Written January 20, 2002
I went to Auschwitz. My first impression was that it was beautiful. Neatly organized, very long brick buildings, green grass and trees everywhere. I remember feeling angry and shocked that this place should have any beauty associated with it. I did not expect that. The neat rows of buildings, however, were a horror inside. Some of the buildings were given an item. This impossibly long building was all hair. The area where the barracks would have been were piles of hair behind glass. Braids. Pony tails. Grey hair, blonde hair… almost impossible to comprehend. That building was suitcases with name after name written on them as instructed. Brushes over in that building. Shoes, clothes. So many personal things. Outside, staring at the barbed wire and forest beyond, imaging the longing to be on the other side. The cattle car on the train tracks. I was on an american speaking tour with my sis. There were tours at different times in different languages. We were led to the courtyard with the black wall where executions took place and told of the horrors that occurred in this courtyard. We were shown the standing cells. 31 inches square. No windows, no light, no room to sit down, you’d have to crawl through a tiny door to even get in there. The floor would have been covered in human waste. People would be put in there overnight and sometimes longer. We were shown all the different parts of daily life. As we approached the gas chamber, dressing room and ovens, all you saw at first was a mound of grass. It was well hidden under this mound. Walking down the steps you entered the dressing room which lead to the concrete gas chamber which then lead to I believe 2 or 3 ovens.

We stepped into the gas chamber and sat down. The tour kept going but we stayed. Silently. There were scratch marks on the walls. The silence held an energy. I could feel the terror, hear it in my head. I remember apologizing over and over in my mind.. The ovens were surreal. To imagine their use was almost too much. By the time we left the grounds we were despondent. When we arrived back at the apartment we rented in Krakow the friendly landlady asked us how our day was. We told her that we started bickering the minute we got to Auschwitz. We don’t know why or what we were even bickering about. She shared that this is something that is reported to her by many tourists that visit. The energy is just too overwhelming.

I’ve read damn near every book written on the topic. Some of my adoptive family came from Europe and escaped the nightmare. I don’t know if that’s why I became immersed in this horror but the reality and human psychology of it interested me. That anyone could deny this reality is baffling and I wonder what combination of factors leads to this inability to empathize with other realities. Humans are a terribly destructive violent intolerant species which also includes some of the most peaceful, empathetic and loving humans. It feels odd to me that these two exist. What would a purely empathetic species be like? How can something so precious as life be treated so carelessly. How come we can’t figure this out.