During my trip to southeastern Poland, we had a chance to visit Auschwitz, the infamous Nazi death camp, where estimates of those killed range from 1.1 million to 1.5 million people. More people were killed at Auschwitz than at any other Nazi death camp. It perhaps inevitably has become the most visible symbol of the worst that humanity is capable of.
In images of Auschwitz in movies and television, it is almost always freezing cold, and often snowing.
But when I went, it was a hot, summer day, and we were driving the long, country road in a tightly-packed car without air conditioning.
What surprised me was how normal it all looked. I do not know what exactly I was expecting, but I guess something far more grim. But we passed what seemed to be endless green countryside, with farms and the surrounding hills betraying nothing abnormal. The villages we passed also seemed normal, with life going on as if nothing was out of place.
Perhaps I was expecting things to be entirely unusual and bleak. But these were normal, sleepy European farming villages lazily going about their business on a hot, summer day.
We kept seeing signs that this village, Oświęcim, was fast approaching. Oświęcim, of course, is the Polish name that the Germans changed to Auschwitz, making it sound more German. It has become the name that lives on in infamy. The whole world knows the name Auschwitz, and what is represents.
At one point, we arrived at a gas station. It was a relief to be out of the car. I was beginning to feel like a kid going involuntarily to some destination against my will. But it was uncomfortable in the car, and nobody but me wanted the windows open. I was told by my Polish girlfriend that Polish people do not like wind. Reluctantly, I made my way back into the car for the short trip to reach Auschwitz, although when I remembered where I was going, and what people had been forced to endure while there, I forgot about my own complaints about the discomforts of the hot car.
We arrived at Oświęcim and, again, a familiar theme. Everything seemed so normal. Once again, this simple fact amazed me. It was as if I was expecting the local residents to be permanently downcast and somber, based on the significance of the history of what had taken place there, not even really all that long ago.
There were homes and apartment buildings, and we traversed through certain neighborhoods where kids were biking down streets, watching us with mild curiosity as we passed. It all seemed so incredibly normal, and I am still not sure why this seemed so surprising.
It was not clear where the death camp was located, and we had to stop and ask directions. Had we gotten out of the car and taken a good look, we might have actually glimpsed it from where we were, although it was mostly obscured. Two different people gave us two different directions. But the last guy pointed us in the right direction, and the camp was surprisingly close. Within easy walking distance.
Of course, at the camp, it was different. What happened here was not forgotten, even temporarily. It was front and center, the focal point of the museum that now exists there. The somber tone of this place is all-encompassing. As you walk throughout the camp, the horrors of the place are inescapable. All of those horrific things that you heard that the Germans did here are right there in front of you. The showers, the crematorium, the torture chambers, the walls and barbed fences and electrified fences. The shoes, the hair, the artificial limbs, and the cans of Zyklon-B used to poison all of those Jews and others murdered here. The death camps mostly only had one purpose: to kill people. Auschwitz, ironically, was the one exception, as it had a prison camp nearby, and was also a place where cruel medical experiments took place. If there is a place of pure evil, Auschwitz comes as close to it as possible.
Most of us know, at least on some level, what happened at Auschwitz. Yet, I was curious what the residents of Oświęcim were like, and what they felt about their city's most famous landmark, which they are in the shadow of in more ways than one. But I am not fluent in Polish. In fact, I had to rely on my girlfriend all of the time throughout the trip, truth be told. So, discussing such things with locals was not an option.
What are they thinking about today, on the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the death camp that everyone automatically thinks of when they think of this place, the city of Oświęcim, which the world knows better by the Germanized name it was given - Auschwitz?
I was perusing for articles on the subject of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, when I stumbled on the article below that delves a little bit on that very subject, and thought it would be worth sharing. So, if you are interested about the actual village of Oświęcim, here is the link:
Decades after Auschwitz, past horrors haunt a Polish town By Wiktor Szary and Wojciech Zurawski OSWIECIM, Poland Thu Jan 22, 2015
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/22/us-auschwitz-anniversary-oswiecim-idUSKBN0KV12H20150122
Please take a look at the article I wrote for Guardian Liberty Voice (my first in over a month and a half!) on the subject of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz:
Auschwitz Liberation 70 Year Anniversary
http://guardianlv.com/2015/01/auschwitz-liberation-70-year-anniversary/
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