All I heard and all I saw was 1.5 million people dying at the hands of a people that defy reason..
"Arbeit Macht Frei" in cold iron over the gate to the camp. "Work Makes You Free". How many truly believed it? Did it give hope in a place where none was intended?
We walked the unloading area where boxcars filled with 100 people and their luggage were unloaded after trips that may have lasted 11 days. We passed where a Nazi doctor sent the prisoners left or right. Left leading to the gas chamber directly, the right to a work camp where death came slowly. Maybe 6 months at best. No question which direction I would go. If I made it past at all. Pretty good chance I'd be shot right there.
The long walk on the left side lead to a stairway leading down to a long room. "The Showers". We needed one after days on end in a closed cattle car. The only thing that came down upon us was canisters of Cyclone B. It didn't take long. Young first, then women, men struggling against everything they believed, that they needed to be the strong ones, standing on top of the first to die, gasping for life. Those who were sent to the right, the "lucky ones" not sent immediately to the showers job was to remove the bodies and take them to the crematories.
Walking in a gas chamber where thousands died, filing past the furnaces where body after body was shoved into oblivion, reduced to a pile of ash.
Birkenau seemed to stretch on forever. The men on one side, women on the other. The barracks with rows on 3 deck, washrooms and toilets where you had seconds before you were forced to move on. It was important to get the top bunk. At least there you were out of the line of fire from rampant diarrhea and it was a little warmer up top on cold nights. Not that the little warmth gained was much help on -25 deg nights.
And then, if you survived the night, roll call and on to work. Some did construction work. Many other were forced to work in the genocide division, forced to perform the gruesome grunt work of moving and burning dead bodies.
We walked through the corridors of those buildings at Auschwitz. Through rooms with photos. Through rooms with relics from those years. Rooms of luggage with birth dates and interment dates. Rooms with thousands of combs and hair brushes. Rooms with shoes, most of them brown, the red ones are like beacons. And then there was the room displaying human hair, shaved from the prisoners before they were killed. About two tons of it, of the 7 tons that were captures on liberation day, of the thousands of tons that were taken.
And then there was the building where Joseph Mengele worked. We walked past the rooms where unspeakable experiments took place. The building seems to scream.
What is it about evil that lives on 70 years after? How long does it take to become just another part of the innocent countryside? Hopefully it never happens. The inscription on the International Memorial says, "For ever let the place be a cry of despair and a warning to Humanity where the Nazis murdered one and a half million people". I am afraid humanity has forgotten this message. Africa is still ripped with violence and tribal warfare. The Middle East and the radical Muslim jihad against the Jews and Western civilization threatens to destroy what little "Peace" we have. It may not have gas chambers, there may not be another Auschwitz, but it isn't over. How do we sit by and ignore it? The fight must continue.
