"People who have just died are closer to us, and so we are fonder of them- the Etruscans, after all, have beend dead for a long time, so long it's as if they had never lived, as if they had
always been dead."
It was she the youngest who guided them and said, "But now if you say that, you remind me that the Etruscans were also alive once, and so I'm fond of them, like everyone else." - The Garden of The Finzi Continis, Giorgio Bassani (Page, Prologue 7)
My brothers and sisters who died and/or survived the Holocaust LIVED, they have always lived and are still living- and I should be forever fond of them. Not even fond, more than that. Fond is like saying these people suffered. Suffered is too light a word. Their pain was heavier than the world. They suffered for the world.
Don't tell me to put myself in "their shoes." I can't do that. It's not that I am uncapable of untying my brown shredding laces and taking off my worn in brown high top hiking boots. It's not that I can't place my bare and naked feet, pale from not seeing sun into their frozen shoes, frozen behind a glass case, mustering up dust- black from not seeing sun.
Don't tell me to put on their shoes when you keep their shoes hidden behind a glass clase- like ruby slippers. Like ruby slippers they glistened behind the glass. A sad glistening- like the glistening of tears, of sad tears. Of extremely self swalling saddness. Because like their shoes- these people were swallowed. (I wish I could call them by name and not just "these people") He was swallowed, she was swallowed. Your grandfather was swallowed and so were your brothers, and your sisters. Swallowed by the sins of soldiers, the sins of man- who are your grandfathers and brothers and sisters too.
I wish I could put his shoes on, her shoes on- but they are frozen behind the case- and I am frozen on the other side. What did I wish too feel? Saddness. What a shallow emotion for something so deep. I didn't wish to feel anything- and I didn't.
Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp, Krakow Poland.
I never dreamed myself in Poland- in Warsaw and in Krakow. But there I was. He and She did not picture themselves in Auschwitz- and Birkenau- but there they were. And there they died. And there they still are.
About twenty seven of us American and Spanish students walked in our warm boots and sneakers, bundled up in down jackets and wool and cashmere sweaters, scarfs and socks- we walked Warsaw. First we toured the Warsaw Uprising Museum. The exhibits are overflowing with photographs, written accounts and stories, letters, postcards and other testimonies of how life was during 1944. Children's art was hanging on the wall of this museum- and not on their refrigerator of their house, not even the refigerator in the ghetto. In the camps there was no refrigerator to hang their art. Instead the children and their mothers, fathers and grandparents were hung. They became art. The art of human nature. They show us what we need to see.
We then listened to what we needed to hear, here in Warsaw before heading to the concentration camps in Krakow. We listened to an engaging speaker at the University of Warsaw- a professor of psychology.
The building in which we all sat was one of two buildings that survived the total annihilation of the city. This building is the psychology builidng of the university of Warsaw. Psychology: the science of mind and behavior.
Previously, this building was where the SS Nazi soldiers corruptly collaborated and now it is where their cruelty is studied, here in Poland. Here. Now. Most of the buildings are newly constructed, new buildings. It is not an attempt to cover up the past. Or is it? And even if it is, you can never erase the past. In fact an eraser should be replaced with a magnifying glass. To magnify the past, to learn from it. To stare behind glass cases is not enough. We must magnify our minds and our hearts, but most importantly we must magnify our humanity- we are all people, all humans. This event is not just a one time event. It's happening in all of our shoes, it's happening in my shoes...it's still happening in the shoes behind the glass cases.
The psychology professor spoke about how this region of the world is heavily influenced by half a century ago, by World War II, by the genocide, by the Holocaust. How is this region, how are these people, how are all people able to reflect on atrocities of the past? He made me think. I forgot about being tired. I began to think.
He said people reflect on atrocities of the past with shame and guilt. I needed to think deeply. Shame and Guilt. Yes, the perpetrators should feel and be burdended with shame and guilt. But should we all? He spoke of what he called a triangle of genocide... on the tip of this triangle there are the perpetrators- In Europe we shall call them the Germans; on a lower corner of the triangle there are the Victims- Jews, homosexuals, Poles, Russians and even social democrats in Germany. So not all Germans are perpetrators. On the other corner of the triangle there are the bystanders- the rest of the nation, the rest of the entire nations- if we do not force the government to intervene, we become and are bystanders. So this triangle meshes and forms into a circle- there are "normal "people in all groups of the triangle- we all have the potential to be in one of thse groups. I think.... how does one become so inhumane, so dehumanized as to dehumanize???
The 101 Police Reserve Battalion. These were 101 "normal" soldiers, "normal" men who were asked to serve in occupied areas. Their main task: KILL JEWS. Once again I say these were "normal" men. These were fathers who kissed their children on the head before tucking them safely to bed and who kissed their wives on the lips before leaving to "work." They were ordered to kill and so they killed.
Psychologist Goldenhagen said their mentalities were changed by this order, they made a mentality to make it possible to kill Jews, to kill humans. Like a previously studied pyschology experimeng of Milgram's electrical shock test- couldn't we all be made to do this with an order? I know I would like to say for myself, not even say but yell NO. But I would merely like to say this.
