While in Poland I took the opportunity along with the rest of our group to visit the Auschwitz Birkenau German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp (1940-1945).
From the moment you walk through the infamous SS guardhouse and look at the train lines that brought hundreds of thousands of men, women and children to certain death, you are struck with the realization that you are doing something very important. As you try to image the people getting off the trains and most of them being only a few hours from being gassed with Zyklon-B, the horrors of what really happened here leave you numb and speechless.
Our tour guide took over 3 hours to show us around both Auschwitz I (the smaller camp with the "Arbeit Macht Frei" entrance sign) and Auschwitz II (Birkenau) with the infamous railway tracks leading into the camp.
I was quite composed as I listened to our tour guide explain the way in which the Nazis processed the arrivals and how the camp itself was meticulously operated. Seeing the huge piles of human hair, shoes, glasses, suitcases etc leaves you in a state of disbelief. However it was to be one of the smaller displays in the museum that was to disturb me more than anything else. It simply contained some knitted baby clothes and a few toys. The moment I realized what I was looking at, I just had to walk away. Being the father of two boys I deeply love, I found myself filling with anger and a hatred for the evil men that would have ushered a mother with that baby in her arms into the gas chambers.
The horrors of Auschwitz and what happened there leave you shocked and searching for words. One of the many quotation plaques around the grounds reminds us that "The one that does not remember history is bound to live through it again". Yet as I was confronted with the evil crimes against humanity which the Nazis committed over 60 years ago and the lesson that this must never ever happen again, I was reminded of the killing that goes on every day in the hospitals and clinics of our world. How could previous generations be allowed to commit such atrocities? The same question could be asked of todays generation.
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Our visit coincided with that of the Canadian Prime Minister (read more).
Opened in 1940, Auschwitz was originally used to house Polish political prisoners after Nazi Germany occupied the country. In 1942, it started to become the first such facility to start executing European Jews.
Between 1.1 million and 1.5 million people were killed in the camp's gas chambers, the vast majority of victims being Jewish, before troops of the Red Army liberated the camp on Jan. 27, 1945.
Incredible, Gary - just incredible.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing about your experiences today.