The Auschwitz complex is an embodiment of the horrific
crimes committed by the Nazis against the Jews of Europe, it was the site of
the extermination of roughly 1.1 million Jews. Visiting Auschwitz today was one
of the most confronting experiences of my life to date; everywhere I looked I
was surrounded by hauntingly iconic images of where the forefathers of the
Jewish people, my people, were subjected to treatment that is not fit for
cockroaches let alone human beings. The first stop of our tour was the
unbelievably well-known gate to Auschwitz one reading ‘Arbeit macht Frei’ or in
English ‘Work makes you free.’ Everywhere you look there is more cause to feel
uncomfortable, whether it is the lines of barbed wire or the barracks which
once held thousands of prisoners who were arbitrarily murdered by a regime
whose disregard for humanity is simply incomprehensible.
We entered block after block, each housing a museum
dedicated to an element of the Nazis treatment and disposal of prisoners once
housed in the rooms which we walked. One was labelled ‘extermination technique’
and another ‘death block’ to name but a few. Each was more challenging than the
one which preceded it; there was a room filled with hair, another with shoes,
another with suitcases and another with shoe polish each which immediately
shocked onlookers due to the reality which it instilled upon events which seem
impossible from statistics. I could not do anything other than look on in
disbelief and attempt to reconcile the deep feelings of pain and anger which took
over my body as I pondered the reason why these people and/or their families did
not live on today. The fact is, that if these people were not born Jewish they
would not have suffered the same fate. Despite my disbelief and utterly immeasurable
sadness towards what I was witnessing, I simply could not cry. I couldn’t let
my feelings out, something which really bothered me as I wandered halls which
were not too long ago the living space of thousands of indiviudals who perished
at the hands of the Nazis. We continued on in the camp, observing the site of the
first mass murder by gas in human history as well as the harrowing ‘death wall’
were prisoners were shot, and then finally the gas chambers and crematorium
where enormous numbers of murders were carried out by the SS and still I was
unable to let my pent up sadness out, my tear ducts refused to co-operate with
what I was feeling. A feeling of guilt came over me which I couldn’t understand
nor reconcile, something I had never felt before and never wanted to feel
again. We finished our tour with the new Jewish museum there, featuring a room
encompassing names. I have a surname which is ridiculously obscure and not
shared by many others I have ever come across, and so it was shockingly
difficult for me to see an entire page of Rosengarten’s in the death lists at
Auschwitz, needless to say it hit far too close to home especially when I saw a
name identical to that of my brother Daniel.
Auschwitz 1 was emotionally draining and unbelievably
difficult to handle for all of us but it was a completely different feeling
when we arrived at Auschwitz 2: Birkenau. As we walked up to its symbolic gates
we knew we were in a place of terrible suffering and we immediately felt a
heavy atmosphere of sadness and depravity, you could almost feel what happened
there. “All train tracks lead to Auschwitz” so the saying goes, as we walked
along the tracks which run all through the middle of the death camp, all I
could think about was the people who entered here and never left. People whose
entire worlds and families were destroyed by the acts of other human beings. We
entered barracks and heard of tales from inside the camps which brought to life
the goings on of a place which housed such unthinkable evils in the past.
Birkenau was not as emotionally difficult as Auschwitz but it brought different
challenges. It was comprehending the reality that such a place existed and
terrible things occurred on the very ground we were standing rather than the
reality of the events themselves. We visited the former sites of the gas
chambers and crematoriums of Birkenau which were destroyed by the Nazis,
hearing all along the way of stories which were set on the ground on which we
were standing. Harrowing stuff. Things of such evil and inhumanity that one
cannot even imagine them taking place.
A few concepts bounced around in my head as we visited the
most damaging and destructive site of all time
for world Jewry. Firstly, how
can these such a place have existed? Someone had to design and conceptualise a
place where innocent people were exterminated group by group efficiently with
malice a forethought, who, how and why? Do people nowadays still have the potential
for such horrific acts? Secondly, we enter Birkenau by choice and leave when we
want, our ancestors weren’t so lucky. Finally, where would Judaism be if the
holocaust had never taken place? The population would be significantly larger,
our culture would be far greatly advanced and most importantly of all, millions
of worlds and families would still be intact.
We rounded off our intense day with a Shabbat service at a
synagogue in Krakow, we sung and prayed with the locals. It was an incredible
experience, nicely contrasted with our views of the death and destruction of
Poland’s Jews which we had witnessed at Auschwitz, we were able to see the fact
that Krakow still maintains a vibrant Jewish community and that the Nazis did
not win. Jews still live and pray in Europe, the religion is well and truly
alive and I hope that this is always the case. I look forward to exploring more
of Krakow tomorrow.
Jake
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