lessons on war and genocide...

During our stay in Krakow, Poland, we took a day trip to the concentration and death camps in Auschwitz. It is definitely a hard experience to process; we learned and saw things that not all have the opportunity to experience first hand. I will try and give a description and my own thoughts on our tour. I realize that this is a long post but you will learn a lot about the Holocaust if you read it through. Also, I spent over two hours writing this between class and working on my creative project because I think it is important.

We first went to Auschwitz-Birkenau which was divided into a concentration (or work) camp and death camp, separated by a chain-link fence and barbed wire.

When the Nazis invaded Poland, they cleared out the western part of the country in an attempt to expel Jews and unify German-speakers. The first prisoners of Auschwitz were Soviet POWs that were made to build the entire camp. They were brought in June 1940 and totaled 15,000 prisoners. The conditions were so bad and the POWs were so poorly treated that only 90 prisoners survived the war. Many died from bad weather and from being overworked while others were just murdered. The Nazis also deeply hated communists, as you can see.

On January 20, 1942, Hitler and Heydrich hold the Wansee Conference where they essentially plan out the Holocaust. Hitler was literally paranoid that every country that declared war on Germany was a part of a world-wide Jewish conspiracy to destroy Germany. They originally planned to exterminate 11 million Jews from all over the world. To carry out this evil plan, the Nazis needed a larger capacity in camps and “more efficient” ways of killing. (The terminology used by the Nazis is absolutely horrifying. They spoke of humans like they were animals or worse. One can see their evil just in the words they used to talk about people they considered inferior.) By that point in the war, the Eastern front was not going very well and they no longer needed Auschwitz for Soviet POWs. They began bringing train-loads of Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau and exterminated them immediately. Later, the Nazis realized that they needed workers and that’s when they began doing “selections.”

When a train arrived to the camp, SS doctors would stand outside the train and select those who looked strong and able to work. 200,000 of these “able” Jews and 200,000 Poles, gypsies, homosexuals and Soviets lived in the camp to provide slave labor for the Nazis.

We walked into a barrack where people lived under awful conditions. They had bunks, one on the dirt and two more wooden ones stacked above. People would have to work their way up to the top, earn the right to sleep on the top bunk. At the point of its highest capacity, six to seven people would sleep on one bed.

A few things about the barracks made me sick. First, the Nazis put criminals in charge of each barrack. Criminals were “perfect” for the job because they were already twisted and would easily adopt Nazi ideals. In many cases, the criminal barrack leaders treated the prisoners worse than the SS. You can imagine that the breakfast coffee, lunch soup and dinner bread was not usually distributed equitably among prisoners.

Another sickening aspect of the barracks was the quotes put on the walls by the Nazis. They wrote very sardonic things like, “being clean is your duty,” “one louse is your death,” “keep calm,” “be honest,” etc. The Nazis claimed that the Jews were dirty then made them to fit that claim in such poor conditions. They focused on minor values like hygiene and totally missed the important values like not murdering people! This was German thoroughness used for absolute evil. They would also fumigate the barracks with the same chemical (cyclone B) they used in the gas chambers. The women were forced to leave their clothes in the barracks to be fumigated and had to stand outside naked for up to 8 hours. Sometimes, selections would be made during that time as well.

Of the 400,000 people that came to the concentration camp, 200,000 died of hunger, cold or Typhus. 200,000 survived Auschwitz (not necessarily the Holocaust), of which 193,000 were moved west to another camp. 7,000 prisoners were liberated from the camp on January 27, 1945, and approximately 60,000 slaves from Auschwitz survived the war altogether.

In the death camp portion of Auschwitz-Birkenau, a total of 900,000 Jews were murdered right after arriving at the camp. They eventually extended the train so that it went directly to the section of the camp with the gas chambers and crematorium. For these 900,000 souls, there was no registry, no names taken down. “Men to the left, Women to the right,” were some of the last words they would hear.

After stepping out of the train, they were filed into the undressing facility. The capacity of the gas chambers was 1500 or 2000 with small children. It is really disturbing to think of all the naked people locked in the dark gas chamber. An SS officer would then pour granules of cyclone B in the chamber from above which mixed with the air to create cyanide. From the outside, you could hear screams for 20 minutes; people fighting to reach the top of the chamber for the last bit of oxygen. The limiting factor for the murdering was also the ability to burn bodies. The crematoria could burn 4756 bodies per day. Some corpses were burned outside because the capacity was not large enough.

