There Was Just No Way to Prepare.

Growing up Jewish in LA in the 60s and 70s, I was exposed fairly regularly to accounts of the Holocaust. I had heard stories of survival from relatives of survivors. In college I studied about Raoul Wallenberg and read Elie Weisel. I watched Schindler’s list, Life is Beautiful and The Pianist. I have visited Holocaust museums in New York, Washington DC and Israel. And yet apparently none of this sufficiently prepared me for today’s experience at Auschwitz. 

I have been to landmarks of brutality before. I have visited Vietnam, Pearl Harbor and of course the 9/11 site. But this experience is a monument to hate and brutality like no other. One of my classmates asked me what was the most powerful part of the tour. Many were moved by the unending piles of glasses, hair, shoes (children’s especially) and suitcases. Others stood aghast at the methods of torture like the standing room or the hanging posts. Certainly no one was unaffected by the stack of Zyklon B cans and the chambers in which they were emptied. All of that in a way made the crematoriums seem kind by comparison, a simple method of washing away the torment and torture of these poor souls who were selected for death merely because they were born Jewish.

I connected strongly with them at the train stop in Birkenau. Standing near the tracks having passed through the large brick gate under the guard tower. This was the place where I empathetically felt the horror. I could barely imagine what it felt like to have just survived being packed into a rail car standing with 100 other people. (The actual car looked so much smaller than in any film I had seen.) I could feel the fright by the thought of arriving in this place. It's not scary like in the films. It's bright and green and there are birds chirping, yet now being lined up with uncertainty. Not knowing the future. Work? Death? The future of loved ones? I realized there and then that the choice made by the Nazi Dr. of sending someone to the gas chamber may actually have been a relief over condemnation to hard labor, starvation, rats, exhaustion and dysentery as was so called “life” in the crowded and austere barracks.

The raw emotions were overwhelming. The strongest was hate. I don't know how I can ever look a German in the eye with kindness in my heart, particularly one over the age of 80.

Then anger. I am frustrated that the commandant of Auschwitz was only hanged for his crimes. He got off easy. Perhaps he should have been slowly tortured in a standing only cell and starved to death while rats chewed on his extremities.

Then cynicism. A very small number of the thousands of Nazis involved in these hate crimes were ever punished or persecuted. However too many others even outside Germany were complicit. If this is what humanity does to itself with thought and technology, then why should anyone care about the race as a whole. Is there really good in most people?

Lastly sadness. Standing in the barracks I could feel albeit faintly the emotions of the women and man crammed 6 to a bunk, three bunks high, languishing in filth and disease and death and hopelessness.

What made this experience so astounding was not just the reality of seeing it in person. It wasn’t the aura of the souls in the space or the connection to my Jewish brethren. No, the power of Auschwitz lies in its efficiency. It's the horror of a real live existence of a systematic factory of energy extrusion and death designed and built for the sole purpose of eradication of innocent people. You can not possibly fathom it until you see it in all its cruel glory.

We Americans are guilty. We exploited the Native Americans for land. We displaced Africans to exploit for labor. We corralled Japanese in World War II, and dropped the atomic bomb, twice, killing innocents. We should indeed seek pardon and reparations for our sins. Often our reasons were not well justified. But Hitler’s final solution was not about land, resources, war, or even greed. This machination was effectively created to wipe this race of people off the planet as it’s primary goal. Extracting their riches and labor was simply a beneficial bi-product to the Third Reich. It was only here at Auschwitz staring at this incredible death factory that I could truly understand the power and energy of an intelligent and collective society using their natural gifts for evil.

I have often wondered how I would have fared in the Holocaust. It’s easy to think I might have resisted and joined the underground. Or perhaps hide or escape with help from friends. Or maybe choosing to survive I would have sacrificed my dignity and loyalty accepting a capo position. Without knowing my age, capabilities or social status, I believed there is truly no way to ascertain how I would have ended up by liberation in 1945… until today.

The German solution for the Jews was so incredibly efficient, so well planned, so strongly supported by so much of world society that left unstopped by geo-political hubris they would have surely finished what they started. The Nazis indiscriminately killed more than 3,000,000 of Poland’s Jews, over 90 percent. They killed more than 6,000,000 Jews overall decimating the Jewish population of Europe. The question of how I would have fared is simple. I would have died at the hands of the Nazis. If I had been one of the blessed, that man in jackboots would have simply pointed to me as I got off that train and it all would have been over reasonably quickly.

I am not one who easily gives up hope or tends to linger on the negative. There were some bright spots in today’s trip. First, it was relieving to see full crowds at Auschwitz today. I hope this museum is crowded every day for centuries to come. Second was the timing of the visit. Had the class gone at the beginning of the trip it would have set a hard tone for the week. But this Fordham group has bonded over the last several days. And it meant a lot to experience this sore on society’s body with good friends who show genuine love and concern for those around them.