a very sad anniversary
The Globe and Mail has some great stories about the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
They bring up many very good points.
Between 1 and 1.35 million Jews died there, along with 75,000 Polish people, 20,000 Gypsies, 15,000 Soviet POWS and 25,000 others.
It was a horrible, gruesome, awful place.
It is one of the ultimate symbols of the destruction of the Second World War. People compare it to the genocides in Rwanda, Darfur, Cambodia.
But it is not the same.
The concentration camps, Auschwitz-Birkenau in particular, were efficent, organized killing centres. In Rwanda and other such places, people were hacked to pieces by people wielding machetes.
In order to kill someone at a concentration camp, someone had to sit down and order the Zyklon B crystals, had to organize the train schedules, and had to build the buildings to house those who were to die.
These were not the actions of a sudden rampage of death. These had to have been methodical, ordered actions.
Will Auschwitz and places like it be forgotten when no one who saw it is alive anymore?
60 years have passed since the Soviets liberated the camp. Those who were young during the war are grandparents now, passing on their stories to educate others about the atrocities.
Canadian soldiers that saw Auschwitz after it was liberated still remember every detail of what they saw. It is burned into their brain, something that will never leave them.
They say that when they returned after the war, no one wanted to listen to their stories because they could not comprehend the human suffering.
Anti-Semitism doesn't affect me, but those stories do. Every story, every photo, every tidbit of information.
The prisoners were so hungry and so sick that many died even after the camps were liberated.
There were four gas chambers at Auschwitz.....together they could kill 8,000 people at the same time. The crematoriums could burn 4,416 bodies in 24 hours.
The ashes of the dead were scattered around Auschwitz. Even now the ashes remain. A man who travelled to Poland to see the remains of the camp said that he pulled a flower out of the ground, and clinging to it were ashes. He set up a website with his photos and his journal of his 1993 trip. http://www.remember.org/educate/intro.html
I read the entire journal.....and I shivered inside. It fascinated me, but saddened me at the same time.
It is my hope to one day visit Auschwitz, with my camera and my notebook. I hope that by seeing it, I can truly gain even a grain of understanding.
No matter how many essays I wrote in History, no matter how many books I read, no matter how many photos I see.....I can never understand the atrocities. I need to see it for myself. I need to walk the paths, I need to see the buildings. I need to stand at the gates and watch the people who are now free to walk around it, to wander in and out of their own free will.
I hope the world never has to suffer through another Auschwitz.
But people still need to know about it. Burying their head in the sand will not make it all go away. It happened, it was awful, but let it teach you something.
Hopefully the actions of the past will shape the actions of the future.
None us are growing up in a world free of hatred, and it's unlikely our children will either. But a woman can dream can't she?
I realize this post is rather rambling and jumpy, but I'm writing it as it comes to mind. I apologize to all who read it. I don't know why the Holocaust affects me so much. Maybe it is my underlying wish to change the world and make it better.
They bring up many very good points.
Between 1 and 1.35 million Jews died there, along with 75,000 Polish people, 20,000 Gypsies, 15,000 Soviet POWS and 25,000 others.
It was a horrible, gruesome, awful place.
It is one of the ultimate symbols of the destruction of the Second World War. People compare it to the genocides in Rwanda, Darfur, Cambodia.
But it is not the same.
The concentration camps, Auschwitz-Birkenau in particular, were efficent, organized killing centres. In Rwanda and other such places, people were hacked to pieces by people wielding machetes.
In order to kill someone at a concentration camp, someone had to sit down and order the Zyklon B crystals, had to organize the train schedules, and had to build the buildings to house those who were to die.
These were not the actions of a sudden rampage of death. These had to have been methodical, ordered actions.
Will Auschwitz and places like it be forgotten when no one who saw it is alive anymore?
60 years have passed since the Soviets liberated the camp. Those who were young during the war are grandparents now, passing on their stories to educate others about the atrocities.
Canadian soldiers that saw Auschwitz after it was liberated still remember every detail of what they saw. It is burned into their brain, something that will never leave them.
They say that when they returned after the war, no one wanted to listen to their stories because they could not comprehend the human suffering.
Anti-Semitism doesn't affect me, but those stories do. Every story, every photo, every tidbit of information.
The prisoners were so hungry and so sick that many died even after the camps were liberated.
There were four gas chambers at Auschwitz.....together they could kill 8,000 people at the same time. The crematoriums could burn 4,416 bodies in 24 hours.
The ashes of the dead were scattered around Auschwitz. Even now the ashes remain. A man who travelled to Poland to see the remains of the camp said that he pulled a flower out of the ground, and clinging to it were ashes. He set up a website with his photos and his journal of his 1993 trip. http://www.remember.org/educate/intro.html
I read the entire journal.....and I shivered inside. It fascinated me, but saddened me at the same time.
It is my hope to one day visit Auschwitz, with my camera and my notebook. I hope that by seeing it, I can truly gain even a grain of understanding.
No matter how many essays I wrote in History, no matter how many books I read, no matter how many photos I see.....I can never understand the atrocities. I need to see it for myself. I need to walk the paths, I need to see the buildings. I need to stand at the gates and watch the people who are now free to walk around it, to wander in and out of their own free will.
I hope the world never has to suffer through another Auschwitz.
But people still need to know about it. Burying their head in the sand will not make it all go away. It happened, it was awful, but let it teach you something.
Hopefully the actions of the past will shape the actions of the future.
None us are growing up in a world free of hatred, and it's unlikely our children will either. But a woman can dream can't she?
I realize this post is rather rambling and jumpy, but I'm writing it as it comes to mind. I apologize to all who read it. I don't know why the Holocaust affects me so much. Maybe it is my underlying wish to change the world and make it better.