Auschwitz

My IES-Study Abroad Group visited Auschwitz, the World War II concentration camp, Sunday, March 22, 2009. I tried for hours to put into words a reflection of Auschwitz, but I find it impossible to do so at this time. The experience was too important to leave out of my records, so here is an except of an email I wrote to the editors of the Bulldog Weekly. This is the best I've been able to do:

So I tried to write about my visit to Auschwitz for the Bulldog Weekly, and I couldn’t. I think it’s important for each generation to continue putting into words their specific reaction to the Holocaust, but I’m not yet able to do so, even with a million words. I tried for many hours, and I even tried to write for a less formal forum with my blog, but how to describe the emotion and sadness one feels from such a place, and how to fathom the catastrophic cruelty that occurred there, is beyond the capabilities of my mind and this keyboard.

So even though Auschwitz has weighed on my mind this week, I can’t write about it in the form of a travel log, this is ultimately what I have come to realize. Perhaps someday I’ll write about the Holocaust in the form of a reflection, but it would take much time and a completely different approach.


And this is an email I wrote to the Bulldog Weekly advisor a couple days ago. After all this time trying to write, this simple email probably best and most honestly reflects what I saw and felt at Auschwitz:

I went to Auschwitz last Sunday, March 22. I plan to write about the experience, but it's tough. Before going to Auschwitz, it was hard to comprehend how humans could be so cruel. I knew the amount of deaths was in the millions and I had read about the conditions the victims had to endure, but then to actually see the living conditions, the solitary confinement and torture chambers, the ovens and the gas chambers and the stockpiles of women's hair - it made the atrocity so real, and scary. Even to just see the train platform where millions of people, mostly Jewish, were delivered, mostly unaware of their fate, was beyond words. It was pure evil.











This is the platform where millions of people entered Auschwitz from all over Europe. They were separated immediately after they stepped off the train. Women, children and ail bodied men, were killed in the gas chambers moments later. Men strong enough to work were kept in the camp, fed very little and sent to work long hours of manual labor. The picture below is the entrence to the camp. "arbeit macht frei," means "work makes free." (the sign seems so absurd) This is where the prisioners able to work marched out in the mornings and back into in the evenings.