Holocaust Studies: Auschwitz

(Excerpts from my journal are in italics and are dated.)

"One may not be able to triumph over evil, but one need not remain silent in the face of it." -Smith Hempstone

Photograph: Antisemitic Graffiti (Taken During Return Trip From Auschwitz)

February 26th, 2009 10:30 p.m.

I know where I need to be right now and what I ought to be doing--on my knees, praying. Tomorrow we visit Auschwitz, and I am prepared for brokenness and tears. Who knows what else may await me there?

Auschwitz: The Home of Evil. 1,500,000 people were murdered there, 1,100,000 of them Jews. It is nearly impossible to imagine that many people; roughly the population of the Piedmont Triad, the area in which I live.* I'm not sure what I was expecting when I went to Auschwitz--certainly not what I saw. I know it is something I will never forget; it is something that has permanently altered the way I view the world. I now know what brutality mankind is capable of... but I also know that there is hope even in the most desperate of circumstances--light, even in the darkest of places.

February 27th, 2009 6:05 p.m.

Today we visited Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau. The words do not come easy. I was prepared to be torn apart, prepared to cry. I was not prepared for emotionless observation--why did I feel nothing? It seems as though there should have been horror, shock and surprise at the cruelty man is capable of, but there was only voiceless solemnity as I took in every detail.

Auschwitz cannot be described with mere numbers--they are totally inadequate. In the portion of the camp that has been converted to a museum, there are display cases with piles of eyeglasses, prayer shawls, brushes and combs, suitcases and shoes taken from prisoners of the camp. There are mountains of these items. It is hard to imagine that each item once belonged to a living, breathing person; that the names written on those suitcases once had faces. In one room, a display case occupying an entire wall is full of human hair, bales of which the Nazis shipped to Germany to be used in the production of felt and haircloth. We were told how the gold teeth and fillings of murdered prisoners were extracted from the corpses and melted down. Human beings--shorn like sheep, and mined for gold. Insanity.

Block 11 of Auschwitz Camp was a prison within a prison. It was here that, for any small or even imagined infraction, a prisoner could be hung from the ceiling, his arms tied behind his back (to dislocate the shoulders), left in a cell to starve to death, crammed into a poorly ventilated cell with as many others as would fit and left to suffocate, or forced to crawl into a cell barely three feet by three feet with three other people and left to stand in the pitch-blackness until death by exhaustion, starvation, or suffocation overtook them. Above these cells, which were in the basement of Block 11, were the offices and living quarters of Nazi SS officers and guards. How does a person sleep at night, knowing that such atrocities are being committed just beneath their feet?

At Auschwitz-Birkenau, the larger camp, train tracks ran right under the guardhouse, and ended at the back of the camp. It would literally have been a train to nowhere--prisoners would disembark, under the illusion that they had come to work or even to be resettled, only to be separated into two lines. One line was sent immediately to the gas chambers--small children, pregnant women, the elderly, the handicapped, and anyone deemed unfit for work. The other line was subjected to eleven or more hours of hard labor every day, humiliated--treated as Untermensch (subhuman), without adequate sleep, food, or clothing, until they could work no longer. Then they were either gassed or shot.

I WILL NEVER AGAIN COMPLAIN ABOUT STANDING IN LINE.

We were shown how prisoners in Auschwitz-Birkenau were housed--in buildings that more closely resembled stables than barracks. The horses stabled at the farm where I work have better living conditions. The barracks walls were lined with three-tiered bunks; twelve prisoners could fit on one bunk, because they were so emaciated. There were no toilet or washing facilities in the barracks; there was a separate building for that, where a person would have roughly eleven seconds to wash and relieve himself, twice a day. For breakfast, prisoners were given one cup of coffee. For lunch, a thin soup consisting mainly of water, with no meat. For supper, a piece of bread no bigger than a man's hand. Inconceivable.

Now, after what I have seen, I am tormented by an unanswerable "Why?" and possessed of a useless rage. Yes, anger smolders in the depths of my soul--not against the Nazis; they were only the instruments of a greater evil, which seeks the destruction of all mankind. What good is my anger? There is no channel for it. It is as useless as I am. What can I do? Speak? Who wants to hear about such things? Educate? What could they do? Paint, draw, write [evoke emotion]? Why? What good is any of it?

History constantly repeats itself.

"What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."

-Ecclesiastes 1:9

The same mistakes are made, time and again, and the whole world just stands by and watches, waiting for someone else to do something. God forbid we should do something ourselves! It's not our responsibility, for goodness' sake! No, we leave the decision to act--or not--in the hands of those in authority. Why do we leave our fate and the fate of others in the hands of a few men, who in truth are just as weak as the rest of us? Why not place our trust in a deeper truth, a higher authority--the Deepest and Highest and Only--and act on His authority, by His might?

When people experience something life-changing, their first impulse is to flee from it or forget about it. So they crack a joke, plug in to their iPod, or turn on the television (in my case, pick up a book)--anything to escape the difficult task of introspective thought, self-examination, and mental/spiritual transformation. However, instead of trying to escape, they need to devote time and diligence to processing what has just affected them. Only then will they be changed and grown.

