Remembering the Unimaginable: Visiting Auschwitz…

Auschwitz. One word conveys a location, a time period, a flood of feelings, the unimaginable, the holocaust. As an American teenager visiting this memorial and museum with a group of German teenager, I imagine that my experience of trying to comprehend the incomprehensible was typical, but also unique.

The Second World War is usually covered during the 10th grade in Germany. It is not only history, which is taught, but themes such as guilt, shame, and the transferability of responsibility between generations are discussed. Most German 10th grade classes visit Auschwitz, or another concentration camp to supplement the curriculum. My class took part in a trip to Auschwitz in mid March.

Our trip occurred over five days: two days visiting Auschwitz and Auschwitz-II/Birkenau camps, one day to visit the city of Krakow, and two days of travel. In our Religion, German and History classes, we covered different aspects of the topics WWII and the Holocaust. We were ready, or bereit, for our trip. However, can one ever be prepared to visit a place defined by death?

Many people visit concentration camps as a way of honoring those who were victims, or died during the horrors of the Holocaust. They feel that by seeing the famous “Arbeit macht Frei” gate, the cold wooden barracks, the symmetrically ordered gas chambers and crematories, they pay homage to the past. They want to hear the stories of those lucky enough to survive as well as those who were not as blessed. They feel the pain, the anger, the disbelief that something so terrible as this could occur. They want to cry, for themselves, for the victims, and for all of humanity. For them, Auschwitz is a Denkmal, a memorial to the past. Others, however, come to Auschwitz for the history. They are there to learn about the extermination, and to try and comprehend, or understand the un-logical, sick reasons for these killings. Dates, facts, names stand out, while the personal, individual stories are trivial in comparison to the larger, greater, horrid event.


In both cases, the facts remain the same. Over 11 million innocent men, women and children lost their lives during the Holocaust, 6 million of them Jews. Of these victims, 1.4 million died in the concentration camp named Auschwitz. While the foundation of the concentration camp as a means of removing Jews from European society began in the early 1930 with Hitler’s rise to power, the systematic extermination began after the Wannsee Conference in 1942. By the end of the war, the Nazis had systematically killed 78% of Europe’s Jewish population. Many Jews died from being overworked, through illness, or starvation in the camps. The majority of the Jewish women and children were gassed in camps like Auschwitz.

We visited one of these gas chambers while on our tour of Auschwitz. Words cannot even begin to describe what it felt like to stand in the same, small chamber where millions of women and children were systematically murdered. The coldness that swept through the concrete walls was numbing. The low ceiling darkened the room, making it suffocating. The roaring wind mixed with the muffled cries from my classmates was emotionally deafening. Closing my eyes, I tired to imagine hundreds of women and children, the young and the old, being led into this room. How their naked bodies pressed against one another, shivering from the cold and fear. How they stood by the masses waiting for the promised shower. I attempted to picture the terror that filled this room when they realized their fate, and the unimaginable end that followed. No matter how hard I tried, though, I could still not see the dead. While my classmates wailed, I remained sober. How can you cry for something unimaginable?


Outside, walking by the symmetrically organized, wooded barracks of the main Lager, or camp, I could not help but wonder as a Polish citizen what it must feel like to pass these buildings everyday on your way to work, school, on the way home. Auschwitz is a city. It was founded in the 1700s, decades before the Nazis came to power. Families lived here before World War II; locals married, worked and had children who grew up when the concentration camp existed, and some of them are now raising their grandchildren in the same houses. For them, Auschwitz is no different than any other small, Polish village. Visitors view the Auschwitz as a place of terror, however, for its residence, it is normal. It was hard for me to understand how someone could live on the same ground where millions of people were murdered, sit under the same tree that once provided shade for a tired worker, or swim in a lake in which tons of ashes from the dead were poured. For them, however, it is their backyard, the parking lot of their corner grocery store, their life. I wondered how one could ever live a normal life in Auschwitz.


Fortunately, we had the amazing opportunity to listen to the story of a former Polish, Auschwitz prisoner. He spoke in quite, broken German, which was almost inaudible against the buzz from the heating and the rustle from students shifting in their seats. Looking straight ahead, he began to tell us his story. The man was one the camps first captives, imprisoned in 1940 for political reasons. He had been part of the construction the Birkenau extermination camp in 1942. He was “saved” due to his ability to speak German, and allowed to work in the camps office. He had survived the terrible death walks of 1945, and was freed by the Russian army in January the same year.

When he had finished his story, he solemnly thanked us for listening and proceeded to engage in small talk with our teacher. I was shocked. This man just described a place of starvation, illness, and absolute terror, a place with the simple goal of exterminating human beings. He had just explained to us how a simple twist of luck enabled him to escape death, to survive, to tell his story, and now he was talking about the weather. How can one change so quickly to a topic as mundane as the weather? As I sat there numb, my mind swirling, when the answer came to me. It was simple, life goes on, life must go on.

Auschwitz and the events of the past should, and hopefully never will be forgotten. They should not, however, prevent the continuation of the future. I have learned through this trip and through my classes, that while it is important to educate oneself, it is more important to learn how to listen, to accept, and to move on. Memorials are important. They provide a place to express emotions of anger, pain, and frustration. More important, however, is the sharing of information. The past is unchangeable. Despite how much one weeps or yells, one cannot re-write history. The only actions we can take today is not only to remember, but more importantly to prevent it from ever happening again.