Auschwitz-Birkenau

While in Poland, we went to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Honestly, no set of words I’m going to come up with is going to be able to adequately express the experience, but despite that, I’ll attempt to pull together my thoughts, especially now that I’ve had some time to process.  I also purposefully didn’t take any photos that day, in part because of what I perceive as the problematic nature of having concentration camps be tourist sites (although as our guide explained, sites like Auschwitz also need to be open to the public in order to remember what happened and prevent it from happening again), but mostly, because it just seemed inappropriate to me at the time.  And, even if I had taken a photo, I still don’t think it would adequately convey the experience.

More than anything else, the whole experience was overwhelming emotionally. The sheer number of people who were murdered was overwhelming. It was overwhelming that they were murdered solely because of their religion or ethnic group or political beliefs. The systematic way in which the murders were carried out was overwhelming. The way that the prisoners of the camp were treated was overwhelming. The way female prisoners were treated was especially overwhelming to me as a woman.

But although all of these numbers and statistics and facts were horrific and terrifying, the most emotionally overwhelming part of the experience wasn’t these facts. It was the personal items of the victims; because these items showed in a way that numbers cannot that each victim was a unique individual whose talents and gifts were lost to the world forever. Shoes, brushes, glasses, toys, clothing, suitcases. Especially the suitcases: each stamped with a name, a profession, an address. The number 1.3 million is painful. Actually realizing that that number means 1.3 million people was so much worse. There truly aren’t words.

Even weeks later, I’m not entirely sure what to do with the experience. I’m not sure I’ve even allowed myself to feel all of the emotions of the experience yet. At this point, all I can really say it’s an experience I will never forget.