A Gathering Storm

“This picture is from August of 1939,” explained our tour guide at the Schindler Museum.  “This is when the last rays of sunlight were cast on Poland.”  Her country was still gaining its footing as a re-established nation after World War I, yet was knocked off its course for decades after that bright August due to a combination of German occupation and Soviet control for decades after the war.

Street signs for roads that were renamed during occupation

The national memory of war that our Polish tour guide communicated was extraordinarily interesting.  The museum used a striking combination of light and space to evoke certain emotions in its visitors, such as a cramped and dark display to represent the Krakow Jewish ghetto or an uneven rubber floor to show the feeling of uncertainty as Poland was “liberated” by the Russians.

All of these tools were a supplement to our guide’s description of the displays and the war itself, such as her account of the outbreak of war .  After describing the helpless situation in which the fledgling nation found itself, our guide emphasized that the war would have been drastically changed had Great Britain and France sent the promised troops and equipment to Poland to continue the fight.  Immediately I wondered how, even with this help, Poland they could have fended off the Germans.  I was curious how plausible this could have been, especially considering the failure of British and French troops to thwart invasion in France in 1940.

A section of the museum depicting the Krakow Jewish Ghetto, which used tight spaces and darkness to emphasize the poor conditions that Jews were forced to live in

The most interesting aspect of this museum tour, however, was what we heard about collaboration.  Our guide tried to give us a clear picture through careful language about the different sects of society in Poland at that time, saying that there were, “good Poles and bad Poles, good Germans and bad Germans, and good Jews and bad

Jews.”  What I did not know as I heard this semi-ambiguous statement was that in February of 2018, the Polish senate passed a controversial law that made it illegal to accuse the Polish state or its inhabitants of being involved with crimes committed during the Holocaust.  The president of Poland described the law as a means to prevent Poland from being insulted and if broken calls for either a fine or up to three years in prison.

Bearing this in mind, it was fascinating to hear what our guide had to say.  It was clear to me that she had to “tip-toe” around different subjects with her remark about the good and bad sides to war, but she in turn created a more non-biased look at this issue as a whole.  Overall, our tour at the Schindler Museum provided me with an interesting look at Krakow’s history within the context of the war and subsequent liberation.  Viewing the war through Poland’s eyes as an occupied country definitely offers museum guests with a unique story that is often forgotten outside of Poland, even if it may be tainted by recent laws.  This tour, and the tours of museums in other nations, has left me curious to see how World War II history is taught across Europe, what information may be lacking in the US’s narrative of the war, and to what extent that nations are willing to let these tough conversations go.

Remembering Catastrophe

Before arriving in Poland, we visited sites where most of World War II’s heroic stories unfolded.  In London, the Blitz was devastating. Nonetheless, the allies were victorious, and England’s national identity remained after the war. In France, we visited Normandy and walked the same beaches as those who liberated France. In Western Europe, we saw examples of resilience, perseverance, and triumph over evil. In Krakow, however, the sites and museums did not bear the usual Western European happy ending.

About one-third of Krakow’s pre-World War II population was Jewish. They were intellectuals, doctors, lawyers, and most importantly, people.  Jewish people in Krakow were Polish citizens and were incorporated into life throughout the city just like other citizens. The Nazis quickly occupied Poland and all of this changed. The Nazis treated Jewish people as less than human and made every effort to break the Jewish population. 70,000 Jewish people were relocated to a ghetto with space for 17,000 people; rations were less than three-hundred calories per day; and Nazi terrorized the community as part of their mission to gain living space.  Eventually, Krakow’s Jewish population was nearly exterminated. Outside of Krakow, we visited Auschwitz-Birkenau, one of the largest and most brutal Nazi death camps. Over one million Jews and even Polish citizens were sent here, and most of them never left. These atrocities were unfathomable to me, especially considering that they happened in a modern society.

Amidst my shock and attempts to understand how Nazis created a system that murdered millions of Jews, political prisoners, gypsies, homosexuals, and other outcasts, I realized how important it is to study these catastrophes and visit sites where they took place. Visiting Auschwitz was hard. Gaining a sense of how many lives weren’t lived was even more challenging. The system responsible for nearly seven million Jewish people’s murder was created through a series of societal changes and motivated by hatred in an attempt to portray someone else as the enemy. Visiting these sites is gut wrenching, but if we don’t take time to pay respect to those who were victims of Nazi Germany or attempt to understand why these atrocities happened, we risk accepting a similar fate in the future.

Incomprehensibility in History

The entrance sign of Auschwitz I (Taken by Ian Mintz)

Pictured is just a small segment of the thousands of shoes left behind by victims of Auschwitz (Taken by Ian Mintz)

Stepping foot into the Auschwitz I complex, the original part of the notorious death camp, I was left chilled by the seeming inoffensiveness of the buildings in front of me. The metal sign hanging above the grounds reading “Work Sets You Free” in German rings hollow only because history has taught me the utter falsity and depravity inherent in its message. However, despite knowing that Auschwitz is the site of the single largest mass murder, I was surprised to find myself incapable of visualizing the past evils. Ahead were simply rows of brick buildings, washed of their original purpose. I realized my view was not far removed from that of the victims arriving on site. To them, these buildings appeared to be nothing but humdrum working and housing quarters. Without historical hindsight, they seem no different.

