Walking Among the Ghosts of Auschwitz-Birkenau

This is a difficult post to write. It should be. The inconceivable horrors that took place here, and in over 450 other concentration camps in Poland alone, are memorialized on a scale equal to the evil of their complex, messianic perpetrators.

The people of Poland and the Baltic countries do not doubt that this evil still governs. Putin’s armies patrol their borders. NATO membership is cherished.

It is estimated that the SS and police deported at least 1.3 million people to the Auschwitz camp complex between 1940 and 1945. Of these deportees, approximately 1.1 million people were murdered.

Jewish deportees arriving at Auschwitz-Birkenau immediately underwent selection. Here at Birkenau on the train tracks, Jewish passengers, promised a shower, food and rest, left the trains. Mothers and children were separated from husbands and the elderly.

The SS staff chose the able-bodied for forced labor and sent the rest directly to the gas chambers, disguised as shower installations to mislead the victims. The belongings of all deportees were confiscated and sorted. Women’s hair was sold to textile factories and made into fabric.

The Auschwitz camp complex has survived largely unchanged since its liberation in January 1945. The remaining camp buildings, structures and infrastructure are a silent witness to history, bearing testimony of the crime of genocide committed by the German Nazis. They are an inseparable part of a death factory organized with precision and ruthless consistency.

UNESCO

I am immeasurably saddened by but grateful for the privilege of making this painful, elucidating visit. Grateful for the chance to honor these brave and innocent souls. I felt their presence: visceral, chilling, palpable. Their suffering lingers in the air of Auschwitz-Birkenau as a reminder that evil lived here.