Is our perception of humanity changed- when we cross a beggar on the street do we see them as less human, or do we not even look at them because we refuse to see their humanity? The Holocaust is not a one time event- it can occur at any time. It can occur at large in an entire country- or it can occur at small- on a street corner near home.
As for collective guilt, the Warsaw psychologist spoke, no one wants to be guilty for what our ancestors did. I once read or heard how Hitler's relatives went hiding because shame forced them to do so- some even killed themselves- shame forcing them to do so.
Poland is a symbol of victimhood especially for Jews. How could people live near these camps now? People lived there before there were death camps enar, so why not live there now. It is a part of life- then and now.
A soldier's home where he and his wife and children lived could be seen while standing on the dirt of the Auschwitz camp- these children and this wife were said to be oblivious to what was going on in the camp.
Everyone can be a perpetrator, regardless of nation, ethnicity... but we can also be altruistic and overcome social forces of genocide. We must become aware. We must not be oblivious.
After the talk the professor took us around his neighborhood and were he went to work each and every day- while walking to his work building he thinks about the e-mails he needs to respond too. Just half a century ago the people walking down these streets (obliviously not thinking about the e-mails they needed to respond too) were walking to a place of "work." The sign over Auschwitz reads "Arbeit macht frei"- means "work liberates."
They worked their lives away. They "worked" for us all.
We were walking on the streets of the ghetto. I was walking on the streets of the ghetto. My shoes were where their shoes walked. They walked. I stood frozen. They were freezing. I was bundled in my jacket.
I was hungry. I bought a bag of sun dried apple chips for five PLNS from a fruit vendor down the street. I'd say it was a measly lunch- but it was a bag full of a feast.
The granite statuesque depiction we saw near the ghetto was once a big block of granite of Switzerland that was supposed to be used for the sculpture of Hitler. Instead it was turned into a granite statuesque portrayal of the toiling torture of the Holocaust on one side and on the other side it was a portrayal of the uprising in Warsaw.
journaling in the Warsaw, Poland hostel... it looks like a room from an Indie film, decored with sheer bright pink and orange curtains. Twenty seven students, dropped off by a bunch of taxis on a corner of the streer... we arrived into Poland looking like a film as well. We arrived into the "Old Town," which really is a new town as it was completelt destricted by WWII and similarly reconstructed with the aid of old photographs. We stood cold in the Old Town center, no comprehension of where we were, no knowing of where this hostel was located, no understanding of the language. We were on our own.
They walked these streets in large groups but they were on their own, they didn't know where they were heading, who would they ask for help?
We ate a nice meal of an assortment of Polish perogies that night. They had nothing to eat that night. We boarded a train the next day headed to Krakow. They walked bare feet in the snow to the camps we were heading to. The train was overbooked, there was no where for us to sit. Well, there were no chairs for us to sit in. So we all sat smushed in the aisles with our luggages on our laps, our legs tangled... some dozed off to sleep on top of others. Elle and I were able to get seats when others stopped at another stop. They were smushed in cattle carts. Not sleeping on eachother, but piled on top of eachother like cattle. Going to the bathroom like cattle. Complete dehuminzation from the start. Some jumped off the cattle train...but were probably caught and killed. Like cattle.
Hours passed for us, days passed for them. We arrived to Krakow, no time for lunch, Auschwitz was closing. Breakfast was almsot 8 hours ago. We were all hungry. Not for long.
I didn't know what to feel. I walked through Auschwits with a still face, I felt still... my legs walking for me, I wanted to walk but I didnt want to walk. Who was I to walk through here just "to see." These people walked through here and died. They worked and died. They starved and died. They saw their families die. I saw their glasses, their prosthetic legs, their luggages, their pots and pans- I saw glimpses of these people. I saw their photographs. I saw the photos of twins on the wall. I didn't think they looked alike- but they were wearing the same striped garments. In fact, everyone looked like twins. All in the same striped garments, all looked weak and frail.. yet, in that frailty some looked strong, strong enough to want to fight this. But then underneath their photo the date of their arrival into the camp was marked... and just sixteen days later the date of their death was marked. He was strong.
Some of the museum like photos made me feel unnatached to the actuality of this time in history- it made it feel like history. But this is not just history. My legs continued to walk and we all walked into the crematory gas chambers. Poland was cold. Colder than the Swiss Alps. But this room was colder than Poland. It was colder than the strongest wind freezing the skin off your face. It was hell. It burned right through me, it burned me cold. This was the "realest" building in the entire camp for me. There were no photographs or souveneirs to remind me of these people's pain and yet I saw their pain here the most. I didn't see it, but I felt it. Why the hell was I in here? This is hell. This was their hell.
We must visit and re-vist this pain, this hell, to feel it, to keep it alive.. not to keep pain alive, but to keep the awareness of their pain alive. Their pain existed and we must not bury it with them. The last survivors are few. We are the next survivors. Although we cannot put on their exact shoes, we have our own on to walk for them, to keep them alive.