Once I actually entered the quarters, the mounds of human relics taken from the fallen victims jarred me. Baby shoes, hair, kitchenware, filled the rooms— the final and most tangible symbol of the lives lost. Such sights provoked in me emotion that was both unregulated and overwhelming. Trying to fully picture the camp 70 plus years after its use— removed of both its criminals and victims— felt impossible. The personal items provided the clearest exposure to the genocide, and yet they offered an inadequate glimpse. No relic, movie, or building replica could transport one back to the unfathomable realities of Auschwitz— a fact that left me simultaneously heartbroken and relieved.

What Do a Million People Look Like?

Like a hellish twin to the Louvre’s glass pyramid, the dynamited concrete roof of Crematorium II’s gas chamber slopes down into the soggy Earth. On the overcast day of our visit, the caved-in roof of the gas chamber, black and flooded as though by sorrow, seemed to be a black hole. According to conservative estimates, the SS murdered 1.1 million people in Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Standing in the camp myself, looking at the remains of the crematoria, I suddenly realized that hundreds of thousands died within 50 feet of where I was standing. I wanted to run away. What do a million people even look like alive, much less dead? At Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the loss to humanity hangs heavy in the air. The American cemetery in Normandy drew tears from me, but standing where more people died per square foot than anywhere else on Earth more so evokes dumbfounded depression, incomprehension, and terror.

What do a million people look like alive? How could a nation condemn so many? FG: a pit containing the ashes of some of those killed in the chambers. BG: the dynamited remains of a gas chamber. Photo courtesy of Ian Mintz.

Though mediocre and lapdoggish bureaucrats filled the ranks of Nazi Germany’s civil service, Auschwitz embodies the terrifying efficiency by which the world knows the Nazis. Auschwitz II-Birkenau was the terminus of Germany’s vast rail-deportation network. Cattle cars of starved innocents arrived daily through its gate, each one sorted by SS officers and racial doctors for either work “selection” or immediate death. In the most perverse sense, those sent to the chambers were lucky: the forced laborers were given only starvation rations, crammed six-abreast in triple bunks, and worked to death. In Auschwitz I, the original camp, guards tortured and starved (and sometimes gassed) Poles, Jews, Roma, and others. They exploited labor by terror and mass punishment.

The camp even has ghosts, of a sort: the remains of long since dismantled shelters stretch into the distance in eerily neat rows. Only the bones of the buildings, the chimneys and foundations, remain. Photos cannot fully capture the camp’s expansiveness. Even with most buildings gone, one cannot easily see from one end of the camp to the other.

Prisoner barracks at Birkenau were dismantled and shipped to Warsaw for emergency housing after the Germans, in full retreat and bloodied by an uprising, destroyed 90 percent of the city.

Auschwitz offers no great historical lessons on its own. Its memorial plaques do not preach with walls of text, but rather offer a warning to humanity. The camp speaks on its own behalf. Students talk of racialization and dehumanization in the abstract in classes, and we naturally recoil at mention of those –tions, but the praxis of those –tions is quite different and far more harrowing. The Nazis needed assembly-line-style murder facilities because their soldiers in the East could no longer stomach shooting innocents and kicking them into mass graves; perhaps that fact should give us hope for humanity, but Auschwitz itself offers no balm. Its existence should curb visitors’ enthusiasm for the dehumanization rampant in modern politics. Neither blood nor creed nor origin are sufficient to treat humans like livestock. Nothing is.

“For ever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity, where the Nazi murdered about one and a half million men, women, and children, mainly Jews, from various countries of Europe.”

Visit Auschwitz yourself. It’s our duty as human beings to bear witness, to remember, and to act to ensure no regime can enact such horrors again.

Auschwitz and Identity

Judaism is a major part of my life and identity. This is an identity that I wear on my sleeve, devoting much of my time to working with Jewish organizations. My faith is at the core of who I am, which is why, despite having studied the Holocaust extensively, visiting Poland was extremely difficult for me. In Poland, I visited Auschwitz concentration camp for the first time. This devastating experience left me with two large takeaways that kept running through my mind while in the death camp. First, unsurprisingly, I was struck with pain and disgust at the inhumanity that occurred in Auschwitz. No matter how much material one reads on the Holocaust, nothing comes close to conveying the true horrors of the Nazis like seeing this place in person. When studying how the Holocaust happened, we generally discuss it from a “meta-level,” examining the political and societal downfalls that led to the atrocity. However, while physically being at Auschwitz, I was struck with the personal nature of the Holocaust. People perpetrated these crimes directly. The Nazis working at Auschwitz made daily decisions to murder, torture and terrorize. I truly could not understand how human beings could treat other human beings in such a way. This inhumanity was the most disturbing feeling when seeing the camp and the one that was most impactful as well.

My identity has played a large role in my experience on the Ohio State WWII Study Tour. I am a proud American, and many of our sites have only made this grow due to our valiant effort in the war. Surprisingly, despite my disgust and sadness, I felt a similar feeling at Auschwitz as well because of my identity. I am a proud Jew. With my faith, I feel as if I stand alongside the millions of Jews who have been persecuted or killed due to their religion. And yet, there I stood at Auschwitz-Birkenau, a Jew in 2018. The last of those who perpetrated the crimes of the Holocaust are finally dying of old age taking their warped and hateful ideology with them. I am member of a vibrant Jewish community back in the States and that is something I will never let anyone take from me.

Traveling to Poland and Auschwitz was a deeply meaningful experience for me. As a Jew, I was deeply saddened and disturbed. As a Jew, I am determined than ever to preserve my faith as well as protect others in vulnerable communities across the globe.