Day #6: Auschwitz

I feel emotionally drained. The horror of the past just felt more real as we walk along the barracks locked in by barbed wires. It was terrifying. We witnessed the proofs of systematic de-humanizing of Holocaust victims and it was brutally painful. Every shoes, every lock of hair and every pair of glasses belonged to a human being who was punished for being who they were. 

I just want to thank Ms. Freeman for giving us the opportunity to sit together as a group to share how we were feeling after this experience. The amount of emotions that was present at that moment was really special. I loved how human I felt. And I don't know how to describe what walking through Auschwitz was like but one thing for sure, we cannot forget the fact that we cannot return to the states and live like how we normally once did. This history is now truly a part of our lives and we have to do whatever it takes to think of how our actions can affect others. (My-Ngan T)

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A Powerful Experience

I feel like people wouldn't understand when I say this, but Auschwitz was a beautiful experience. 

Going through the day, it was extremely emotional. The hair, the shoes, a room with the walls playing home videos of victims before the Holocaust, pictures by children from the Holocaust, really anything involving children,the beautiful prayer read by a girl on our trip at a grave in memorial of those who were murdered: at all these places I was close to crying. But I didn't, so I really thought I wasn't going to.

I'm sure others have mentioned the beautiful meadow where we had time to reflect. For me, sitting in the grass, for the first time in my whole life I was not bothered by the swarms of bugs around me. They were life in this place that had been so full of death and therefore they were beautiful. I accidentally squished two when I was going to stand up and it made me sad. 

After, as I'm sure people have mentioned as well, we sat in a circle to talk, since we hadn't had much time to reflect as a group on this trip. I started off by tearing up, but before I knew it I was choking back sobs as tears streamed down my face. Everyone was speaking so sincerely and genuinely, letting loose these feelings Auschwitz had pulled out of them, and everyone's sincerity was just so beautiful. Every thought and feeling shared was one I thought to felt also, and it was so wonderful to know we all thought and felt this way. Pretty much everyone ended up crying, and hugging and comforting and sharing tissues. The thing about my crying was it was built up sadness from Auschwitz and anger that this had happened, but also happiness. I was so happy to just be alive and my chance to go on this trip and my chance to do something to make the world a better place someday. I was so happy to be with this specific group of people and that people like this exist: people who can cry together at Auschwitz and comfort each other and vow together to make a difference in their lifetime.

Auschwitz had been the day I had been least looking forward to on the trip. I expected the sadness; what I did not expect was how life changing and powerful it was. I would suggest to everyone to visit Auschwitz once, but I wish I could guarantee everyone the experience I had. (Emily C)

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Reactions to Auschwitz

It's our second full day in Poland and we are beginning a "4 ++ " hour long ride to the Majdanek concentration/extermination camp. 

Yesterday we visited Auschwitz, a place about which I had no formed expectations or ideas; I didn't know what I would find. I didn't leave the camp with a complete understanding of what happened there--that is something that I doubt anyone but a survivor can truly attest to. However, I learned and realized a few things that will stay with me forever:

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At Auschwitz I, we visited a room filled with the biggest book I had ever seen, filled with the 4 million known names of the 6 million Jews killed during the Holocaust. The sheer size of the book was haunting and effective to see so many victims expressed in the medium of a book. What really struck me about the exhibit was the fact that only 4 million names could be identified. I read a sign saying that entire communities were murdered. To me this means that for a person to go unidentified everyone they knew and everyone that knew them was also killed. I can't even begin to imagine or fathom this idea in my own life.
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At Auschwitz 1 we also saw some haunting photos of newly arrived prisoners with both their date of arrival and date of death. These were people who had been deemed healthy enough to avoid initially being sent straight to the gas chambers, something I had always assumed was a lucky fate. However as I looked at the dates of heir deaths I realized that most only lasted a month and many a just a week or less. This was shocking for me to consider how these people suffered a long slow, death or starvation and overworking rather than 20-30 minutes in the gas chamber. Regardless, it was clear to me that the nazis meant for all of these people to die, whether it was right away, or after the last remaining energy could be extracted from them.
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The most emotional part of the trip occurred at Auschwitz II Birkenau, where we visited a field spanning over a mass grave of the ashes of those killed and burned at Auschwitz. As I first stepped into the field I wanted to convey a message to everyone whose final resting place lay where I was walking across. This proved impossible as I couldn't find any of the right words to say except for I am so sorry and I wish I could say nothing like this would ever happen again. I thought to myself that I wish I believed heaven existed so I knew everyone murdered during the Holocaust was truly in a better place. But I know they aren't. Their lives were stolen from them: from their country, from the workforce, from the society they should have grown up to impact. 