That is the difference between the casual 'Christian' and the true follower of Christ--one is possessed of a holy discontent and is constantly being made more perfect by the renewal of their mind, and the other is content to live with a misbegotten sense of self-righteousness, never even considering the fact that the place where you begin a journey is not the place where it ought to end. They are stagant in their thinking; anything that is inactive or unused for very long begins to rot.

I don't want my experience of Auschwitz to be an event--a one-time occurrence that does nothing to reshape my view of the world and my actions toward it.

Looking back, I think the reason that God allowed me to view Auschwitz without emotion was so that I could not dismiss my personal responsibility. Allow me to explain. When a person sees something terrible, and they feel terrible, they go away from it saying, "That's so terrible," and feel as though they've done their duty. They've felt sorry, and that's enough for them. I did not feel terrible; I did not feel sorry. Therefore, I could not confuse emotion with action. God wants me to do something with what I have learned--not just feel sorry. Sorry is not enough. Sorry is never enough.

When I passed through the main gate of Auschwitz Camp, I walked beneath the lie, "Work Makes You Free" [translation from original German, Arbeit Macht Frei], with the understanding that I would be leaving freely. There was no such escape for the Jews, Gypsies, Russians and Poles who passed through those same gates. They are dead and gone now; even those who survived the camp will soon be little more than dust and a memory. As I remember them, I have to consider others around the world, who are disappearing even as I write. Darfur springs immediately to mind.

"When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist. When they came for the Jews, I remained silent; I was not a Jew. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out." -Martin Niemoller

Who will speak up for them?

Will there come a day when, in America, it is illegal to be a Christian? Christians in other countries pray for us, the American Christians, because we have grown up believing that it is normal to be a Christian without persecution. What will we do when that day comes? Will we still be brave enough to live and die well? Most certainly, it will be a separation of the wheat from the tares.** I wonder if I will be strong enough. I wonder if those I love and admire will be strong enough.

Walking into the gas chamber sent chills down my spine; unlike thousands of others who went through that door, I was allowed to walk out alive. Should I not then be grateful for every breath of clean air, every moment of freedom, every shower, meal, and article of clothing? How dare I waste one precious moment of this freedom, when I know it will not last!?

"Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil."

-Ephesians 5:16

Every breath of laughter grated on my ears today. I am frustrated and upset, but I don't know what to do about it. There is nowhere for all my passion to go; I have no inspiration, no ideas, nothing to work with.

When we returned to the hotel, the whole group did an art therapy project. I painted in color; I thought I wanted black, but I was wrong. I painted a blazing heart, pouring out fire and light into the darkness all around it. It was hopeful, and fierce. I want my passion to spill over like that, but where do I begin? I feel like a caged lion, muzzled and pacing, enraged by an inability to act.

February 28th, 2009 12:00 a.m.

"Do not withhold good from those who deserve it, when it is in your power to act."

-Proverbs 3:27

There is a reason I am being trained up this way; challenged and grown by these experiences. God is uniquely preparing me for something. It is interesting to me, how God often reveals my own faults by showing me the same faults in other people. (I am thinking of Jared.) The directionless, carefree way that he lives, knowing he ought to do something, but never actually doing it, is exactly what I have been doing.

"Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins."

-James 4:17

But it is worse for me, because I know better. I know what I am capable of--what I am called to do--but I have chosen inaction.

"That servant who knows his master's will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked."

-Luke 12:47-49

It is wrong to pretend to be more than you are; it is just as wrong to pretend to be less than you are. I am meant to lead; I am meant to be a positive influence, to impact the world. It would be a slap in God's face not to accept that calling. God did not accept excuses from Moses or Jeremiah***; why should He accept them from me?

Beneath every facade of mine, every bit of true pride and false humility, every bit of fear--there is a heart on fire for God. And trying to hide that light is torture. The refusal to be the person God means me to be--the refusal to pray, study, and daily renew my mind--is the rejection of a precious gift and a great charge.

"Put aside the Ranger. Become who you were born to be." -Elrond to Aragon, from The Return of the King

I cannot afford to go my own way; too much is at stake. I must live up to my destiny and take my place in God's kingdom. It takes great courage to die well; it takes even greater courage, I think, to live well. From the beginning of my walk with God, I prayed to be given a difficult task; can I honestly say that I am surprised by His answer? Should I now shrink from the ways He is growing me? He is educating me; therefore, I should endeavor to learn, to prepare as much as possible for the life He has set before me.

I am privileged to learn from Barnabas, and from the other great influences in my life. Will I carry on the great legacy, and in my turn teach others? Will I choose the narrow way, which only a few find? I know my strength is small, but God is great, and He lives in me.

"For nothing is impossible with God."

-Luke 1:37

"With the Lord by our side, there is nothing we cannot do. Separated from Him, we will collapse almost immediately. With so good a friend and Captain ever present, Himself the first to suffer, everything can be borne. He helps. He strengthens. He never fails. He is a true friend." -St. Teresa of Avila

I cannot fathom what God is trying to make of me... but the real question is whether or not I will allow him to take complete control of me, and change me forever.

*Population of Piedmont Triad, NC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piedmont_Triad

**Matthew 13:24-31

***Exodus 4:10-12; Jeremiah 1:6-8 & 17