The Nazis selected certain strong, young, Jewish men to be the sondokommandos. They had to move the corpses from the gas chambers to the crematoria and pull out gold teeth and sheer all the long hair. Those men must have been completely traumatized for life. Every couple of months, the sondokommandos were killed so that information wouldn’t get out and a new group was trained to do the Nazi’s dirty work. By accident, 80 sondokommandos survived the war and one wrote a book entitled How to Cry without Tears. I’ve been told that is a great resource for learning about the Nazi psyche.

There is now a memorial to those who were murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau. They have plaques in every language of people that were killed there (and an English plaque) saying “For ever let this place be a cry of despair and warning to humanity, where the Nazis murdered about one and a half million men, women and children mainly Jews from various countries of Europe.” One thing that struck me is that a whole language went extinct because of the Holocaust. Ladino, a language very close to Spanish, was spoken by a community of Jews that was expelled from Spain during the Inquisition and immigrated to Greece. After 14 days on a train to Auschwitz, Ladino-speaking Jews were exterminated and the language is now dead.

If you will bear with me… I will tell you about the former possessions of Jews that I saw on display at Auschwitz I, another concentration camp.

The most impacting piece of evidence of the Nazi’s crimes is the massive pile of human hair. The Nazis sold hair to textile companies for making cloth. 7 tons of human hair was found after the war. 2 tons of women’s hair was on display which belonged to 40,000-60,000 women before they were gassed. The hair is distinguishable but it is all grey now because it still has traces of cyclone B. Within 15 years, all the hair will disintegrate. That means that I am one of the last witnesses of this evidence.

They had a case full of children’s shoes and another room full of adult shoes- 40,000 pairs of shoes filling a room. That is only 4% of the victims of Auschwitz-Birkenau. There was another room full of suitcases that were brought to the camps by prisoners. The owner’s name and date of arrival was written on the front. One belonged to an orphan girl who probably went directly to the gas chamber.

Another display case had prosthetic legs, arms, hands, etc. I did not expect to see that display. One man reports hearing a man screaming from inside the gas chamber that he was being murdered by the country that he gave up his leg for in the last war. Eyeglasses, pots and pans, combs, brushes and prayer shawls followed.

While I did not take pictures of these personal possessions, the image is burned into my memory and I will not forget.

“The one who does not remember history is bound to live through it again.”

-George Santayana

The Czech Republic and Poland!! Czech me out!

Hmmm... I feel so behind on my blog because I have been to three cities that have yet to appear here.

Prague was a really cool city- it seems like so long ago already. One of the best things we did there was a tour by our guide Gabriel. He took to the outskirts and taught us about the assassination of Heydrich, the #3 man of the Nazis, by running the course (literally running) that one of the assassins did. None of us will forget the moment when we all started running up the hill and around the corner to see what it felt like for the brave Czech man to try and kill a Nazi leader...

Another highlight was ice skating! About 2/3 of our group went to ice rink in Prague on a free afternoon. I was pretty tense about skating at first because it had been a long time for me... Then, we started having a lot of fun and even ended up racing a group of girls from an international school. They were from all over the world: Argentina, Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic, etc. We used metal benches and had a couple people push someone else sitting on the bench. They definitely beat us a couple times but it was still fun to play with them!

On Sunday, we went to a Church of England service in the city. I had accidentally left my Bible on the plane to Berlin, so I asked if they had one for sale. At first they didn't think they had one for me. Then, they ended up giving me one that is about 3-4 inches thick- it's still a blessing because I wasn't sure where I would be able to get an English-language Bible.

From Prague, we moved on to Poland. Krakow is a medieval town that is pretty lively because of it's large university and student population. The Poles apparently really like jazz music...so, we went to a jazz restaurant and club a couple nights in a row. The food was great and the music was even better. The restaurant was in an underground cellar off the main square. It had great ambiance was lots of fabrics and even glitter on the stone walls (it sounds pretty random, I know).

We had a tour of city and learned about its legends. For example, there used to be a dragon who lived in a cave by the river When people started settling in the area he became angry and ate a lot of them and, thus, started a war with them. A brave man named Crac fed the dragon sulfur which made him really thirsty. The dragon started gulping water from the river to quench his insatiable thirst. He drank so much that he exploded. That's why it is called Cracow (or Krakow)! Thanks, Crac!

The city has some great stories to tell. We also enjoyed souvenir shopping at the cloth hall market.

We took a day trip that I'll save for next time: Auschwitz I and Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Nazis and Commies

Berlin was so intense. We were there five days that were packed with class and tours of everything relating to WWII… Jewish Berlin, Nazi Headquarters, Nazi Church, etc. This city has literally been torn apart and the people are still trying to put it back together. Our tour guide, Gabriel, is a British historian who has been living in Berlin for 8 years and has a lot to offer us as far as learning.