Later on in the field, as I lost track of all sense of time, I began to truly appreciate how lucky I am to be on this trip, to take Facing History, to even have a basic understanding of genocide and the dangers of racism and prejudice. I also thought of the sentiment, "never again", and how this kind of systematic murder of a race has happened again and again after the horrors of the Holocaust. I believe "never again" can become a reality once we truly make race and genocide education a priority in schools all across the world, not just Germany and other western countries with a history of racial oppression. All students around the world need to have the same access to education that we do. Then I believe we can truly say this will happen never again. 

As my time in the meadow came to a close all my thoughts and emotions were summed up when I had the overwhelming feeling that every flower, every bee, every butterfly, and every blade of grass, peacefully bringing life and beauty to this giant mass grave, was the rebirth of an innocent soul, lost but not forever. I am a completely non-religious, non spiritual person, so being in the field, getting in touch with this spiritual side of myself was completely unexpected but incredibly powerful.
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So I know that was all very cliche and overly emotional, but the whole experience of Auschwitz really only hit me while roaming the field and then later when we all sat in a giant circle sharing all of our own individual perceptions and feelings about the experience. It was beautiful to see how everyone cried openly and we all supported each other. I know we have shared a meaningful experience as a group and even if we forget some of the individual details about the day we will never forget the feeling of inclusivity and unity we felt while sharing our most personal feelings and emotions about the day. (Lucy S)

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You guys wouldn't believe the beauty of Europe!! 

On our last day in Berlin, we walked through a random alleyway ( the kind only Freems would know ) and ended up in the midst of the city's finest street art. Murals extended high above the cobblestone streets and colors erupted in a million different ways. At first I felt like an intruder, disturbing the general aura of European coolness, but commotion is greatly contagious.

On a side note, I've officially had 8 cappuccinos.

Yesterday, after a lunch of doners where the tables summoned the sun's rays to the pale Americans, we made our way to the Jewish museum, where an exhibit of steel faces cluttered an angled room. Screams were heard and remembered as we walked over the faces, piercing the serenity of the museum, piercing German identity. It was a wonderfully rewarding experience, sobering like none other.

A few fun facts about our trip:
Europeans are gorgeous.
Coffee here tastes like you've fallen onto a cloud of extravagance ( with satin sheets ).
We're all looking forward to Tuesday morning, when Ms Freeman  is going to let us sleep in, until 8AM!!!!!! 

We've all bonded because we all smell.
We laugh a lot.
We feel a lot.
We've talked about how much we love this trip at least twice a day.
We all miss our parents.
We ALL miss our dogs.

We hope you're reading this religiously. Currently on our way to Auschwitz, which should be a trying and memorable experience. Tata for now! (*)

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This is probably going to be the hardest post for me to write, just because Auschwitz evokes a kind of feeling that's really hard to put in words. I guess I'll start with my favorite part of the day: we spent about half an hour processing what we'd seen after touring Auschwitz I and Birkenau in this beautiful meadow where the Nazis had sprinkled most of the victims' ashes. After that we went inside a nearby building and sat in a circle to share our thoughts as a group. Naturally, there were a lot of tears, but I didn't expect this to be the place where I cried the most out of anywhere else we'd gone. It was, by far. Everyone was so emotional and so supportive and I'm really glad we got the chance to do this because it really helped us bond. I really liked how everyone felt personal and individual connections to everything, but when we came together to share them many of them ended up being similar. It always feels good to know someone else feels exactly how you do. 

Another reason I'm really glad we did this is because I think that it can be really hard sometimes (at least for me) to feel an emotional connection to the people who suffered In a certain place when only inanimate objects are there to help me. During the day, I mostly felt angry or scared when I looked at the camps, but I was slower to cry than most of the others. But coming together with everyone else really helped me feel an emotional connection simply by being around everyone else's emotions. I felt more sad than mad, I guess, and I was definitely able to cry then. It really helped me put things in perspective.

I guess a good way to express the feelings everyone had after Auschwitz is to try to recount some of the things people said during that talk. Hannah said something I really liked, that helped me come to terms with what I wrote about the last time I blogged, that I thought everything seemed too pretty to be home to a concentration camp. She said that after being at Birkenau in the gorgeous meadow, she realized it could be a good thing that such a terrible place can have such a beautiful rebirth. The camp is like a graveyard flowers growing by the headstones, something that makes a lot of sense to me and has really helped me reconcile some of my thoughts on this trip. It's like a whole new way of honoring the people who passed during the holocaust. 

Overall, today was unforgettable and haunting. I'm so glad I have the opportunity to be on this trip. (Sylvie S.)