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| Auschwitz |
Wow…my first Thanksgiving away from home and I spent it in
Auschwitz. It really puts things into perspective. It was depressing for me and
I wanted to cry the whole time but I didn’t. I learned a lot of things that I
didn’t learn in any history class. Schools don’t even scratch the surface of the
horrific events that occurred at Auschwitz.
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| The Children Statue at Babi Yar |
There is a quote in one of the barracks and it says, “The
one who doesn’t remember history is bound to live through it again.” –George Santayana.
I hope that this kind of cruelty never repeats itself.
Earlier this month, I visited Babi Yar in Kiev. It is a
place where thousands of Jews were shot to death. I visited it because my
church did a service project there. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact
that such a cruel act occurred in Kiev. But it is nothing compared to what I
felt at Auschwitz and Birkenau. I was literally sick to my stomach. I walked
the same ground that they walked on. I touched the same walls that they
touched. I looked out the same windows that they looked out. The only
difference is that I came out of Auschwitz alive. They didn’t get that
privilege. I even walked through a gas chamber. Nobody came out of that alive.
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| The toilets |
There is so much to tell you but I can’t bring myself to
write it down. It is so emotional. I saw the bathrooms. It is just a bunch of
holes. I was surprised they actually had some sort of toilets. I found out that
people actually would hide out in the holes for warmth and rest. It is
disgusting to think about but I guess you gotta do what you gotta do. Something
else that shook me was if someone escaped, the Nazi soldiers took their family
and would hang them from a tree with a sign that said that so and so escape and
I have to hang here until they are found. This was done purely out of
humiliation and to make the other prisoners think twice about escaping. It
never occurred to me that women didn’t survive as long as men did because of
female hygiene issues. I didn’t know that they would inject diseases into the
prisoners. And they made sure that the Jews became infertile so they couldn’t breed
impure children. I didn’t realize all the cruel and inhumane torture they put
on these innocent people. I was aware of the gas chambers, and the shootings,
stripping them of all personal things, and starvation but not all the other
things. And I am not even going to go into all of it as I am sure reading this
post is making you cringe now.
One of the barracks had a hallway that had pictures of some
of the captives. I looked at their faces and all I could think of was: I’m
sorry. I am sorry that you had to suffer like this. But you are with Heavenly
Father now. You are no longer suffering.
There will be a day when my brothers and sisters, whose
lives were taken short from the Holocaust, will be reunited with their bodies
and it will not be like it was then. It will be perfected. And they will be
happy once again.
I am grateful to from America. I am grateful that my
hometown is a safe place. I am grateful for my family. I would never want to
see them suffer this way. I am grateful for the opportunity to have walked the
grounds of the biggest concentration camp. But I am most grateful for my
Heavenly Father and my Savior, Jesus Christ. I am grateful for the Plan of
Salvation because I know that just because the Jews suffered in the Holocaust
doesn’t mean that they will always suffer but they can once again be happy and
this life isn’t the end. And I am glad
that the Holocaust and WWII is over and I hope that it never happens again.
