Auschwitz-Birkenau – the most horrible place on earth?
I don’t know if Auschwitz is the most horrible place on earth, but it must certainly be one of the most horrible. On the left is the sign arching over the entry to Auschwitz I “Work makes you free” which was in fact that opposite of the truth. At Auschwitz work only prolonged the agony of your certain death.
We made our way to the camp on Monday, and needless to say it was a staggering, emotionally overwhelming experience from start to finish. We were led through the tour by a passionate young polish girl, Agnes. She was committed to telling the story of Auschwitz and took her job very seriously. 1.7 million people were in the Auschwitz complex. Of that total number 1.3 million were murdered and burned in the crematoriums. It is almost beyond comprehension. We stood in the same places where gypsies, Polish, Russian prisoners of war and Jews walked, and ultimately perished. The magnitude of the wickedness is almost unimaginable. There were moments when I could barely restrain my tears (actually I didn’t restrain them). One moment in particular stands out above all others – gazing into a display case where children’s clothes, really baby clothes were displayed. There were 200,000 children in Auschwitz. Only 670 survived. When I looked in the case, at the clothing of sweet little children I began to weep at the thought of the brutality, and their final moments in the gas chambers. It fractures the mind and devestates the heart. It almost makes me ask “Where is God?”
Here is a shot of Auschwitz – Birkenau or Auschwitz 2. It is the sight of most of the extermination of Jewish people. We stood in the tower and shot this photo, not unlike the one from Schindler’s List. There is one square mile to this death factory. A million people were murdered here. The victims were required to build the very buildings that imprisoned them. They were required to build the very chambers which murdered them as well as the ovens which burned their remains. The Nazi’s tried to burn evidence, and it has been a slow process to reconstruct the camp. Only a few buildings are completely restored. We were able to go into the building where prisoners took care of their bathroom needs and sanitation. It was horrid. The average amount of time a prisoner had to go to the bathroom was 10 seconds. Guards would beat those who took longer. We were there on a pretty cold day (we were all really cold). That made the trip all the more difficult for me. I began thinking about children, and women in the very inadequate prison garb trying to stay warm. 
Here is the most horrible sight of all. The gas chamber. This is a shot of the monstrosity from behind. In this particular chamber 800 people were killed in each “murdering” hour. It took approximately 40 minutes for everyone to die. This chamber ultimately proved to be inadequate. Killing only 800 per hour wasn’t enough for the bloodthirsty Nazis, and the sound of screams from the chamber was too close to the prisoners to keep secret. At Auschwitz 2 the chambers held 2000 people and took only about 20 minutes for everyone to die. This is something human beings did to one another. Can their be any more certain proof of the fallen nature of human beings then Auschwitz? Those who say man is basically good can do so with a straight face? Not in Auschwitz-Birkenau. There were a series of experiments done in the late 50’s and early 60’s on college students. In this test they were told to administer a series of shocks to other students in response to answers given on a test. What this test proved is that ordinary students were more than willing to injure their fellows students when ordered to do so (there really was no shock, but those administering didn’t know this). So much for evil being a German thing.
What hope for us is there except that One who can take the blackness of the human sin and transform these twisted hearts?
October 25th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Thank you so much for sharing this.
You know, I love my children, and the other day I watched a woman in one of Alban’s classes pull her child out of the class and berate him for no reason, calling him names, and badmouthing him to another mother. I thought, “I think this kid is used to this–he just seems to be taking it on the chin…what is his future? What kind of adult is this treatment going to produce?” I’ve seen women beat their kids in public places; we’ve all seen that. And we want to think we’d never be capable of something like that.
But it takes about 10 seconds before you realize that those tendencies are in your own heart, too. What mother hasn’t uttered words she’s regretted to the very children of her own body? Or handled them roughly only to collapse in tears seconds later in the realization that she went too far? And put an ideology behind something, and pursue it to its logical end, add self-justification and see where it leads.
My biological father was physically abusive to my mother. I never met him, and have almost no desire to. One day she had a flashback of a beating, and as I watched it, and ruminated on it later, I thought, almost in a cold and calculate way, “In this case, I could commit murder on my own father, if I were to meet him right now.”
Jeff just told me about these twins, pre-teens who play terrible music and call themselves “Prussian Blue”. They are being raised by their mother to be white supremists. He also told me about a website of a prominent Holocaust-denier. How incredibly scary, that this is again happening in our day and age, when we thought we had learned.
I think the only answer lies in repentance. Not just once, but repeatedly giving over even the most minute infraction to the Lord. Where else is our hope? Because we can be just like anyone else. Beautiful, made in God’s image, but horribly depraved. Lord, have mercy.
October 26th, 2007 at 10:12 am
Two summers ago Jim and I went spent time in the Bavarian region of Germany. We visited Dachau the “model” camp in which Auschwitz and many of the other concentration camps were built to resemble. T
he town of Dachau is about 1/2 hour away from the city of Munich. The camp itself was surrounded by homes and small farms during the Natzi Regime as it is today. It was sickening to think how either fearful the towns people were of the Natzi’s or how supportive they were living right outside of camp.
We spent about 5 hours touring the camp using audio devices. The feeling of horror I had was just not expressable , especially as I was thinking about people who deny the Holocaust today.