A Glimpse at Auschwitz

We arrived at Auschwitz, the Nazi Death Camp on Polish soil. I took good notes of our tour, hard as that was, re-wrote most of it, ready to place it on my blog. Before posting, I decided to Google it, see if I was bringing anything new to the table. As you might have guessed, I was not. Pretty well everything I had written was right there, easily available to the world, as it has been for a long time. I had second thoughts. Why put myself, and my readers, through all this again?
     I will just give you a few of my impressions, then move on down the road. I'm sick at my stomach from my morning's  reading on Google, as it is.
     Our guide through the camp was a very nice young woman. She told us all the horrible details, didn't leave much out. I wondered, how could she stand to do that, all day every day? She never once smiled all the way through. I had about decided her job had rendered her incapable of smiling or being happy, and I could see how that could happen. Might have done the same thing to me.
     After the tour was finished, and we were outside that gate, I walked up to her, told her what a good job she did, and guess what. A broad, beautiful smile spread across her face. I began to realize, she had just blocked her life inside that camp off from the rest of her life. I guess that would be necessary, for a nice person like her to be able to do that job day after day, year in and year out. Someone has to do it. It needs to be told. The proof needs to be seen. And it's all right there.
     Right behind the Gas Chamber stood a very old, yet very nice house. It was blocked off from the hoards of tourists. It was obviously currently lived in, well kept up. I asked about that house. Seems it was taken over by the Nazis when the camp was constructed. It was used as the home of the camp commandant during the time the camp was in operation. After the war, it was reclaimed by the owners, and  the family currently lives  there. I didn't understand how they could do  that, right here in the middle of such horror. But, I guess the family home is the family home, wherever it now happens to be located. The small town there, once out of sight of that camp, could have been any small town, anywhere in the world. Business as usual. Some strong, tough people now live in that small town.
     There is one Polish man whose story must be told,  before I move on. Witold Pilecki was the only person ever to volunteer to be sent to Auschwitz during that horrible time. He survived there 945 days, managing to get out evidence of the genocide going on, through the Polish resistance organization. The message was sent out to the British in 1940. It was dismissed by the Allies as being exaggerated. Other messages were sent, but he was not  taken seriously. Even after he managed to escape in 1943, his personal testimony was not believed.  Eventually, the word came from so many who had somehow escaped that it could not be ignored. There was much discussion and disagreement about what was possible, and what should have been done. Bombing the camp would kill all the prisoners, and for some reason, bombing the railroad bringing prisoners in from many different locations in Eastern Europe was not considered doable. That discussion and argument continues to this day.
     Goodbye, Auschwitz. I've done my duty as a free man on my 69th birthday. I visited that horrible monument to what a few men, with unlimited power, are fully capable of doing to mankind. I won't be back, and I hope and pray that some day I can stop thinking and dreaming about that place. But I doubt it.