On Sunday (the one before last now), we went to a Lutheran church service then we got a history lesson at a church that was built by the Nazis. You wouldn’t believe how they incorporated Nazi propaganda and ideology with Christian doctrine. It was actually quite frightening. Martin Luther Memorial Church was built in 1933 when Hitler came to power. There are tiles of soldiers (Hitler’s storm troopers portrayed as the average father), strong women with many children (so they can grow up and fight in Hitler’s army), and the hammer and sickle (the symbol they ripped off from the communists). The crucifix does not portray Jesus as a suffering sacrifice rather a strong man bearing pain. Apparently, the Nazis focused on the resurrection because Germany was to have its own resurrection after its death in WWI. They also exploited the figure of Martin Luther because he was a German fighting non-Germans who said some questionable things about Jews who didn’t convert. Hitler really didn’t have any desire to make a Christian empire. He just used the church to further his own agenda even though he saw Christianity as too weak with its ideas of brotherhood, etc. Unfortunately, a lot of Christians, Protestant and Catholic alike, bought into the Nazi program that promoted national pride and patriotism. It took years for Christians to realize that Nazism was completely evil and it was too late. Martin Neimoller said after the war that one should always beware of someone who tells you to follow a man – all men are sinners- and who speaks lightly of death.

A couple days later, we had a tour of some Nazi sites like the Propaganda ministry headquarters lead by Goebbels (who does not look very Aryan himself), Hitler’s bunker and his headquarters/office. I couldn’t believe I was standing where Hitler used to live and where he married Eva Braun and later killed himself. Hitler’s secretary Traudl Junge was a 22 year old woman who wrote down the dictation of his last will and testament. She reported that she expected some sort of explanation for the Holocaust or some repentant attitude. But Hitler only said the same hateful words as he always had. After he had killed himself with a cyanide tablet and a shot to the head (he did not want to wake up in Russia), she was making copies of the will as he had ordered. Junge says she was making the copies to the sounds of machine guns and the approaching Soviet soldiers and that it was so ironic because it was such a beautiful day outside.

I found my own irony that day. It was a gorgeous day in Berlin- the most beautiful day I could’ve imagined in the city. But something awful happened that morning. I was on the S-bahn (aboveground train) with my professor, his wife, and three girlfriends and we only made it one stop before we heard an announcement in German and had to get off the train. Julie, who speaks German, asked a woman what was going on. The woman told her that a man had jumped in front of the train when we were coming to the station. He was somewhere under the train, surely dead from the impact. We took a moment to pray and tried to process the shock. How could a man step in front of our train? What was going on in his life that made living worse than dying? It was interesting to see how the Germans dealt with the issue. We felt lots of concern and shock for this man. The Germans must have been in shock but didn’t express much but the need to be thorough and efficient in the situation at hand. The poor driver seemed very agitated and probably used; his own sanity was compromised because another selfishly stepped in front of the train. Well, that was the event that set the tone for our day of learning about the Nazis.

Later, we switched to learning about science and technology in Germany. We visited Humboldt University where some big names learned and taught. Karl Marx was a student there and Einstein taught there before emigrating to the U.S. We got to go into the hall where Einstein gave lectures and read his research findings on the theory of relativity! Great minds have come out of Germany.

On our way from Berlin to Prague, we stopped in Wittenberg. Wittenberg was put on the map by the one and only Martin Luther. We saw the monastery that became his home with Katarina, his wife, and the church where he nailed the 95 Theses. I never thought I’d go to Luther’s hometown but I was somewhat bothered by the fact that very few people are still practicing Christians. Only 14% are Lutheran and 2-3% Catholic in Wittenberg because it was so heavily influenced by Communism for 40 years. The people in Eastern Europe are hardly religious anymore because the USSR beat it out of them. Poland somehow hung on to their Catholicism because it is deeply rooted in their national identity. It also helped that Pope John Paul II was the first Polish Pope. Poland is very closely linked to Rome.

I want to write about Prague and now Krakow as well…I am constantly behind but there are more stories to tell…

Maybe best night of my life…

We are in Helsinki, Finland. How many people can say that they’ve experienced Finland? It’s amazing. I spent the day exploring the city on foot: seeing the Lutheran and Orthodox churches, shopping in the market and snapping pictures of the Finnish fall colors.

Finland has a very busy National Theater in Helsinki. It has four stages and rivals London theater even though the population of the whole nation of Finland is half that of London. Finns see more theater productions per year than any other nationality. A dramaturge gave our group a tour of the theater itself this afternoon in anticipation of the upcoming shows we would be seeing.

