. In this picture it shows a memorial for holocaust victims. This picture symbolizes that we will never forget the events that happened during the Shoah and we use this as a reminder why we should never let this happen again. As we walked up to this memorial we had to pass through an old Jewish graveyard and the old places that used to be forced work places for people who were forced to live in the ghettos and work. The work that had to be done here was building housing and other work places. We placed rocks on the memorial to pay our respects. We learned from Stan who came to talk to our class that In the Jewish culture that places rocks at graves and memorials. The Jewish peoples do this because flowers have a short season in Jerusalem, and rocks are always around. Also, rocks are more permanent then flowers, since flowers will eventually die. As we were walking through this now national park many emotions passed through me. We walked through this park after looking around the old Krakow ghettos. I could imagine and picture these prisoners lives during World War 2. I could picture there long and painful walk every mooring across town around the train tracks to get to work. How they would have to work in any weather condition with limited clothing, no shoes, and barley anything to eat. Then those unfortunate people working from sunrise to sunset every day, just to walk the excruciating walk back to their ghetto. I must have been so horrible to work in these conditions under these circumstances, and I could imagine how it was made worse by the fact that they are working on a Jewish graveyard that was destroyed by the Germans to make this workplace. As our tour guide was taking us around the city of Krakow showing us the towns ghetto and these workplaces, she was telling us personal stories of the people really helped me and the rest on the class. Hearing the personal stories really helped me connect what I was seeing and helped me picture people having to live this way. I think this memorial that we visited is in a perfect spot. It is right were many events of World War 2 took place. This memorial was in three different languages. This allows many different people who speak different languages to be able to read the inscription. This monument is also done so greatly because even if you don’t speak or understand the languages on the monument people can still understand the importance of this and get the full message and effect that was indented from this monument. I am extremely grateful for this experience and for the fact that I got to show my respect for the victims of the Shoah.

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Birkenhough related to the last days

On the trip to Auschwitz Birkenau I was in awe about the size of the camp. Looking out onto the camp grounds all I could think of was imagining all of the people there. Thousands and Thousands of people lined up in the barracks. Looking at the train car and railroad tracks I just imagined the people getting pulled off and sorted for selection. Everything came into full circle, from learning about it to actually standing where this horrible murders happened. The whole time I was in Birkenau the only thing I could really focus on was imaging the people who were imprisoned there. I started to think about the Movie we watched in the “The Last days.” In this movie the story of five Hungarian Jews who survived Auschwitz are told. Alice Lok Cahana, told her story of survival and what she had to endure on her horrific stay in Auswitchz. While in the camp Alice was on my mind as I walked through the women’s camp and passed the crematorium all I thought about was how Alice and the rest of survivors from the last days were standing in the exact spot where I am standing, However, the only difference was that they were prisoners of the Germans and I was not.

View from the observation tower in Auswitchz Birkenau

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The Art

Flying home there was a consensus within the class, what do we say when people ask how our trip was? Did we have fun? This was not a trip in which you go home and say “I had fun” like our peers who went on other trips for their spring breaks. This was a learning experience that I think all of us still need to process.

On Wednesday of our trip we went to the exhibit for Mariana Kołodzieja, he was a Christian Pole who was in Auschwitz One. His experience at the camp was too difficult for him to speak about so he drew. He created these intense and extremely intricate pieces that depicted the prisoners, the SS guards, and demons. For the amount of work he created and how he himself had it displayed we needed more time than we had to really look at all the pieces and view his story. That night when I laid in bed, I closed my eyes and saw the desperate faces he drew. (Seen in the picture to the right)

David Olère, another artist we saw who shared their experience through painting. Olère was a sonderkomando, a prisoner who was forced to work in the crematorium, the one who took the bodies from the gas chamber to the fire. His work was dark and beautiful just as Kołodzieja’s work, although for me maybe a little less haunting. Olère’s work depicted the experiments done on women, the process the sonderkomandos put the corpses, and depictions of the cremation process. One of the painting that stuck out to me most was titled “Freedom begins at the top of a chimney.” The part of the painting I remember was in the chimney smoke of the crematorium there were ghosts or souls of the victims. I think it depicts how horrible the conditions were at the camps and how many would be murdered every day.

The sign for David Olere’s exhibit at Auschwitz 1    

In class our professor quoted Michael Berenbaum when he referred to reflecting on the holocaust is to think of the absence of presence and the presence of absence. This quote relates to the work of Mariana Kołodzieja and David Olère because the presence of their work is a presence of absence, highlighting the 6million souls lost in the camps. I personally felt the absence of presence walking through Birkenau. Walking through the children’s barracks, block 16, there was a mural when you first walk through the door. The Museum doesn’t know who exactly created these but know it was most likely another prisoner who wanted to give the children a more permanent gift.

Before this trip I knew I would learn about suffering and the effects of hate. I did not expect to see amazing works of art that fought against the hate. I still do not know what I will tell family and friends when they ask if I had fun but I know I can say I learned more dimensions than I thought I would and overall had a great trip through Poland.

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Conclusion

As we headed back to the United States on our final day I can reminisce on what I have seen and experienced on the trip to Poland. On our final day at Poland we explored more of the city of Krakow and saw many beautiful sites. The group that I was with was able to see the lake where the Soviets crossed during the winter to liberate the city. The churches were massive. In one of them we saw a drop of blood of pope John Paul 2. The city was packed and filled with so much of Poland’s history.

What still gets to me is the hatred of the Jews. On the whole trip in general I still cannot get over the fact that their was so much hatred towards Jews. What got to me was looking at the history when I learned in class about some of the famous people who had big hatred towards the people and its religion. What I realized is that Hitler had similar views about the Jews as Martin Luther did. While on the trip it was easy to tell how hatred and history can repeat themselves especially in today's society.

Hundreds of years ago Martin Luther stated that the Jews were nothing but liars. He even wrote about in a book even said quote the the Jews are “Spawns of Satan.” As time progressed to the 1930s we can see how Hitler uses his quotes in order to persuade others by saying “The Jews are nothing but thieves and are evil.” We often learned about Anti Semitism and its routes especially when it comes to Martin Luther. It can show people can be motivated by the past and reenact history to the best to its ability. When we look at today with Anti Semitism we can learn how it’s still alive and that past can be recreated.

With shootings and vandalism in the U.S. against Jews it can show how some like to reenact or be motivated by others actions. But some believe that people will target a whole group of other people especially in the present day. 911 brought a big number of racism towards Muslims and in a article a while ago it said that China began to separate and even deport Chinese Muslims. This is a giant red flag and warning how history is repeating itself but with a different religion and group of people. Hitler blamed the Jews for Germany's problems and now with Islamic terrorism people are blaming the Muslim religion. My greatest fear after going to the concentration camp is that one day someone will have that much hatred towards Muslims that god forbid will begin deportations and will ultimately repeat the worst time in human history. So what we need to do is always be tolerant but mainly if something bad happens and someone or some group takes credit for it. We must not always blame the whole race or group. Because one doesn't speak for all.

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