Trip to Autchwitz

well, back from the trip to Autchwitz yesterday...thought you'd all like an account... :)



woke up at 4:00am, and left about 4:45am to get to the airport :O quite a jolt to the senses I have to say!

when we got off the plane and onto the coach, we went to a synagogue near the camps, and a rabbi showed us the synagogue itself, and read us a verse form the scroll containing the first 5 books of the Bible using the melody Jews are taught to use to read the Torah; it sounded so haunting and beautiful.

We then went to Autchwitz 1; Monowitz, which has been converted into a museum. We had a Polish guide, who was so matter of fact; I might in a way have preferred her to use more storytelling dialogue or something, to make me feel more part of the history. But when I think about it, perhaps that would have taken away from the sense of reality.

If I'm totally honest, I felt quite a bit less affected than anyone had predicted for me, or even that I had predicted for myself. When I think about it now, I believe that's because we weren't seeing the events themselves...

One of the only bits that actually really affected me was the huge display case of human hair that they had cut from women victims. They have actually decided now to leave the hair to break down naturally, instead of continuing to preserve it, so it all looks very similar, and almost like sheep wool, but there was one blonde ringlet, and I could see in my mind a little girl with curling blonde hair, robbed of life by the Nazis.

The other thing that really got me was a display cabinet of baby clothes and shoes. They were so tiny. I suppose you can imagine that adults could at least understand a little, or be clearer about what was going on, but to think of innocent children; two or three years old even, watching their parents die in front of them, and being led to death like lambs to the slaughter almost, is disgusting.

We moved on to Autchwitz 2; Birkenau, which is simply being preserved to look around. We walked through a few rooms, and saw the last ever preserved gas chamber. There's nothing in it now, since the Nazis used it for munitions storage later on (that's why it wasn't destroyed), but we could see the holes where the poisonous gas had been dropped down into the blocked off room. It made me feel wretched and sick, and I prayed for the people to have had at least quick passings.

The most tragic thing of all for me was that these people did not all even have a peaceful afterlife in Heaven. Those who carried on hardening their hearts against God never truly experienced real peace, and that is what causes my heart to rip into pieces.

We had a memorial service last thing, when dusk was falling. The Rabbi had chosen psalm 23 to read aloud, and some people read poems or extracts of survivors accounts. Then the Rabbi read in Hebrew (with the melody) a prayer for peace for the people affected by the Holocaust.

We all recieved candles, and we put them where we thought was best. I put mine with several others around some flowers our trip had put up as a memorial, but as we walked back in the growing darkness, people began to put their candles down by the railway track that had carted dead bodies to be burned, or frightened people on their way to the gas chambers.

What I thought the most most powerful of all was that there was a closed, sealed cart that had really been used to convey prisoners to the camp, which has been preserved over the years in a different country. And people took their burning candles, and put them around on this wagon; on the wheels and the sides, and looking back, I let myself stand there for a moment and watch the glowing candles shining softly on this weapon of murder. And I thought to myself; this is how we should repond; not with riots, shouting, screaming malice, but with soft, glowing, quiet signs of our respect, and our willingness to understand that we cannot understand, but our small, insignificant way of showing that we love these broken, emaciated, shattered people.



Icthus



He will be with us forever. "And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, 'Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away." --Revelation 21:3-4