14 of the 47 people in our group went to the theater tonight to see the Unknown Soldier. We will all go tomorrow night to see Coffin and the following night many will see God is Beauty. You may be wondering how we are seeing theater in Finland when we probably don’t speak, read or understand Finnish? Good question. The only thing I know about Finnish is that it is unrelated to other Scandinavian languages and maybe linked to Estonian. Kiitos means “thank you” and Moi is “hi.” We are brave enough to see plays in a completely foreign language.

The Unknown Soldier is based on a novel written in the 1950’s about Finland’s involvement in WWII. I actually did a presentation on Finland in WWII a few days ago… The Soviet Union invaded Finland and won territory that the Finns tried to get back by calling upon the Nazis and invading the Soviet Union. The Finns lost again and then had to fight the Nazis to get them out of Finland. Fighting patriotically was always seen as heroic in Finland until this novel came out about Finland invading the Soviet Union. The novel was a realistic reflection of the atrocities of the war and war in general. It was considered completely scandalous as it seemed to take away honor from veterans. For that reason, everyone read it. It really became the way that Finns viewed war. It became known that soldiers and commanders did horrible things in war that ended up being useless.

The play is a deconstruction of the novel about 50 years later. It is very pacifistic in its portrayal of war. The Unknown Soldier is directed by Kristian Smeds, an internationally renowned Finnish director. He used multimedia in ways I had never seen before in theater and left each of us impressed after 3 and a half hours.

Ok…to the highlight of my night. The dramaturge told us that the soldiers were going to choose some women from the stalls (seats on the floor near the stage) to dance with them on stage. I was kind of bummed when my seat was up in the balcony but I eyed the seats below just in case there were empty ones. From my seat, I saw an empty spot in the third row on the side aisle and I told myself that I would try to sit there after intermission if the dancing didn’t take place in the first act. I did so and got to sit in the third row for the second act.

I was waiting and watching… then the actors stepped towards the front of the stage and were looking out at the audience searching. The next thing I knew, one of the main actors was leaning over me. He said, “moi,” and I replied with, “moi.” Then he said something in Finnish to which I replied, “Do you speak English?” He said, “Yes. Would you like to dance?” Of course I said, “yes.” So we went onstage (ONSTAGE!!!) with the other actors and women they brought on stage and danced to techno music. He said that it would be more hopping then dancing…it was a mix.

The experience was very surreal because I was onstage dancing with a top Finnish actor and kind of chatting with him while the whole theater is still watching the play. I became a part of the play? It was so fun! He asked where I was from and what I was doing here. I told him that I was from California and studying WWII among other things. After we got done with the congo line, he said, “World War II, this is about WWII.” I said, “I know!” (maybe you should ask me to re-enact this to see what I mean) We danced some more then he thanked me and said I did well and showed me to the stairs to go back to my seat.

How fun is it that I got to dance onstage with the Finnish actors from the premier play of Finland? At the very end of the play, the actors were bowing numerous times-like most plays. And after a few bows, my dancing partner nodded to me and smiled as I smiled and waved. I felt very special and so glad that I moved seats for this chance.

Another girl from my group was also chosen to dance, so we got to share a little moment. Our other friends that were at the play were excited to talk to us afterward. They expressed how funny/exciting it was to see their friends onstage dancing. Maybe they were a little jealous… Actually, they were really happy that we got to do it.

Well, that’s my little claim to fame. 15 minutes and it’s over. But I had so much fun and will keep my eye open for more special opportunities to personalize this large experience of Europe.

On a more thoughtful note, I was hoping to get more insight into ideas about war because that is obviously a theme of my trip. This play was clearly pacifistic as it showed the horrors of warfare from the officer-soldier relationships to fighting on the frontline. I understood more at the beginning because the action went from order towards chaos. There was much commentary on current politics, but mainly Finnish affairs which I didn’t completely understand. It is also important to take into account the recent shootings in Finland, the first of which took place right after this violent play opened last fall.

Overall, the meaning I got from this production was the dehumanizing effect of war. The soldiers saw their enemies as machines an, in the end, destroyed just to destroy. Anarchy or chaos seemed to be the only way out for them. For me, the challenge will be to figure out how this play fits in with the other things I have been learning about war and to possibly synthesize my ideas in a creative project for my art class. Hmm…

I don't think I've written about Sweden yet...I was really busy because my Danish friend Susanne visited me in Stockholm. I'll have to go back to write about Amsterdam and Stockholm...

To be continued...